One of the things I love most in the world is motorcycles and things that involve motorcycling. So when one of my racing pals asked me if I wanted to attend a motorcycle ice racing event I was more than onboard. At the appointed hour we were off to Everett, Seattle's working class sister to the North.
Somehow I had envisioned alcohol powered speedway bikes careening around the ice on studded tires. This is precisely what we got for about the one minute it took for a four lap heat. There were about eighteen heats and two mains, which were, hold you breath! six laps each. So there was a total of twenty odd minutes of racing. The rest of the three hours was comprised of introducing the racers, announcers falling flat on their backsides on the ice, cute six year olds spinning around in tiny circles on their tiny quads and other diversions.
Between "heats" the racers performed double duty as shills, throwing t-shirts to the crowd. Another of the give-away highlights were gift packs of BBQ pork products from one of the race sponsors. While I don't eat pork (ref. Sam Jackson as Jules, "Pulp Fiction", Diner Scene) I did enjoy it when "Wilbur" the BBQ Mascot did the half-splits and a butt plant on the ice, losing his pig head in the process which tumbled down the course revealing his all-too-sweaty human head. Very little is as amusing as a guy in a saggy pink pig costume with a dangling tail looking ever so much like a, well, plush turd, scrambling around on the ice trying to get his pig head back on.
Cute kids, pork products, free shirts, go-carts on ice, the last of the un-recalled three-wheeled ATVs on ice, quads on ice and once in awhile a speedway bike on ice. Three intermissions and, best of all, a zamboni!!
I don't wish or mean to sound, well, mean or snobby either. I love a good moto fest as much as the next gear head. While not a Nascar guy by a huge stretch, I did fly across the Atlantic Ocean just to see a MotoGP race in Portugal. But while I love the smell of race fuel, what I was most aware of as I watched the ice not being raced on was a big group of folks being kept out of trouble with spectacle. It was a cheap date. Adult admission was $11 including the stupid "convenience" fees. For that small price the folks attending were provided with hours of entertainment, silliness and diversion. I admit that no one in the arena was being beheaded or disemboweled of eaten, but I couldn't help being reminded of the ancient Roman Circus and of its purpose. A populace entertained and focused on spectacle is a populace much less likely to look for the man behind the curtain.
Nothing is sacred and that, I suppose, is as it should be. Reality Television, ice racing and the latest media spectacular hold the citizenry in their thrall. And lest I feel all smug in the pureness of my chosen diversion, the hallowed and manly field of motorcycle racing, Paris Hilton has sponsored a MotoGP 125 CC team. The bikes will be a nice pink colour. Is nothing sacred?
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