Knowing we could have our own class may get some of the riders I know out of a track day and into a WERA event. Even if it's only at select events would be enough for us. Thank you.
Rode with a guy at a nesba day at road A back in 2013 who had something similar on a zx10. He ran pretty fast too. Was a super cool outfit he had. I wonder what Wayne thought of the bikes available today. Would be interesting to hear being not many have skipped over 26 years of motorcycle development
I enjoyed the video, wife and I got a little choked up. I was like..."but Joe was first!" Did you guys ever get that landing gear to work? Would love to see some photos of that.
I definitely wasn't first. David Hunt lives not all that for from Atlanta and has been doing track days for years. He has a ZX10 and an Aprilia V4. I think I've convinced him to give WERA racing a try versus track days. Aaron Lanningham out in Utah has been riding for years too. He has adapted something like 10 bikes over the years. There is also a handful of others scattered around the country. For a special event like Indy I could probably gather up 5 to 10 paraplegics to ride. If it is just demo laps at an easy pace we could invite some street guys too. That would pad the numbers. Doug has made final adjustments on the landing gear and is supposed to deliver the bike back to me next weekend. I haven't seen it yet and the suspense is killin' me.
When I rode last May at Road Atlanta my experience was very similar to Wayne's. I can definitely say you need to relearn how to ride again because I used to use very little upper body to turn the bike and now it is all upper body. But I also learned I could use my chest against to gas tank to help lean the bike in some turns. Leading with your head helps too. All my handcycle riding has made my upper body very strong relative to my body size which definitely helped on the motorcycle. I wasn't fatigued at all at the end of the day and I've heard of other paras being exhausted after a few sessions.
King Kenny built his first for him. I think road racing world did an article on it if I remember right about 15 years ago.
I had to do some Google reminding, but I found it. This discussion puts me in mind of Stewart Goddard. He raced some Aprilia Cup races as a paraplegic around about 1999.
I've made direct contact within MotoAmerica and the idea of us doing demo laps at Indy was very well received. Next, idea needs to be proposed directly with Wayne and the rest of management. I'm also trying to get Wayne to lead the demo laps.