Faster than Death

Who am I? How did I get here? I didn't save a lot of photos from back in the day because I thought it was...not punk enough. As the Chrome lives on, I wanted to have some evidence of were I'd gone with my feed for speed.  























I knew I was a lot better on a motorcycle than a SK8-board and if I could make 
it on a team and travel around the country making meager money and all my
travel expenses paid for; when (vert) vertical---ramp, pools anything with a
transition to pump and generate momentum---I was there. Lots of time there
meant getting there really fast on a motorbike.
        

Then as vert became less and less popular---hence the cover you see here,
with the fearless foot-control-fanatics jumping down stairs or sliding handrails---
I was off to work for Penhall Demolition, breaking rocks in the hot sun. Soon
I could afford a fast motorbike. It was away to Willow Springs. I heard of a 
dirt oval fast guy's slid around. So, when work was slow I was there, doing 
choirs long enough for Ken Maely---inventor of the steel-shoe to make me a
shoe and let me slid on what ever piece he had laying around.

  
































Pretty soon I was pretty fast, and the way I rode on the street people told
me I should go to the Isle of Man TT, even gave me V-Four Victory, a video.
I watched it a million times and was racing Willow regularly when I met an
Englishman and a German older guy who said if you weren't riding such a 
piece of junk you would win. They bought me a bike if you can believe it.
Yes I won some and finished close to the front tuning the TZ 250 myself.


  Next thing you know I was in England doing a bit of riding, preparing
myself to race the IOM TT, after a competitor named Roland Sands---Ritchy
Rich torpedoed my US back bike ride out from underneath me. That was about $16,000
bucks in the bin.  http://bit.ly/1lYv2T0 you can find some more of the story at that
address.

I raced for years on peanut-butter and jelly and a dream that I was a MotoGP
racer just no one else knew it yet. I gave it my all---part of the reason the first 
wife left---soon after winning lots of local races from road to supermoto, vintage
endurance, anything anyone would let me. As if through divine inspiration. The 
year what's her name left, I won my first of nine Supermoto Championships, got 
hired full-time at Cycle World and Black Sabbath's drummer, Bill Ward bought
me an R1. I went on to win a lot of Supermoto Championships and races on that
Yosh built Formula Extreme bike. I tried to go back to the IOM but ended up
racing the Guidon de' Or; world championship of Supermoto in France were I beat 
Ruben Xuas, Carlos Checka, Regis Laconni, Randy DePuniet---MotoGP stars
and Chambone, famous Supermotard Champion of the world, he even won the World 600
Supersport Championship. Luck/life has many twists and turns. I broke both my ankles really bad and have been suffering for more then a year and a half, but I will go on.
Tommy Aquino, I didn't know you well but knew you had a well of talent, RIP
and may God comfort your soul. 

   

   

 
   With the most modern motorbikes at my fingertips I never got too fired up by some old leaky squeaky drum braked bike that made 100 mph seam like a ton. Then I happen to come across a bike built in 1928 with banked forward water-cooled porcelain cylinder-barrels, handmade honeycomb thermosiphon cooled two-stroke; the first to be kick-started to life in Yorkshire UK, that is very interesting.
          

 
     This Twin-cylinder 500cc two-stroke had a centrally fit flywheel weight, a three-speed transmission, oil-injection system, telescopic forks and was competitive in events from trials to the TT. If you’re interested, there is a lot more to find and read about a bike that started the mass centralization movement among many others. This is my favorite vintage bike, because it was so far ahead of its time.