Velocity Racing's 'Honey Badger' Blog

Going into this round, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew my leg was feeling better overall, but it was still weak and stiff, and I was also dealing with this PICC line and the antibiotics schedule that was throwing a major wrench into my day to day life. Despite all of that, I was looking forward to getting out to my favorite track and putting down some laps. I arrived Thursday evening to set up and claim some space, and prep for the trackday on Friday. I only had a few sessions on this bike on this track, so I knew I needed some serious seat time. Friday dawned cool and nice, and I headed out early on to utilize the time I had.  Throughout the day, things were going okay, but as I was riding it was becoming obvious some changes were needed. I kept thinking “this line worked great on the Daytona, but it does NOT work on this bike!” The biggest issue, however, is I wasn’t sure what I needed to change/fix….while I had previously been given some very general i...

Today marks a tragic day in the history of motorcycle racing, especially for those of us here in the US. Nicky Hayden, the most recent American to race in MotoGP and who was currently in the World Superbike series, has passed away due to injuries sustained in an accident while riding his bicycle in Italy.  While I never met Nicky in person, this is affecting me more than I would have thought. He was one of our own, one of only a handful of Americans competing at the international level. One of the "good old boys," he was never involved in drama, and was well liked by everyone who met him. A genuinely nice guy, who was also an amazing rider. Life is so short. We are never promised tomorrow, and this is one of those instances when it becomes so abundantly clear. Someone who has spent his life competing at the top levels of a sport that is known for it's dangers, and he's lost to us due to an everyday activity that almost no one would consider a "dangerous"...

As many know, my saga with this broken leg over the winter has been an ongoing thing. Recovery was longer than I had originally hoped (although still quick for what it was apparently), and things seemed to be going well until two weeks before I was scheduled to be at Sonoma Raceway. Some excess inflammation and pain over the tibia plate turned out to be an infection getting started, and surgery was scheduled for the next day once I managed to see my ortho. This was Thursday, a week and 2 days before I was supposed to be racing. Doc was able to leave the hardware in for the time being, however, so my plan was to keep moving forward toward showing up to the races – if nothing else, be there, turn some laps and get to know my bike in that kind of environment. I was on crutches and cane for the better part of a week post op, but was managing to get back on the street bike the last couple weekdays before the races, so figured I could muddle through racing, even if I was slow. ...

On March 15 th I was released for weight bearing by my doctor. Up until that point, I had been at zero weight bearing status, or “toe-touch” only. Needless to say, after nearly 4 months of being on crutches, I wasn’t exactly going to be dancing out of the office, no matter how much I wished I could. Along with weight bearing, however, he also released me to ride as long as I was comfortable holding the bike up, which was news that made me very happy. This meant I was likely going to be able to ride that brand new Roseville Kawasaki ZX10R I had been building all winter at the next scheduled track day on April 9 th and 10 th with Pacific Track Time. The day was rapidly approaching, and DareDevil Motorsports started to wrap up the bike, however, it had a leak in the water pump. They had double checked it, but it was going to need parts, so I decided to make use of that warranty at get it in to a dealer, however, this was the of the trackdays, and I was really nervous about getti...