"Flat Track Racing Is Like Manure. You'd Like To Have Somebody Else Put It 'round Your Flower Bed, Because You Know It'd Do Some Good. But You Really Wouldn't Want To Put Your Hands In It...”

"FLAT TRACK RACING IS LIKE MANURE. YOU'D LIKE TO HAVE SOMEBODY ELSE PUT IT 'ROUND YOUR FLOWER BED. BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT'D DO SOME GOOD. BUT YOU REALLY WOULDN’T WANT TO PUT YOUR HANDS IN IT..”

An Interview With Neil Keen.

DAN HUNT

NEIL KEEN: racer. Inveterate. Incorrigible. Irrepressible. But not just a racer. His mind ranges over a thousand subjects. We walk through a Pennsylvania meadow and his attention fixes on a cow, or a homely little flower too insignificant to be seen, almost with the same intensity of observation he brings to an analytic perusal of the suspension on Mert Lawwill's Harley tracker. We sprawl in the dirt of the pits of Nazareth and he discourses on the how and why of that suspension, facts which Mert would be reluctant to pass on to his competition. Mert might not even tell Neil about them, but Neil already knew, anyway. Simply by looking. Mert, amused, quips, “You’re a very observant fellow, Neil Keen.”

We walk by a brook. Neil, petite Texan wife Patricia, our hosts, Chip and Sharon Wight. Peaches is barefooted. He threads his way through the leaves and the overpowering silence of the countryside, pausing to look at a pool of water, poke it with a branch. He moves lithely. Compactly. Nature welcomes him, for he passes through it gracefully. His conversation is down-home, but flavored with almost literary—Southern writer—overtones. He quotes from Kipling, Khayam, John Kennedy, Jules Verne. “It is said in the book that Allah deducts from man’s time the time he spends fishing,” he says at a turn in the water path. Motorcycling seems so far away. Did I really come for an interview with a racer? Is this the man who was part of one of the great “wrecking crews” at Ascot? Is this National No. 10, the “Midwest Patrol” for BSA and Yamaha, the wit who keeps them in stitches at Lund’s in Decatur, the controversial former voice of the MRI, an irritating Jiminy Cricket style delegate to the AMA Competition Congress?

We thunder along in Neil’s big racing van. This is home for him and Patricia. Packed with motorcycles, parts, household goods, a guitar, stereo tapes, shortwave radio, and bags full of Juji fruits.

Neil shaves in the truck, brushes his teeth in the truck. Patty does her hair in the truck. She turns the rear-view mirror awry to check things out. They even throw parties in the truck.

“A birthday party, Neil?”

“Yes. A very intimate party—for two.”

The night rolls by. Neil finds constancy in change, the incessant miles of pavement bring him to many good people, all kinds of people, all of whom he finds have much in common. Patty finds constancy in Neil, and in driving from the perpetual summer of the West out to the East, to find that she gets to see Spring all over again. She raps on beautifully. Not philosophically like Neil. She raps azaleas and peonies. Neil loves it. And she loves Neil, the truck, her life—all better than a $50,000 Texas home, or 9 to 5 security.

At last we find a plastic restaurant on the turnpike. The conversation is uproarious, parabolic, silly, loving. The two night patrolmen next to us at the counter don’t know what to think. Neil and wife are reminiscing about the “Princess and the Pea.” It’s a gigantic bed. Their prize. The topic is the air space under the bed, a subject of serious consternation to Neil:

“Why should there be an air space under the bed? There’s no reason in the world for doing it.”

“Yeah, there is,” I say. Neil, sternly: “Why?”

“To keep air circulating under the bed.”

“What’s that for?”

“I don’t know, uh...I know there’s a reason.”

“It’s a bummer,” says Neil. “Why does Harley have sidevalves?”

Patricia: “To make the Princess and the Pea higher.”

And somewhere in the middle of all this madness, I managed to conduct an interview with Neil Keen, the racer:

Why did you start racing?

It seemed like a nice thing to do. Just for fun. I rode BSAs because that’s the kind of street machines I had. I started out on the flat tracks right off, although I did ride in some TTs and road races. Would you describe your entrance into the world of racing as pyrrhic?

