There are faces I won’t see in the pits anymore. Some are gone forever. I don’t think about the wreck that took them, but about the wreckage left behind. Would they want me to stop?Cory Texler, #65. [Jodi Johnson]Olive keeps hounding me. Daddy, you keep breaking bones. Why won’t you stop? My ex coyly asks if she’s still on my life insurance plan. I appreciate her humor. Death is easy, but being paralyzed or badly broken is not. All I know is, I walk taller after a race.Cali Kid, #49. [Jodi Johnson]Racing is always somewhere in my mind. It’s my feel-good time. The reward for getting my work done. When I’m racing, all I can focus on, is what’s going on, The pain of life is washed away with speed.Briar Bauman, #14. [Jodi Johnson]There’s no relief at the day job. Why you need Saturday off? We need you on the floor. If you get hurt don’t come back. They’re not smiling.Jake, #5. [Jodi Johnson]I try to find it on the track, but there’s too much rain in my head. They show me they mean business by being heavy and not showing. I don’t want them to see if it goes wrong anyway. I’m not blind, but it’s what I am. Sitting in the stands doesn’t work for me. I live for the green flag. Peace comes when I drop the clutch.Brandon Robinson, #44. [Jodi Johnson]I can’t get the ‘if you fall and get hurt’ vibe out of my head. It’s just a fast street ride now. It’s cold and lonely running second. No traffic to heat it up. Cold and uncompetitive is humbling.Shawn Baer, #2. [Jodi Johnson]I reflect in my black coffee. I talk to him but he doesn’t answer. The line between feels good and what’s right is blurred. Walking the line brings clarity. Those are the times I carry with me. The others were forgettable….Thank you to Jodi Johnson for the use of her amazing photography.Michael Lawless [@electric_horseman], our ‘Poet of Packed Earth’, is the Flat Track Editor for TheVintagent.com, and has his own blog: Electric Horseman