Adrenaline

        I have always been an adrenaline junky, even as a kid. Whether it was doing something dumb on our bicycles or doing stupid things on snow sleds in the winter or attempting to upstage your friends somehow was always in my blood. Racing has definitely been my biggest fuel for that particular fire. Having the ability to stab the throttle of a high horse-powered car and hit triple digit speeds from a stand still feels like being shot out from cannon at the mercy of your own foot, or racing an ATV on a motocross track; bumping and smashing like a demolition derby to be the one with the hole-shot. There are so many different senses struck in racing. The sights, the sounds, and the smells of being at a track, especially to someone like myself; is unforgettable. Growing up, my father raced ATV’s professionally which, later on my brother and myself raced for a couple years. We used to wake up early on race day, walk outside to the shed and pop the lock. Opening the shed doors was always like opening presents on Christmas morning. The smell of race fuel, hammered and battered dirt, the smell of tools and spent exhaust fumes was always a small treat.

        The smell that emits from the fumes of spent race fuel is a very sweet and unordinary smell. If you get the fuel on your hands, it’s as cold as sticking your hands in a cooler of ice on a hot summer day that almost burns because it’s so cold. My brother and I would pull the quad out of the shed to begin a thorough cleaning of the prior weekends’ bashing. Now the mud down south is referred to as “Georgia clay.” It is a hard packed, reddish colored, clay based mud that is relentless when it comes to cleaning it off of anything. The level of stubbornness with this mud is equivalent to cleaning up spilled fryer grease with a wet paper towel, but we knew that it has to be done. We would spend hours cleaning and prepping the quad for the upcoming race in a few hours. My brother and I would finally finish our tasks at hand, load the quad into the trailer along with all necessary accessories and pack it up like a u-haul on moving day. The drive to the track was always something that I personally looked forward to. Even today as a grown up and driving down south past the familiar route we used to take to the track, I still see things I used to see as a kid and get that sense of reminiscing like you would with a friend that you haven’t seen in a long period of time.

        There’s one particular site that I always think about and it’s a huge peach shaped water tower in Gastonia, South Carolina. That particular landmark was always a favorite and really for no particular reason. It was different, definitely uncommon and it makes me thing of James and the Giant Peach. Depending on which track we were headed to, the two or three hour drive was never usually too bad and always seemed to go pretty quick. We always knew we were close to the track because you could see a cloud of dust hovering over the track like a hovering helicopter over a construction site. My dad would drive up to the entrance gate, pay the normal weekly race fees and entrance fees for my brother and I and into the pits we went. Every week it was just then that you would feel a sense of excitement as if it were the first time ever experiencing something of this nature. Waving to the people we knew, my dad making random quick jokes to some of his friends as we passed by gave you a sense of humbleness like you would encounter walking into a family gathering.