No! (Laugh.) I bought a 1952 BSA Twin. The first time I rode it was at Willow Springs in the road races and I promptly fell off of it in practice. Then I rode it at Gardena on the quarter mile for one whole year. I almost always got into the feature race, but never did too well. In my Amateur year, I don’t think I won any races. In my Expert year, I moved to the half-mile at Ascot. It was called L.A. Speedway then. I could beat everybody in the heat, but was all through racing by the time I got to the main. I’d let everybody ahead of me at the start and finally after everyone quit wobbling, I’d pass a few guys and end up 5th or 6th.

Do you feel that racing comes naturally to you?

No, I wouldn’t say so. Bugsy Mann has more natural talent than I do.

But Bugsy has denied that he has natural talent.

When he says that, he is relating himself to a Breisford or Dorsteyn phenomenon. Bugs dives into turns real neat, graceful. He can ride on the back wheel like a unicycle, or ride a bike backwards and I can’t do any of that sort of stuff.

There have been a lot of racers who have been successful without being natural. Gary Nixon doesn’t have a natural talent. The reason that he’s been No. 1 two years in a row is that he works harder than anybody else.

It took me several years to get to-' where I could race in. the main. Why? I never did and still do not approve of people wobbling and flopping around. When you see an Expert who has to bobble or bank off of people, it’s my estimation that he does not have very good control of his machine and he is likely to hurt some of his constituents.

When I can win, it is usually because I can race faster, not because I am crazier or wilder. Of any of the good racers, you can say the same thing. Once in awhile you can see Bart Markel win on sheer courage. But mostly it’s because he’s really got the better setup, and he’s riding it a little bit better.

You would probably say, then, that mental attitude has much to do with winning races.

It’s all mental. Mind over matter. It’s what made Manolete what he was. It wasn’t because he was a great athlete that he became a great bullfighter. It was his superb mental control. The karate guys are the perfect example of this mind over matter. The man’s body becomes a machine. He puts the resources of his whole being into chopping a stack of terra cotta tiles. The mind must have absolute mastery of the body.

Naturally, you have to have the mechanical capabilities of winning races, and know how to put your foot down and gas it around the corners. But the proper mental attitude is most important. Unfortunately there are many athletes, or racers, who don’t know what it is all about. When they lose it they don’t understand what they’ve lost or why.

The racine life is nne long truck ride.

This may sound like a tired question, but do you walk a track before racing it? I’ve noticed that many flat track racers do not. Markel and Mann regularly do, but they seem to be the exception.

I rarely walk tracks. No, in some places I do. But a lot of tracks have an entirely different perspective when you’re at speed than when you’re walking around them. For that reason, I sometimes find it better to walk them backwards. When Markel walks a track, he is looking for more than its shape. Fie is looking over the condition of its surface. He wins under extreme conditions. Or on unusual surfaces. He figures a way around them. Of course, Markel’s an athlete, an excellent physical specimen. That has won him a few races. At Louisville or York, Pa., he’s almost unbeatable—and those are atrocious tracks.

Where do you make the most money?

Just in the midwest. I’ll ride 40 or 50 half miles and 40 or 50 short tracks. One reason I do a lot of short tracking is that Yamaha is very happy when I do well. I never rode short track until two years ago, but I became an instant short tracker as soon as I got on a good racer. What do you like about the racing life? Is it a pragmatic thing, like doing something you feel is useful?

I suppose there is some of that. But it’s difficult to say what my exact motivation is.

You aren’t going to get rich racing motorcycles.

There are a few of us who are idealistic enough about certain things that we can’t be financially intimidated. If I wanted to get rich, I would go to Florida and be a cattleman. My people have been for several generations.

But the things I’ve done and seen in this business have prepared me better for anything I might do than anything else. I don’t plan to quit racing until something else comes along that I might enjoy doing.

I enjoy racing, I get around the country, I see a lot of people. Absolutely wonderful people.

Everett Brashear told me one time that he could start out walking from California to anywhere in the United States and never go hungry or lack a place to stay. There are few people who can say that. You can’t do it with money.

Since the beginning of time, man has probably above all things been desirous of being able to be known by only one name. Like Caesar, or Liberace, or Napoleon. Recognized by a single name.

The other desire is to control his own destiny. Man works very hard. The only reason he works is so that he will have some leisure time. So that he can be his own man, only a few hours a day. Or just on Sunday. There are people who work 50 weeks of the year to get to take just two weeks off to do whatever they want to do. For just two weeks.

