When to stop racing?

Awesome. Bikes are great. Race bikes, street bikes, any kind of bikes. Good therapy for sure. Hope you get racing soon.

 

I'm fifty six years old. Rode motorcycles all my life. Moto X to begin with. A few fractures. Walked away but something kept calling me back. Six years ago on a beautiful summers day I took a ride on my harley and a guy in a pickup ran over me. Now I have titanium in my body. I came back to racing last year. There's something that burns inside each of us. It calls out. We keep coming back. I've known friends that have walked away. They usually return. I came back. I have a goal. When I reach it I will re evaluate my options and decide then. No one can make that choice for you. Give it time. God's speed on healing up. When you're ready, you will know

 

At the end of the day it sounds like you are a pretty fortunate guy. You more or less have walked away from what sounds like one of the worst crashes I've ever heard of at the track. At this point NOTHING else really matters right now. It wasn't your time and you were given a "do-over". You are alive, healthy enough already to go out for a short ride and typing more coherently that half the head cases on the BBS. Do whatever the F you feel like doing every day for the rest of your life and enjoy it more. Shit, play a game of tiddlywinks then look back and say wow, I was here to play tiddlywinks.

I can help you with your question if you answer me this question.

What is more upsetting to you?

A) Looking at the damage to your body

B) Looking at the damage to your bike

If you answered B you are a racer and you will race again

If you answered A, heal up a little more and ask yourself the question again.

If the answer stays A don't race. If it ever changes to B the I guess we'll see you on the track.

 

There is no set answer imo. We each have to tread our own paths. I quite 2 years ago this July. I won VMD with 2 #1 plates.......my racing was at its peak, but my family was going in a different direction with my wife and 2 girls. My wife NEVER once told me or urged me to quit. I stepped off the podium, got in the RV, and as I pulled out of Mid Ohio I called my wife and told her I was done. Do I miss it terribly? Yes I do. Do I regret my decision to step away? Not once!

 

solid

 

I will stop racing when the passion leaves. I can't do anything halfassed. I have never and will never be the guy who doesn't train, shows up at the track with no notes or video reviews or anything and just "does the best he can", and then drinks beer all night. I don't work like that.

When I don't have the drive and determination to train 2-3x a day everyday, when im not studying onboard footage and reviewing notes coming into a weekend and when I am perfectly OK with finishing outside the top 5 because "oh well, I tried my best"...I will sell everything and walk away.

 

That's awesome.

You'll know if/when you want to race again. :up:

 

My goal was to quit while still ahead. To me that meant without going broke for all new equipment or before "the big crash". I walked away happily after 2013 with my first kid on his way. Then, 4 months later, I tossed my trail bike during a casual ride and it cost me 5 surgeries. That's some irony.

I'm now healed for the most part and I'm writing this as I watch my 1 year old rip apart my living room. I miss it, but I don't miss the travel or the stress.

Racing will always be a favorite chapter, but not the best.

 

Money
Family support
Physical capability
Free time
Mental coherence
Talent
Passion

Here's a quick check list. They should all pretty much be there although there may be many other factors.

 

So you're selling the GROM

 

Never.

I will always ride on the street and Grim is my favorite street bike. Even when I have street bodywork on the R1 or RSV4, I will still take Grim.

 

You should get a second one and call them 'The Brothers Grim'.

 

My choice to walk away from motorcycles (while I still could without limping) was not a financial one as most assumed. I lost the passion and enthusiasm and couldn't get it back.

Passion ebbs and flows but the last time the tide just stayed out. This caused me to also evaluate that fact that at the age of 47 I had done a lot of crazy body punishing stuff (MX and desert racing 20 years, big wave surfing, body surfing at places like the wedge and track riding) and I never had a crash that I couldn't walk away from. Broken collarbone...but I could still walk I'll be honest, I decided that I had poked a stick in the face of fate long enough and the odds were not in my favor and the "risk - reward" factor just wasn't enough in my favor and damage is cumulative to the body.

I didn't get away totally clean...it hurts EVERY morning when I get out of bed, I cant sleep on either side for more than a couple of hours due to shoulders that have been injured/dislocated numerous times and I've broken or grossly dislocated 8 of 10 digits on my hands...arthritis here we come, BUT I have never had a concussion.

I don't think its wrong or unmanly to admit that I chickened out...for lack of a better term.

 

exactly the way i felt and what i did last summer. :up:

 

I have surgically corrected the limp, and am busy losing weight again. The foot is as strong as ever at this point and the pain under use is fading.

I predict I'll race again within two years. I'll need to buy a house first (renting while we were testing the waters here in the new city), and I have kids in college so it won't be a full-series commit.

Or, you know? Maybe I'll take up sailing.

 

I didn't read any replies (and other than a handful of weekends I don't really consider myself a racer) but I'd imagine the answer to be sometime after it stops being fun. Does racing still make you smile beneath that helmet?

 

Cool. Still not feeling it myself to ride the street anymore though.


Since you wont be racing, would you be interested corner working? Pretty sure they could use some help.

 

when it is not in your heart any longer! and only you will know the truth to this

 

Start racing mtbs. Cheaper. Still hard. Much better when crashing. Better for you physically. Still very satisfying. I'm 56 and still doing it. All the while still recovering from 2 life changing catastrophic moto crashes over the past 3 yrs.

 

One thing to consider, is that with Traumatic Brain Injuries, once you've had one, your chances of sustaining another increase pretty dramatically, and the second can be even worse.