Eleven seconds

Eleven, point one, Seconds

The light of race day found us heading into the sun, pulling a trailer of hope with our old pickup. The bike on the trailer was covered with an old canvas to protect our dream from the elements. The leathers were between us on the seat, and the toolbox sat under my partner’s feet. We didn’t speak. Just drank coffee and stared at the highway before us. An hours ride to the track, feeling for all the world like we were heading to battle. Very few words were spoken. The months of preparations to prove this machine would do what it said were all wrapped up in the moment. We were some of the first to pull onto the race grounds for the day. Our moment would come just after ten o’clock. We found our spot in the pit area, and began to unload the bike. We used the pickup like the funded racers used their trailers. Suit up, and over to the time trials. We had been here before, but had not done as well as we had hoped. A snapped chain tightener had ended that day badly with a locked back wheel, and a skid to a stop half way down the track. At the staging area behind the starting lights we burned off the back tire, poured bleach onto a spot on the ground, and did it again to liven up the rubber and make it sticky. As we came up, a “Snortin Norton” pulled into the lane across. This was suppose to be a time to qualify, but the true enemy sat there roaring next to us. This monster thirty feet away was supposed to rival our three cylinder, two stroke, as the world’s fastest production motorcycle. The rider nodded his helmet as we exchanged glances. I had only hoped to qualify, and here was the race that any street rider would have given everything to participate in. His bike weighed more, but he had more horsepower. The driver looked to be two hundred pounds, and I was a very trim 130. The two stroke I was riding had almost no torque at the lower rpm ranges, but at 6 to 11 hundred, outperformed any known machine. My bike weighed less. It really was up to the two of us to eliminate the other.
The starting lights from the “Christmas Tree” fell evenly. No advantage to either rider. I throttled up to sixty five hundred, and snapped the clutch a light from the bottom. I knew that I needed the rpm’s to get the torque, and that I would slip the tire badly at first with no forward momentum. Blue smoke rolled up around my feet as the back tire began to spin and scream. I began moving forward on the tank to keep the front tire on the ground. I knew from dynamometer testing that my highest torque curve was between 7 and 10 thousand. After 10.5 it dropped dramatically. I shifted at 9.5, and moved a little farther up on the seat. The back tire was still burning, and I began to move my body down closer to the handlebars to break any possible wind I could. The bike began to rise, as I shifted to third. By now I had my helmet forward of the gauges, and was no longer in the seat. Still spinning, with the throttle full open, the front tire came to the ground just as I shifted for fourth. It came up a little, but I was back in the saddle with my head behind the rpm indicator as I shifted to my last gear, the rpm guage bumped my helmet in a small raise. I put my feet back to the rear pegs to become as wind worthy as possible. We crossed the finish line at what looked to be dead even. We knew that only the camera would tell who was king as we coasted down to the turnaround. I had turned the illusive eleven-second race, and beaten the Norton by a hand breath. I didn’t care if I trophied that day or not. Qualification was a joke. We had run full out, nothing held back. I won by a hair, and possibly by my weight, but winning is winning. Only a few of us knew, and it really only mattered to us anyway. This day is like oxygen to me. It comes into my mind when I hear the scream of an engine at the upper end of it's torque range. The memory fills me up with new air in far less time than it took to experience.