I’m able to do this—what I want to do—for 365 days of the year. Admittedly, you risk a lot of danger to do it.

John Kennedy once said he would much rather not have his life than to live in the constant fear of losing it. If I died tomorrow I could not feel cheated. The public view of racing is that it is all fun. But it seems rather obvious that there are hard aspects to it: traveling incessantly, machine preparation, hustling for parts and rides, etc.

Last year I rode in 88 meetings. This year probably 90. There’s a lot of hard work involved in it, of course, but it’s gay and romantic and I don’t suppose it’s harder work than most of the stuff that other people do. I enjoy racing because I have a feeling for it. The most dreary thing I can think of is working at a job you don’t enjoy. Most people do that. Mostly because they aren’t up to selecting something that they are compatible with or making themselves compatible with what they’ve selected.

What would you like to see happen to the status of motorcycle racing?

I’d like to see motorcycle racing more socially acceptable. It would do us a lot of good. I’d like to see it be on at least a par with tennis, which is probably one of the least accepted of the pro sports.

Flat track racing is the kind of stuff that most people would like to look at but they wouldn’t want to touch because they might get some on their hands. It’s like manure. You’d like to have somebody else put it around your flower bed, because you know it’d do some good, but you really wouldn’t want to put your hands in it.

Do you feel that racing is a useful adjunct to the motorcycle industry? Does it help to make better motorcycles?

Racing doesn’t improve the breed. We have engineers quite capable of making designs that we need, without any racing. Racing is basically an outlet for our customer. It’s a valuable tool to the overall motorcycling picture. Racing is like a golf course to a golfer; it gives him a place to go visit with people who have similar ideas; there are thousands of people who buy golf clubs because they get interested in professional golf. Racing is nothing more than some after-sales service we give our customer.

BSA in past years saw the thing in such a narrow pattern. They expected somebody to come to the races and say, “I saw AÍ Gunter win races with a BSA Single, a 1964 model, and I want one exactly like it.”

That’s not the way it works at all. The guy says, “Wow, I went to the races last night and we drank beer and ate hot dogs and had an absolutely wunnerful time and, boy, guys fell down and crashed and my buddy and I hustled two chicks and I’m gonna get me a little Hodaka.”

Then it’s the job of everyone concerned to work the customer around to riding their brand. A journey of a thousand miles starts with but a single step.

The manufacturers have got to realize that it’s important to promote every aspect of the sport. Not just racing. The motorcycle industry appears to be not nearly as well directed as the automotive industry in this respect.

What role can the American Motorcycle Association take in promoting motorcycling?

There are so many aspects of steering the direction of the whole motorcycling picture that it almost has to be done under several authorities. The AMA should confine itself to organized activity in the motorcycle field; they are not properly financed, or staffed to handle such things as legislation problems. But there’s so much more organization-wise that should be handled by the AMA: all kinds of organized sporting activity, not just racing. There are tens of thousands of people who couldn’t care less about participating in any races, who have bought very expensive motorcycles. We’re almost dutybound to organize some activities for these people. Rallies, picnics and so on. Another thing, there’s no reason why the AMA shouldn’t have the finest magazine, or at least a top notch one. They do not.

What role does racing have in promoting the industry?

Well, take golf. The golfing industry has literally made something out of nothing. Fifteen years ago, when you mentioned the word, golf, it suggested kindly, grey-haired—possibly with a silver moustache—businessmen who were fairly well off. This was the only sporting endeavor they could engage in. Now golf has an entirely different connotation. You mention golf to any kid in the neighborhood, and he knows about Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. These guys are supposedly professional athletes. Dickie Mann has more talent in his little finger than Arnold Palmer has in his whole body. If Arnold Palmer had to push a motorcycle with the motor not running a quarter of a mile, if his life depended upon it, he could not do it. Bugsy Mann could do it on a dead run and not even be breathing hard.

So how can motorcycle racing hit the big-time, I mean, real big-time, like golf and car racing?

If it was merchandised properly the racing thing would absolutely pay its own way. That’s if we first made the men, of course. The way the auto industry does it, A.J. Foyt makes $200,000 a year. It makes him very important. It makes him smart. He makes a lot of money racing cars, therefore he’s in the same calibre with the vice presidents at General Motors, or Ford. Therefore A.J. Foyt is very bright. He wins the races with a Ford automobile. That makes the Ford a tremendous automobile because a man as bright as A.J. Foyt who can make two or three hundred thousand dollars a year racing cars was smart enough that he selected Ford cars. Which makes both A.J. Foyt and the Ford very important simultaneously, because they are involved in this big money thing. Money is how we keep score on modern day America.

