The famous quote, by unknown, that flits through your head while flying through the air, " awww sh@t, this is gonna hurt". My teammate said to me, while sitting in the back of the flashy bus after highsiding trying to get back ontrack at the kink at nelson, "I always thought you were kidding about that thought flashing through your head, but it did"
"That first season, I rode ON the gp bike. It wasn't til the second season that I RODE the gp bike." - Scott Russell, commenting on his time with the Suzuki GP squad.
Paraphrasing Wayne Rainey (don't remember the exact quote) about braking into a turn. If you go slow you can make small bets with the brakes going in but then you are going slow. To be fast, you must be able to grab a handful and make one all-in bet entering every corner....sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
I don't know if the origin of this quote is motorcycle related, but it definitely applies. "Happiness isn't just around the corner. Happiness IS the corner." - ???
Jeff Karr article on his first ride aboard the then new 1985 V-max... 'I saw Jesus Christ so many times on the way home I started using him as a braking marker"
"They don't pay me enough to ride that thing" - KR on the TZ750 flat tracker. "Riding the Honda was like riding death" - Eddie Lawson on the NSR500 after leaving Yamaha.
I'd love to find that actual quote and the proper attribution for something I heard long ago... When asked to explain Kenny Roberts early success in Europe in his first season I think it may have been Marco Lucchineli who said something to the effect of, "His brakes no work." Somebody here has to know what was actually said and who said it...
"Why are you braking there anyway? Throw that bitch in there and let her eat" - Jensen "Screwdriver hands" - Aaron @ Cornerspeed
"Dickey! You know we PAID somebody to do this!" Mike Monroe as we drove home with our endurance bike in five or six big pieces and hundreds of small ones.
"Fix that thing! You didn't drive all the way from Asscrack, Maryland to watch a race!" Bert Morgan, WERA racer and force of nature to a despondent, recently highsided, and still slightly scrambled Chumbucket in the pits of Pocono gazing at a hole in an engine sidecover... I fixed that thing...
RollieManollie to the Red Bull girls at Beaverun... "If you think this is impressive you should see me play pinball!"
"Let the bastard burn" - Mick Grant to a marshall with an extinguisher after crashing the Honda NR500 at the first corner on it's debut at the British GP in 1979.
"If that's how you plan on riding you can go sit in the trailer and look at the photos of Joe Morris's junk and save me the costs of fuel and tires. f@ckhead." Unnamed but he'll know who he is if he reads this.
"The difference between racing and track days, is shooting bullets verses throwing them." Don't know who said it first but I heard it from Dave Rosno.