MY BAG IS PACKED...

HEADING OUT FOR A RIDE INTO NORTH CAROLINA VIA THE BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY!

GOING TO VISIT THE DRAGON, I PROMISE TO POST PICS!

I SEE MONSTERS

MAKING A VISIT TO NORTH KOREA...

SAY HELLO TO MY BUFF FRIEND!

LITTLE PENCIL PUSHING SICK FUCKER...

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DROP OFF A FEW GIFTS?

FUCK ME TO TEARS... WE HAVE BEEN RINO'D

FOLLOW OUR FEARLESS LEADER... LIBS NEED NOT APPLY!!

PREPPING FOR VACATION 2017

STAYING AT THE HISTORIC TAPOCO LODGE. SUPPOSED TO LODGE IN A GREAT CABIN, BUT WAS ADVISED THAT IT WAS CRUSHED BY A FALLING TREE, MUST HAVE BEEN A BIG TREE. THEY MOVED RESERVATION INTO THE LODGE... CLOSER TO THE BAR!

GOING TO RIDE THE FAMOUS "SNAKE" AT DEALS GAP.  LOTS OF CURVES!

THEN KICK BACK AND RELAX!

GOOD PARKING

VACATION LAST YEAR WAS SPENT WORKING AT EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE!

JUST NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHICH BIKE TO RIDE...

A COLOSSAL WASTE OF MONEY

Paul Allen’s 250-ton Stratolaunch airplane finally rolled out of its hangar Wednesday in Mojave, Calif. It won’t launch a rocket into space any sooner than 2019, and Stratolaunch faces skepticism about its business plan for delivering satellites to orbit.

Launch a rocket into space... give me a break. These idiots could have bought a dozen different proven aircraft which could launch a building into space!

Anyone up for a test flight?

DOG FRIEND AND HIS LITTLE BUDDY

BREAKING BAD... TRUMP BUSTS ON NATO EURO LEADERS

LIKE LITTLE KIDS, TRUMP PUTS THE THUMP ON "NATO CLUB FREELOADERS". THE LOOK ON HIS FACE SAID IT ALL; PAY UP, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AND HELP YOURSELVES.

AND FOR THAT WAKE-UP CALL, THEY ALL TRY TO BUST ON HIM. WHEN THE DAY COMES, WE AMERICANS WILL BE ON THEIR FRONTLINES.

THEY NEED TO START CLEANING UP THEIR SOCIAL DISORDER AND BUILD SOME WALLS WITH REVOLVING EXIT DOORS.

NICKY HAYDEN... FLATTRACKER

NICKY HAYDEN... RACING MOTORCYCLES... MOST LIKELY IN HEAVEN AS HERE ON EARTH

NICKY HAYDEN... RAZOR

WITH THE BOYZ AT ROSSI'S RANCH

I WAS GOING TO POST A WRAP-UP OF NICKY HAYDEN'S 2016 WSBK END OF SEASON REVIEW. PROBABLY LIKE MOST PEOPLE, I HAVE BEEN OFF THE BLOG BECAUSE OF A TON OF WORK AND FINDING LITTLE REST ON MY DAYS OFF. A FEW OF THESE PHOTOS HAVE BEEN SITTING ON MY DESKTOP SINCE THEN.

NICKY HELD MY LAST PERSONAL INTEREST IN MOTO GP AND IT WAS A BUMMER TO FINALLY SEE HIM MOVE ON TO WSBK. ROSSI AND LORENZO ARE ALWAYS GREAT TO WATCH, BUT NICKY WAS NICKY, ALWAYS POSITIVE, ALWAYS TO BE PROUD OF. SO HE PUT HIS EYE ON WINNING ANOTHER CHAMPIONSHIP.

JULIAN RYDER;  "RYDER NOTES"  SPEAKS...

Then there was the time I introduced him on stage for Day of Champions at Donington. He got a great reception but it was a strange high-pitched noise I took a long time to identify – hey, it’s been a while. It was teenage girls getting rather excited. Lots of them; very excited. My co-presenter Suzi Perry then whispered in my ear “Not just teenage girls.”
Nicky was unfailingly polite and professional no matter what, he was to us Europeans a fine example of what we took to be the best expression of true American values, and believe me we need reminding of them right now. I only saw him angry twice. One was obviously in the gravel trap at Estoril, the other was outside the press office at Assen. An over-officious security guard had tried to stop his mum going in to the press conference and had pushed her. I strolled up to find a red-faced Nicky wagging a finger in the face of a man about a foot taller and wider than him, yelling “Where I come from, you don’t put your hands on a woman.” Only the early and calming intervention of the circuit’s well-respected press officer stopped things escalating. As for Portugal, Nicky let it be known afterwards that Dani could make things right by helping him at Valencia. Dani did his duty, Nicky said “I am a man of my word” and to my knowledge let the whole thing go. That is a measure of the man, not just a great racer but the only universally respected, and loved, man to have lit up the Grand Prix paddock.

NICKY WAS A GREAT AMERICAN FLATTRACKER AND FLATTRACKERS ARE BADASS!

EARL HAYDEN TALKS ABOUT NICKY

Hayden is survived by his parents, Rose and Earl Hayden, two brothers, Tommy and Roger Lee and two sisters, Jenny and Kathleen. He and his fiancee, Jackie Marin were engaged just one year ago in Paris. He is also survived by a vast army of friends and fans.

THE HAYDEN FAMILY SHARED HIS SUCCESS. THAT BOND WAS STRONG AS STEEL.

