Indy Adventure

I finally visited the Lone Star state. I recently traveled to Texas for the Tucker Rocky dealer show in Frisco, just north of Dallas. While there I got to mingle with manufacturers from the dealer distributor and see some new gear. I realized that, much to my chagrin, my Baltimore Orioles were in Arlington for a weekend stint with the Rangers, which we swept, and I met some very nice Rangers fans as a bonus that cooler-than-in-Baltimore Friday night. The next two days was all business, but I learned some things about running a Parts Department in a motorcycle dealership that I had never taken seriously or thought of before, so the trip paid for itself twice over.

My next adventure away from my own personal Charm City is westward to Indianapolis. The Circle City for flat track and MotoGP action. The duck and I are taking the ride alone (lone rangers?) and the trip materialized as a desperate last attempt to publish something with Bike magazine in the UK.

Bike magazine is straight and proper motorcycling adventure issue-in and issue-out. My recent rejuvenated lust for the magazine stems back to my early days yearning to own a Ducati. I would sit in Barnes and Noble staring at the incredible photography and read of editors taking mind-numbing trips to faraway fairy tale places like France and Germany, and all over lovely England herself, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and riding, yes--actually riding. 916s, R1s, GSs, whatever. Bike magazine is legitimately the only publication on god's green earth that instilled a magical desire in me to live the motorcycling life. And it was only when I was blessed with the opportunity to purchase a new Yamaha R6 that I was I able to live the life I had only read about in the perfect-bound motorcycle literature of Bike.

The motorcycling-traveling adventures I so dreamed of have evaded me since. The trips to faraway lands eluded me while owner of that gorgeous deep purplish blue metallic R6, and even still on my Honda CBR600RR. It was not for lack of wanderlust. Maybe it was cash. Or balls; not having guts to even lose my virginity until well into my twenties, you can imagine the lack of focus I had at living the adventure lifestyle...

That's all about to change, however.

Baltimore to Indianapolis is roughly 600 miles. I plan to leave at first light Friday morning so that I arrive at Ducati Indianapolis before they close shop for the day. Pick up a shirt and race ticket, sit on a Panigale, and head to the hotel for some R&R. I pray that my body can handle 10 hours on the 748's ergos. Perhaps I should've gotten in shape before this little trip?

Saturday will be a day in the dirt at the Indy Mile. And on Sunday I plan to return back to Indy Ducati for their ride to IMS.

Obviously I'll post again after race weekend. The lord willing and Daijiro Kato riding pillion (will he care that I have a monoposto??), I plan to have a safe adventure and return back to Bmore.