I love the taste of adrenaline in the morning. 5/19/2005
I rode the Silver Lady in to work this morning. I picked her up from the bike shop last night, with the intention of giving her some exercise. The shop had prepped her, and she was just fine. I came out bright and early this morning, hoping that the roads would be clear, since it was the school holidays, and all the idiots sending their kids to school would be otherwise occupied with either making more kids or off on holiday somewhere.
I headed down to the highway, and saw this silver BMW 3 series merging into the traffic from my left. I didn’t think any much more of it, and continued on, heading towards the slip road that leads towards the toll plaza and main highway that I usually take in to work. Coming off the first slip, there is a fairly sharp left hander, with armco on the right, that merges into the road leading to the toll plaza. I usually take this corner at about 90 km/h. A nice safe speed, nothing dangerous about it at all.
Until this morning, when I looked into my mirrors, as is my habit when setting up for a corner, and saw the xenon lights of the BMW filling them.
Picture courtesy AC Schnitzer.
I thought this cunt must be mad, because if I braked very suddenly, even BMW’s much lauded ABS wouldn’t save him. And then I realised he wanted a race. So I dropped a gear, and pushed the speed up to 130 km/h. I dropped into the corner with absolutely no problems, but I was very concious of the fact that I was in office clothes, with a riding jacket on top, and no real safety gear at all, aside from the pads in my jacket.
And this car was right up there with me. We then merged into the road coming to the toll plaza, which has a banked left hander dropping about 30 feet. A downhill left, almost like Karussel. The problem is the fact that this corner is very heavily used by heavy vehicles, and the road condition is very variable, usually with oil and diesel stains all over it. I took it anyway, at some insane speed. I didn’t have any time to look at the speedometer before shifting my left arse cheek off the seat and sticking my knee out into the breeze. I took the outermost lane, cutting back into the middle lane, with my knee, covered only by a thin layer of tropical wool, skimming centimeters off the tarmac.
I slowed up and we came to the plaza, to have a look at this car, and he went past me. We nodded at each other, as a sign of respect for each other’s skills, and as he went past, I saw the twin pipes and badge of an AC Schnitzer BMW 3. And this car was the real deal, not a wanna-be buying a badge and sticking it on. As the car went past, I could feel the rumble of the engine, and realised I might just have a fight on my hands, considering the skill this guy had shown taking the previous two corners.
I went past the plaza, and slowed up, waiting for him to get his toll ticket, so we could re-join the race. And we did. As you come out of the plaze, you come to a steep hill, leading to a cut. This hill is soo steep, that most road cars struggle to do 100 km/h, unless you rev the tits off your engine. We shot up this hill at 210 km/h, dodging between slower cars. The other traffic on the road must have thought we were mad, doing what we did. Well, we were. The red mist had taken us. I threw caution to the winds, not caring that I wasn’t wearing leather, and my laptop was weighing heavy in the backpack I was carrying. I almost considered dropping my backpack by the side of the road and coming back for it later, because it was cramping my movement on the Lady.
I refrained from using the natural advantage of the Lady, that of being slim, and able to shoot between gaps in traffic. I wanted this to be a race of man and machine, and wanted to see if this BMW driver had balls. Which he did. He kept right up with me, all the way to fork. I had to take the right fork, he was taking the left. I didn’t get a chance to thank him for the adrenaline rush.
To the guy driving the Schnitzer 3 series BMW, number plate WLP XXXX, well done. Rematch?