The golfers are the same way. And the baseball players. Baseball is one of the sorriest spectator sports in the world. But baseball players make $100,000 a year, so they are important and they are smart.

I can see where flat track is in a good position for big-time exploitation. Do you feel that motocross, which has grown greatly in popularity, has this same potential?

Motocross is not a spectator sport for the American, because the American doesn’t want to traipse around in the mud and watch it. He’ll do it once or twice a year, but he won’t do it every week.

Like he would for baseball or flat track?

Yes. He likes to sit in a stadium, preferably where it’s padded and cool, or warm, so he doesn’t have to do anything more than to move his eyes to watch the game.

So what can be done to help motorcycle racing grow? It isn’t a simple matter of raising purses.

Promotion. Public relations. Like we need better relations with the fair boards to sell motorcycle packages. We (the AMA) don’t have so much as a program to send every one of these fair boards a brochure telling them how much it costs to have a bike race. The boards are subsidized by tax money, which they are ready to spend for stadium shows.

The areas in which we have good programs are the result of some local man taking it on his own initiative. In Kansas, Dick Gardner takes off work, rents a room, buys them (the board representatives) drinks, so Kansas is good.

We have no races in Colorado. No one has ever gone there. Every place we race, we outdraw the cars. National for national, regional for regional. This means that we have a merchandisable commodity. At the Sacramento mile, Aggie (promoter J.C. Agajanian) draws a bigger crowd for the bikes than for the cars. At Springfield we did, too.

Do you feel that flat track racers are really close to their public. Like the rapid oval track car audiences in the Sou th ?

The South is very different from the rest of the country. The drivers from the South think differently. They are more genuine than the rest of the stock car racers. A guy who has never seen Junior Johnson can walk up to him and put his arm around him. He and Junior are kinsmen. Because they think alike. It’s a bond you can feel clear across the race track. Too bad we don’t have a little of this continuity in our business. Then who is identifying with the flat track racer?

I don’t really know. I would think that there is a sexual thing about it; the danger aspect is some sexual motivation. Women have a stronger feeling for it than men do, generally. There’s possibly some correlation with bull fighting. People don’t go to the bullfights to see the ballet-like movements that the matador makes, they go because of this impending death, the danger involved, the sheer terror. The majority of people who go to the bullfights are women—the bullfights in Tijuana. A carload of women get together and go to the bullfights in TJ. You never hear of five guys getting together and going to the bullfights, but the women do. There’s some sort of sexual stimulant.

If this is true, then it’s strange that we have a rather tribal AMA taboo about no women in the pits.

Kind of absurd, isn’t it? Having women around works good for everybody else. Particularly on the national circuit where the majority of competitors are away from home, it’s not really convenient to have the women hustled off to the grandstands. It’d be kind of nice to have somebody around to wipe your face off with a wet towel once in awhile or make a sandwich. It works out quite well for the sporty car people. There’s nothing that adds a little more spice to racing than a little cheesecake...and getting that wet towel.

I think we really need to reevaluate the thing. It’s convenient to be able to say “....” when you please without insulting somebody’s wife, or just take a leak right beside your truck. Of course, we’re going to do that anyhow, women or no women. But nowadays that’s considered relatively cricket in most places.

Having women adds a lot of glamor to racing, actually.

It’s rather the completion of the sexual circle, isn’t it?

Exactly. One of the things that makes movie stars important is this sexual cycle they go through. People can identify with that. I certainly think that it could be put to good use in our business. We don’t do much with it now. Getting back to the more technical aspects of racing, what is your opinion of “Class C” AMA racing, that is, the fact that it is based on homologated machinery in production, rather than one-off formula designs?

I think the Class C idea is much superior to any other kind in the world. It relates better to the production machine that the man on the street buys. I don’t think these special motorcycles contribute much to the motoring public, or to engineering advancement.

Unfortunately, the Class C racing program has not been as well thought out as it might be. Nor the rules that we run under.

Do you feel that the AMA is taking the right direction with the new Class C rule allowing trackers to run inch-for-inch up to a 750-cc maximum, rather than having a 500-cc maximum for ohv machines and a 750-cc maximum for flatheads?

