Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

From an e-mail:

My 2 cents worth,

I’ve been a police officer for 9 years and have also handled my share of motorcycle accidents. I understand both sides of the coin because I have ridden streetbikes for many years and have been racing for a year and half.

I think a lot of the accidents come down to how fast we mature from our youth to adults. When I was in my early 20s, I, too, thought that I was immortal and nothing was going to happen to me. I ripped around on my sportbike in college wearing nothing but shorts and a T-shirt without ever wearing a helmet. When I lived in Chicago, I used to rail on daily basis through a 15 mph turn at over 50 mph telling myself how cool I was, thinking I was the next Chandler. It didn’t matter to me that there was gravel in the turn and a steel guardrail 2 feet off the road. If I had ever crashed from my boneheaded ways, I would have certainly died.

When I reached my upper 20s, I got smart and started spending my money wisely on riding schools such as Starmotorcycle and Visionsports. I became a much smarter/safer rider. I transitioned from driving 10 hours to ride in the mountains of NC to doing trackdays. I finally decided to pursue a dream of mine and jumped into racing and haven’t looked back since.

In my second year of racing, I have achieved goals beyond what I had imagined in large part because I didn’t try and go out and just twist the throttle and throw myself down the track. Taking a much more calculated and progressive approach to getting faster has helped immensely in my learning curve. I guess that’s one advantage of starting racing later in life–you think about your mortality and making it to work Monday morning.

I’ve tried to get younger guys to quit racing through the city limits and start doing trackdays and road racing. So far I’ve been able to help 2 guys get started racing and they now see how much safer it is than racing on the street.

Guys, when you crash on the street without wearing any protective gear there are such things as curbs, cars and trees that tend to do damage to your body. I’ve been to enough autopsies in my career that I don’t want to see anymore.

I’m 32 years old now and it’s funny how we start to sound like our parents. Hopefully wisdom comes with age and some of us learn sooner than others. Please ride safely out and there and try doing some trackdays.

Detective Kevin Hanson
Champaign Police Department
Champaign, IL
CCS #65