We began our descent. “Let’s take it easy going
downhill,” the famous Funny Car racer said and I nodded
in agreement. He had assets and an investment to protect,
which were, in fact, his body and well-being. If, in the
pursuit of maximum velocity on a bicycle of all things,
he got pitched over his handlebars and showed up at Don
Schumacher Racing’s HQ with his arm in a sling...
well, let’s just say he would have some explaining
to do to the bossman.
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So we agreed to relax, not stand on it and just enjoy the
scenery. The hills above Pomona sing with a series of topographical
delights, best enjoyed from the rolling vista of a bicycle.
That lasted for about a quarter of a mile. Suddenly, gravity’s
free horsepower began doing its thing and I embraced it.
I made myself as small as possible –lowering the proverbial
co-efficient of drag – and passed Bazemore like he
had a career to protect and I didn’t.
The downhill speed got good to me, lickety-split like.
I was setting up corners like Eddie Cheever used to do
at the Indy 500, going so deep into turn 4 that his left
rear slick would whisper to the concrete wall and barely
air-kiss it, like a Hollywood mover and shaker. I was Juan
Manuel Fangio at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Or maybe I was just country singer and back-marker stock
car racer Marty Robbins, who once ran at Daytona without
a restrictor plate – in blatant violation of the rules,
just so he could see what it felt like to pass Richard Petty.
I
had a couple of football fields on Baze when it got ugly.
I got into the marbles, in the form of gravel and grit and
mud. Centrifugal force had me under its thumb and I was
road-kill. I knew I needed both brakes to stop and if I
hit the rear brake the ass end of the bicycle was going
to swing out from under me like Roseanne Barr’s refrigerator
door.
I chose to stick it the mud and take my licks. Thus, in
plain view of a famous Funny Car racer and God and everybody,
I flew over the handlebars.
Bazemore caught up with me as I was picking up my pride
and wiping the mud and oak leaves off of my shirts, shorts
and socks.
“I’m a Funny Car driver,” he chuckled.
“What’s your excuse?”
“I was trying to outrun the ghost of Marty Robbins.”
He looked puzzled, but smiled anyway. I told him I’d
explain back at the drag strip. 