This formula change we have just had is absolutely within the classic definition of what Formula C was intended for. For years we have been saying one thing and actually doing another. The idea is not to race any special stuff, and allow more machines to compete. But we’ve actually been making the racer run a very highly stressed machine for which he can’t get parts.

There’s not a more sophisticated thing, a more highly evolved machine in the world than this Harley-Davidson KR. It doesn’t have the exotic design of the Honda Six, but the KR is a design that has been honed to the Nth degree. Stan Getz could play his saxophone for a month and not touch on every end of his business like this KR has done. And unless you’re a member of a secret cult, you couldn’t really get the hot setup.

With this new rule, you can go down to anyone who sells horsepower and have them build you a machine that is fast enough to win nationals.

What was the motivation for this rule change? Surely not an overwhelming desire for fair play.

One of the reasons for the formula change was—I fought this thinking tooth and nail—the thinking, by the majority of the AMA Competition Congress last year was, “Boy, we’re going to get those bastards from H-D!”

They (the congress) weren’t interested in making what was better for them. What they were thinking in the back of their little skinny minds was, for years and years the Harley guys got to run 750s and we had to run those little 500s, and now by George we’re going to race ohv Triumph 750s and BSA Rockets and that those dumb clucks up in Milwaukee are still going to be racing their old flathead.

But it was a spur of the moment deal. They were saying they were going to race them inch for inch. The fact that we voted for the 750 ohv formula means that Harley-Davidson is also entitled to make a 750 ohv.

The reason Harley beat us with their 750 flathead is not because it was bigger but because they spent the money and they did the work and our fellas didn’t. If we’d have had a 750 flathead and they had a 750 flathead, we couldn’t have made it past time trials. So now we’re wanting to race them inch for inch and thinking we’re going to beat them!

So what’s your prediction for the coming racing seasons?

Next year when H-D has their 750 overhead, it’s going to be just as one-sided as last year. The three-cylinder Triumph and BSA, and the fourcylinder Honda, will be the possible exceptions.

For BSA and Triumph, if they don’t do some racing development on their Threes, all is lost. By next year H-D will be dug in like a fortress and the Honda Four will be here.

How about the Twins?

My BSA Twin has tremendous power potential. The only real change is to the inlet valves, which are about 0.030 in. larger than standard. It has stock pistons, cams, and pushrods. It puts out 55 bhp in perfect condition with all stock parts. It’d be nice to have some special pieces, though, mostly for reliability. Look at Bugsy’s Twin—it was one of the fastest machines at Nazareth, on a mile track.

Do you think that 750 is a good displacement limit, one that we should stick to for awhile?

We don’t need to be stuck with the 750 formula forever. We’ve had the 500/750 formula for many years, since the days of the 61s. Maybe in seven or eight years we should have another formula change. We tend to try to make a rule that fits and lasts forever. Like racing in the rain-are we or aren't we? You can't make one rule that fits every track. Daytona isn't designed to race in the rain. Laconia is-in the wet you slow down only a few seconds a lap.

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How do you feel about industry involve ment in racing-and the AMA? Industry involvement with the AMA is a necessary evil, and is a good thing in a way. If I have contact with BSA, and BSA has influence, I have some recourse as a rider. The FIM (Federation Inter nationale Motocycliste) is controlled by the promoters, and nobody has any influence with them. A rider can't do anything if he has a legitimate com plaint. I think the AMA could stand some reorganizing. The AMA is rotten to the core, but it's still better than second place. What would you like to see happen in the AMA, vis a vis rule improvements? We need to stop penalizing a pro moter when he pays extra prize money. If he wants to double the purse, the AMA requires him to kick in a bunch more of his promotional expense for which he gets nothing. This is an induce ment not to pay more. If he wants to add to the purse, he's required to add another 10 percent to the riders benevo lent fund. It's a silly rule, no reason for I'd like to see them pay referees more money. With the present rate, you can't expect any kind of executive perfor mance. It's done now, because the local referees feel obligated. The job is worth $75 to $100 a day. I don't believe a referee ought to have to sleep in his car to cut expenses to get to a race. I would like to see closer checks on AMA money. Maybe the increase on money for insurance is legitimate, but it would be cricket for me to know why and how it's spent. I would like a detailed list of what happens to all insurance and promotion money, so I can check on the people in my district. If everyone is honest, there is no reason why we cannot do this.

