Part of the deal of buying my 2010 Ducati 848 was that I got a free track day at one of many sponsored tracks around the country with World Champion Doug Polen. One of these tracks was nearby in New Jersey, 1.5 to 2 hours. Now, logically speaking that would be the obvious choice to go to that track since its so close but of course you can’t always decide things on logic. Point being, I chose to go to the track in Loudon, Hew Hampshire which is about 550 miles or about 8.5 to 9 hours away. So, let’s go in depth as to why I would pick to go nine hours away instead or two.
Now, my dad and I we’re not just driving around 20 hours up and back with little detours hear and there to simply have one day at a track with my bike. First off, my Uncle lives in Providence, Rhode Island and is quite the motorcycle enthusiast. My dad and I met up with my Uncle at his house, took a two hour break, got some food and brought him with us up to Loudon to watch me track the bike and be a part of the whole experience. All of us spent the night at a Red Roof Hotel three miles from the track to rest up before the big day. Six am rolls around pretty fast and we’re all up getting ready to leave for the track. Once we got to the track there we’re Ducati’s everywhere, no longer did I stand out as the young man with the Ducati, I was just another guy with another Ducati. Now I could take some time to describe the experience of tracking my bike but I will save that for another post as to not take away from the subject of this post.
After the track day was all done, around five O’clock, all three of us packed up the bike got in the car and drove down to Boston to visit my cousin Pam to go out to eat. Driving through Boston we realized that there were not many restaurants with big enough parking lots to pull in the trailer that the bike was in. After searching for a nice parking lot we decided to go to the Marriot Hotel to eat because there was a plus size parking lot there. The restaurant there was very nice, however we may have been underdressed, and the food was on par for being in a hotel. The waiter, if I reall correctly is Carl, seemed to be quite the stern waiter but was pleasantly surprised to find that he was actually comical and caught the duck to order from the pond behind the hotel(inside joke). Dinner comes and goes and we drive Pam back to her apartment in Boston and we continue our drive back to Sharon, Massachusetts where my Uncle’s girlfriend lives to spend the night.
The road to her house in Sharon was not the easiest since we unknowingly took the back road to her house which goes through an unpaved dirt/gravel road that one would think Thor himself struck holes in the road with his mighty hammer because it was horrific. It took close to 30 min to travel six tenths of a mile to reach her house. We spent the night there and left around eleven am the next morning. After arriving back at my Uncle’s house around noon or so we left again to visit the college Johnson & Wales because I plan on attending this college in a year or two. During the tour of the campus that my Uncle’s friend gave us I learned that there is no real campus for the college because all the buildings are built to blend in to the city, but there is a big enough courtyard at the main office to play Frisbee. Later that night we went out to eat at a very nice restaurant where we all had a different cut of aged beef that was superb. After dinner we went to my Uncle’s house and slept. The next morning we woke up at seven am and were on the road home by eight am.
So you see, this was not just a trip to track my bike, it was an adventure that was packed of events. It would be impractical to describe everything that happened and most probably wouldn’t care to hear about it so this is my summary that gives just enough detail to explain why we chose to drive twenty hours all together to track my bike rather than four hours all together.
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