Motorcycle Racing Blog – Tony Gasper

Chilly | Aug 30, 2010 | Comments 0

Hey Chilly,

Thanks for letting me talk a little about my motorcycle enduro racing blog.

Tony Gaspar goes enduro racing

About Me: I am Tony Gasper and I have been trail riding since I was a kid here in CT. I’ve only been competing since 2002 when I started with hare scrambles. The competition was cool, but didn’t really suit my style of riding. Seemed like in the C-class you always spent the first lap in a parade of stoppers and coolant steam. I noticed that, in pretty much every race, I would make more passes on the last lap than at any other time. A buddy suggested that enduros might suit my style better and I was hooked from the first one….even though I DQed in my first enduro because I rode right through a gas-available reset and burned the next check by 8! I’m not a particularly gifted athlete, so making it to the B class was a pretty good accomplishment for me and that’s where I ride today: B-Vet (30+). My last year in the class. I’ll move to Senior next year. As far as results go, I like to say I’m exactly average: Not A, not C, but B. And usually somewhere around the middle of the B overall. Personally, I’m probably not what you’d call an average dirt rider (if there is such a thing). I hold a doctorate degree and I work as an Assistant Superintendent of Schools for a small urban public school district. Also, I’ve been volunteering for the RiderDown Foundation as an Injured Rider Advocate for about 5 years now.

The Blog: You can read about my enduro adventures at my blog at Enduros: A Year in the Life , here is an excerpt from it:

What Am I Doing Here?

What am I doing here? This is a good question about this blog. But it’s one that most enduro riders ask themselves at every event. The blog: thought it would be cool to track my preparation, disappointment, minor successes, setup and repairs over the course of a season. The enduros: at almost every enduro, I (and most other guys, I think) bonk and start asking “What the hell am I doing here?”, “This is fun?”, and “Why am I not sitting on my ass on my couch watching football on this rainy autumn Sunday?”. What is the sadistic pull that keeps us coming back to this sport that pounds rider, bike, and wallet into the ground a dozen times a year?
With all of the aspects of an enduro season, I thought it might make a cool blog to track my activity in the sport for a year. Success in enduros requires attention to detail and preparation in a variety of areas that one wouldn’t necessarily connect otherwise: mechanics, physical fitness, mental fitness, strategy, knowledge of the game, riding technique, navigation, time-keeping and math.

So that’s the plan, track my enduro activities at home, in the garage, and on the circuit for about a year or so.

Tony Gasper
RiderDown Foundation “Helping Riders Up”
www.riderdown.org