Is the new rule, allowing flattrack ma chines to use a rear brake, working out? Brakes are necessary on a groove track. If you get off 5th or 6th, you have to slow down going into the turn, but you're sucked along in the big draft. The brake also makes it safer around the pits. I've been campaigning for years for rules that rely on expert rider's judg ment. It's difficult to make a rule when you haven't raced for years. We've had people like Earl Flanders, who was a top notch racer years ago, come up and tell me what kind of tire is safe to use. Nobody can tell me better than me. What's good about the brake rule is that you can take it or leave it, you don’t have to use it, and you don’t have to be without it if you feel you need it.

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Has the new mechanic’s license made things any easier from an organizational point of view?

A mechanic who has his license still is treated like a fool when he arrives at the track. And they still have to have a bunch more trick credentials. The card thing hasn’t worked out well.

Does this sort of jerking around happen with riders, too?

Yes. I see no reason why Berry (Wm. Berry, AMA executive director) can’t direct the course of things, allowing people under him to direct their bailiwick. As it is, it seems like he’s running the whole thing single-handed. I don’t understand why he’s doing a lot of the nit-picking that he’s doing.

At one national, Bugsy Mann had to pay post-entry fees because they sent his entry blank back. This was because he didn’t sign it “Richard Scott Mann,” he signed it Dick Mann, as he always signs his name. That is absolutely ridiculous. A man’s customary signature is perfectly legal. Dick Mann is known as Dick Mann.

Weren’t you the object of an interesting bit of trivia recently?

Last year they issued Competition Bulletin No. 10. I thought at the time it was ironic. It was after I had won the time trials, heat, and semi at Santa Fe (short track), on a two-stroke. The bulletin, which followed shortly, said something like, “It has come to our attention that some riders have made field installations of various braking devices, compression releases and caliper brakes. These devices will not be permitted.”

I checked to see what was the number of the bulletin preceding No. 10. It happened to be No. 18 or 19. Then came No. 10 (which, coincidentally, is Neil Keen’s national number). It was a little inside joke. But Tommy (Clark, the rider’s rep) tried to pass it off that it was some dumb girl in the office who got the number wrong.

What could be done to make the paperwork part of racing easier for the rider?

Leaving out irrelevant things on entry blanks. Like the date of expiration of your AMA card. That’s silly. To have a professional license, you have to have a current AMA card, so the date of expiration is irrelevant. Yet they’ve sent back entry blanks because the date wasn’t filled in. If we’re really that interested in doing right, we have other things we should be paying attention to.

The racers’ and mechanics’ cards should have all the information on them, so nothing more is necessary than to sign your name.

You have some interesting ideas about the modern day motorcycle. What do you think the industry can do in coming years to better serve the consumer?

Serviceability. Accessibility to servicing. A Honda probably has more nuts and bolts than any other bike, but you can overhaul it faster, because you can get to all the bolts with an electric wrench. Second best is probably Suzuki.

We’ve got to reevaluate the whole system of electrical testing. We spend a disproportionate amount of time—like $20 labor—isolating a $2 part. You and I can take tubes out of a TV set, find the bad ones on a tester, and replace them quickly. If it’s a bike problem, it takes even a really good mechanic hours and hours. We need parts and assemblies that unplug and may be tested on a modular basis.

Like TV’s Quasar Service in a Drawer?

Right. And we also need a tester made on a modular system, so that when a new model comes out, you can plug in a new tester module. It would cost a lot but any dealer worth his name would buy one if he could check an electrical system in a few minutes. Dealers don’t realize that it costs them money the longer they have bikes and parts sitting around the shop.

Manufacturers are still thinking in terms of making a better whale-oil lamp; that’s not the way to do it. It’d be nice to have manufacturers approve a middle man to build modular sub-assemblies. We don’t have time for primitive systems.

Will you get more involved in these ideas when you give up racing?

I probably won’t continue to race forever. Ideally, I’d like to be a friend of the industry, selling unsolicited ideas. Unfortunately, nobody who works in business, government or corporate bodies has any time to improve on the systems involved. I’d rather merchandise some apparently self-evident things, rather than work for someone in particular.

...I don’t entertain any illusions of becoming this or that, or getting away from myself. If I ever decide to stop racing, I’ll stop like Demay did. Just one day, I won’t do it any more.