Charlie Steinman's AHRMA Race Report - Barber Motorsports Park

AHRMA - American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association

Charlie Steinman's AHRMA Race Report - Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, Alabama

So there we were . . .

The bike and I racing along an inside line at Barber Motorsports Park, dropping fast through the steep downhill left-hand Turn One, flipping over into the uphill entry into the right-hand Turn Two, up and over the entry and then sweeping down, down, through and around and around and around the Turn Two and Three carousel . . .

. . . One year to the day since as a spectator seated on the lawn-grassy bowl overlooking these three beautiful combination curves in a series of sixteen masterfully-designed curves on this winding rising and falling asphalt track only the angels could have made . . . one year to the day since as a spectator under a deep blue sky just like today then with a very good friend I now missed deeply, that spectator of a year ago dreamed the dream of sports spectators everywhere . . . "I'm thinkin' . . . maybe I could do that" . . .

. . . and here I was on a Triumph race bike one year of hard work and learning later hanging off the bike to the right-hand inside, knee-down feeling the asphalt fly beneath, tire-edges struggling to hold a tighter line, more-throttling closer to the bike in front, just a bit more throttle into the tire edge . . .then out of the exit, up center on the tank chest-flat, head down, full throttle pull, shift once, pull, pull, pointing skyward upward into the blind right-hand Turn Four, nothing but a crisp line of pavement and sky and that inside bump of a curb at the apex, lean hard right shoot just to the left of that inside curb shift again leap into that blue void over the asphalt and into that sky . . .

. . . that deep blue Alabama sky arching over a beautiful manicured park in the rolling Alabama tree-covered hills hugging the Smithsonian of motorcycle museums and sinuously opened here and there by a world-class race track . . .

Who knew?

Such is the experience of racing at Barber. Curve after curve flowing into curve like a leaning twisting river speeds unimagined up and down on a wide asphalt ribbon as smooth as glass and as sticky as the sticky side of duct tape, sculpture and carved landscaping flying past all a green blur except for the white line at the inside and outside track edges and that guy ahead how to pull him in pull harder lean harder brake deeper `till it hurts in the hands not working dive later dive earlier pull earlier ahhh that's doing it closer bit closer too deep that one pull pull . . .

. . . all now haunted by the news now filtering into the amateur motorbike racing world of the death against a concrete wall while racing at Barber Sunday of a track fixture a man in his seventies a man who knew and raced British motorbikes before I was born fifty years ago a man better known in the racing world in these his grey days for his skill with a milling machine a man who accurately imagined fuel and air flow through intake ports before computers appeared on this earth to do the imagining for us a man who cared for an adult autistic daughter with no other caretaker an autistic daughter now set adrift in some State institutional system a man whom I saw in the paddock just minutes before his last race a man wearing his old weather-worn racing leathers looking frail but hardy a man open-chest-hair proudly Alive . . . a Man . . . a Man . . .who finally after so many years so many risks was finally caught by that fast and brutal Death that lurks so near to all racers so near only speed and reflexes and equipment and track design and loads of individual luck dumb luck keep just out of reach . . . Death . . . sudden and violent . . .

The deity of Speed giveth and the deity of Speed taketh away . . . ashes to ashes . . . but the racing goes on the deity lives hearts pound blood pumps tortured rubber is torn and engines scream their new-note ancient wolf-cry laughing scream into the heavens . . .

This feature originally appeared in October 2007 - Updated: 05/13/08