HOW ABOUT THIS! PROPOSING TO JACKIE ON A GONDOLA!!

 NICKY HAYDEN... A GREAT PERSON, A GREAT AMERICAN.

Nicky Hayden: Live to Race

By Paolo Scalera

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

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Several years have passed now, but I will never forget something Nicky Hayden once did. I had returned to the Grand Prix races after a difficult moment in my personal life, carrying with me that fragile quality that follows a rough time. I was feeling a bit uneasy, so I went into the Ducati garage for a coffee, and he saw me before I saw him. I could tell from his movements that he was asking a girl on the team if he should come over and say hello to me. Then, on receiving a positive reply, there he was before me, hand outstretched and a big smile on that handsome, all-American face. His was a smile that came effortlessly, and it made the girls who met him swoon: that sparkle in his eyes never faded.

He held out his hand, shaking mine. “I just wanted to see how you were doing”, he said. There was nothing forced about his gesture and I recognized his expression. It was a sort of shy embarrassment combined with that look like he wanted to explain how the day had just gone that way – a little off – and that there was nothing he could do about it. That tomorrow he would go faster. That it was a rider’s destiny to go through good and not so good moments, but that he would keep going, believing in himself without ever making excuses. It was a philosophy tailor-made for racing, but it was also his philosophy of life and one with which I fully agreed. All together, each on his own trajectory, always toward the same goal.

We stayed like that, facing one another for a few moments, saying things that I don’t remember now, things that most likely were not of much importance. But that was not why he was there. He was there simply to make me feel like we were not rider and journalist on two different fronts, on opposite banks of the river, but together in the same boat, driven by the same current. In short, two human beings.

I met him for the first time in 2003 in the Honda garage, where they had chosen him as Valentino Rossi’s teammate. A 22 year-old who had made a name for himself by winning the American Superbike championship, who was then catapulted onto the European scene. “Why do I ride as number 69? Well, it’s a number that you can still read when the bike is upside down after a crash,” he joked with me. He made it easy to laugh with him.

His father, Earl was there too, the patriarch of a family fully dedicated to motorcycle racing: big brother Tommy, Nicky, the middle son, followed by Roger Lee, and then two sisters, Kathleen and Jenny. Earl spoke with an American accent that I found difficult to understand, but he told a story of the whole family touring the States in a camper-van crammed with bikes and spare parts, racing on a different flat track every Sunday. At the end of each season, Tommy would pass down bike and gear to his little brother, who in turn would pass it down to the next in line. That meant that sometimes Nicky found himself racing a junker and wearing patched leathers. In spite of it all, he had gone from win to win with his family around him until abandoning dirt for paved tracks and winning the AMA title (American Motorcycle Association). It was then that the call came from Honda. Destination: World Grand Prix Motorcycle Racing.

Years had passed since that first meeting – no less than six – and in the meantime, Nicky had achieved his dream of winning the MotoGP World Championship, beating out none other than Valentino, his ex-teammate. It had been a fiercely fought season, with several upsets and sensational strokes of hard luck for them both. So after Nicky had crossed the finish line, wrapped in the American flag, he wept. It was an uncontrollable, desperate weeping. “What would have happened if I hadn’t won that title? I would probably have turned into a bitter old man,” he admitted, without any effort to conceal that this title, which he then celebrated by racing with the number one on his top fairing the following year instead of his iconic 69, was somewhat the goal of his life.

A simple life, in his way of thinking. In his hometown of Owensboro, on a plot of land where some years ago the name of the road was change to carry his family name. I’ll admit it: I’ve always had a soft spot for American riders, from Kenny Roberts, the man who launched another dynasty as the first to win a 500 championship in 1978, to Eddie Lawson, all the way to Wayne Rainey, Kevin Schwantz, Freddie Spencer and Randy Mamola. The reason is that I have always seen true sportsmen in them. They’re trained to be athletes, of course, and I admire them for that; but in terms of sportsmanlike conduct, Nicky Hayden was the best of them all. Never a word spoken out of turn, never a rude gesture. We all remember him screaming in anger back in 2006, when he was dragged to the ground in the Portuguese Grand Prix by his then teammate Dani Pedrosa, who risked causing him to lose the title. It was part of that fiercely fought season I mentioned.

But ten minutes later, Nicky had already donned his classic smile, and neither he, nor his father Earl by his side, said another word about it. It wasn’t as if they were practicing self-restraint. They were both simply aware that sometimes life holds unpleasant surprises and we need to face them.

Naturally, there were many good times that Nicky also shared without trepidation. Like last winter, when he had his photograph taken in Venice aboard a gondola while asking Jacky – the petite, quiet Jacky, always respectful of a rider’s space – to marry him. A romantic gesture, most certainly spontaneous, since he apparently could find nothing better to wear for the proposal than a camouflage jacket! They probably would have been married over the summer, between one race and the next, Nicky and Jacky.

Hayden did not race to live, but he certainly lived to race. And no matter how his career might have unfolded, he would never have become a bitter old man.

STARTING 2017 WITH A SHOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD!

PRESIDENT TRUMP PRAISES SCPO RYAN OWENS, HIS BRAVERY, HIS SERVICE, HIS DEDICATION TO COUNTRY AND HIS LOVING FAMILY....

AT THE SAME TIME HE CRUSHES THE LIBTARDS!

FOR THE WORLD OF TERRORISTS AND GENERAL WANNA'BE ASSHOLES... BEWARE OF THE MEN WITH GREEN FACES.