THROTTLE MANAGEMENT - Whitehorse Gear

Coming up through theranks in the ‘60s I used tocompete on 125s and 250s.I won a lot of races on thisBultaco 125, but it cost mea lot of skin. It revved to12,000 rpm, but would alsoseize in a heartbeat, sendingme head over heels fora hard landing! But racingit was great fun. (Photo courtesyReg Pridmore)causes me to bleed from the ear. Myfoot angles down off the table at anunnatural angle. My face is scrapedand angry looking, thanks to theminimalist, open-face helmet I usedback then. In short, I am a mess.I stay in the hospital seven days.When I am released, I have a castup to my crotch. Stainless steelstitches and Threadall (large piecesof steel threaded rod) have beenused to knit my bones together. (Ayear and a half later, as a fitting mementoto my crash, I use theThreadall as an oil tank mountingbolt for my kneeler sidecar!)My wife, who is in England on vacation,knows nothing of my accident.Friends take me to the Los Angeles airportto meet her. “Don’t be shocked,”they tell her as I am wheeled out frombehind a barrier at the airport. “Reghas had a little mishap.” Little, indeed.It is a year before I am riding again.Ironically, on my first solo ride, at thesametrack,Islideoffinthesamecorner.All I can think is, “Please don’t letmy leg be broken again!” Fortunatelyit is a lowside this time, and I am fine.Damn that corner!But something changed that day in1965, and remains changed to thisday. My recuperation provided plentyof time to think. Through it all, I becamedetermined to have a betterplan. I knew I could ride, and had theresults to prove it. But I needed abetter way of doing business. Thatbetter way involved lots of planning,control, and smoothness.As I replayed the crash in my mind,all I could think of was that I had beendelivering a bad message to the bike.My inputs were abrupt. After that, Istarted exerting better control overmy bike, my mechanical preparation,and everything about my racing andriding. Even more important, I developedan attitude of lifelong learningand improvement. Motorcycling, Irealized, was something I could bebetter at but never completelymaster. No one ever can.People sometimes ask mewhether I thought of quitting afterthat horrific crash. The truth is, Inever considered it. Racing meanttoo much to me then, as riding stilldoes now. But after that day in1965, something did change, andremains changed.Believe me, you don’t need to havethe same experience to undergo atransformation in your attitude andyour riding. Use mine instead. I giveit to you freely, without the steelwire, the Threadall, or the body cast.61