In 2015 my bad throttle control while chasing an instructor lead to my life altering crash there. I broke the hell out of my collarbone and everything else in my body just never moved right afterwards. My hips, back, neck, and shoulders just don't move like they did before the wreck. Worse yet I just never have gotten back my youthful ability to push and chase. Call it PTSD or call it just bad anxiety from the crash, makes no difference.
After the crash in '15 it took me until 2017 to return to the track. 2017 at the track for me was full of anxiety, every corner and every time someone did a close pass my I lost focus and fear took over. Even though I returned to the track in '17 and '18, I still hadn't returned to where it happened, Oregon Raceway Park.
Earlier this year one of my riding buddies had a pretty bad off and broke the hell out of his leg. Afterwards he started selling off the trackdays for the year he'd purchased. Nobody in the group was biting on the June 15-16 ORP days, and it seemed like a sign that I needed to go face my demons. The difficulty of course was that it was the weekend immediately following my return from Alaska and immediately preceding my June 22 at the Ridge. No rest for the wicked.
One inconvenient aspect of ORP is really just how much in the middle of nowhere it is. Its four hours from my house, either over the mountain or through Portland traffic, there's no practical lodging near it, there's no restaurants near it, and there's no gas. You need to bring everything with you. As it turns out I'm not half bad with logistics and Friday night I arrived late, but I arrived, and set up my tent. RV people love to run their damned generators and lights all night, so I didn't get a lot of sleep in my not noise or light proof tent.
The next day The Dalles crew and two from my neck of the woods showed up, we set up pits, teched, and waited for the track to go live.
Fortunately for my demons MotoFit Group allows everyone to take a sighting lap during Green (the slowest run group) group's first session. As it turns out, everything I remember about ORP is still true.
Throughout the day I put down the slowest lap times of Blue group (intermediate) and occasioanlly worked with a coach. My gripe about control riders is when they pass you and tap their tail, or look at you, and then take off at a million times faster a pace than you can possibly follow. Like seriously dude, if you want me to follow you and get better, go my pace plus a tiny bit and ease it up slowly. By the end of the day I wasn't the slowest anymore, just the send or third slowest.
The day finished with the traditional MotoFit Group pot luck dinner. MFG puts a lot of work into the little things, like adjust the groups by skill level and putting on a pot luck BBQ. Their regulars really treat each other like family. After dinner I walked around and enjoyed a Central Oregon Sunset.
Sunday I was pretty wore out (ORP is a tiring track to ride) and ended up leaving early so I could get home at a reasonable time. I haven't conquered my demons, but at least they know I'm not going to sit around any longer. As it turns out, fear aside, I don't particularly care for ORP. Its too blind and off camber to be really fun, its too far away, and the local amenities are sparse (I'm spoiled). One thing I must point out is that the new bathrooms and showers at ORP are really great, so it has that going for it.
On the bright side my bike came home in the condition it left in, the only casualty of the weekend was my shade tent that was destroyed by a high speed wind gust Sunday afternoon.
"You're just going to keep tearing away at yourself until you realize what you are, until you come full circle." - Col. Samuel Trautman US Army
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