Free Ride Like Hell and You'll Get There by Paul Carter Page B

laughed. ‘Shit, Pauli, you’re a dumb arse,’ said the man who was, to me, like a brother, mentor, friend and Yoda.
    ‘Well, fuck you, too, champ,’ I barked.
    He chuckled, which annoyed me even more. ‘What kind of bike is Diego riding?’
    ‘A new BMW 650 Tourer,’ I replied curtly.
    ‘Mate, call up the Harley and BMW dealers in Perth and ask for a shipping crate. I guarantee they’ll have crates out the back purpose-built for both your bikes.’ And this is why the man is a legend.
    The next morning Diego and I met at Pentagon Freight, put our bikes into the crates and booked our flights to Adelaide. He was arriving a few hours ahead of me, so he would go to the freight yard and run the bikes over to our motel. I would arrive and meet with the uni team to go over the plan for getting to Corowa. Everything was set.
    I drove home from Pentagon feeling like there was a good viable plan in place to counter the loss of everything so far—Speed Week 1, Jocko, my Ural, all of it. The plan covered a lot of distance and was on a ridiculous timeframe with no room for error. Our bikes would arrive in Adelaide the day before Diego and I, we’d get them fuelled up and ready to go, then get the salt-lake bike ready for an early departure from Ed’s workshop. It was a ten-hour ride to Corowa, then at 6 a.m. on Monday we’d set up the bike at the runway, break a world record between 8 and 9 a.m. and by lunchtime Diego and I would be on the freeway headed for Melbourne. We would have to skip getting drunk with Clayton to catch the 4 p.m. ferry to Tassie. Easy.
    Friday night my phone rang. It was Mick, one of the blokes from Pentagon Freight. ‘Hi Paul, I’ve got some bad news,’ he said.
    I was walking out of my local deli with a carton of milk and a bottle of tomato sauce. I froze mid-stride; I didn’t want to ask but I had to. ‘What sort of bad news?’
    ‘Yeah, well, you see, somehow your bikes were loaded onto the wrong truck and are on their way to Karratha.’
    ‘FUUUUUUCCCKKKK!’ I dropped the milk. ‘WHADYA FUCKIN’ MEAN KARRATHA?’
    There was a brief silence while Mick regained his hearing. ‘Don’t worry, we’re on top of it,’ he hurriedly explained. ‘We’ve got the Karratha truck pulled over and the Adelaide truck pulled over, we’re mobilising up a long tray ute with a pallet jack to pick up your bikes then we’ll hotshot them over to the Adelaide truck. They’ll get there, but about twelve hours late.’
    Which meant the bikes would arrive in Adelaide just a few hours before we did. That would still work. I thanked Mick, asked him to keep in touch, picked up my carton of milk, smiled sweetly at the other customers who avoided eye contact with me, and went home to spend time with my family.

KEYS
    THAT AFTERNOON I jumped on the flight to Adelaide. Start the clock.
    Diego had been on the phone as soon as he landed. The bikes had arrived at exactly the same time he did and he had already ridden his bike over to the motel and was heading back on mine, via Ed’s workshop to take a gander at the BDM-SLS. I told him to leave my bike there as we were all heading off from the workshop in the morning; he could double me on his bike from the hotel.
    Ed’s workshop is cool. He lives there with two of his mates, Simon and Tristan, all recently graduated from the University of Adelaide. Casual but not chaotic, in fact rather polished and well-engineered, it’s the ultimate man cave. All three of the guys had been involved with the BDM-SLS from its inception and in many ways their careers have evolved like the bike, now out in the world looking to make a mark.
    Diego and I finally met up outside the motel; I had just dumped my gear in my room and he was walking towards me, grinning the way only he can. ‘Heello, my friend,’ he said, beaming just like the cat from Shrek .
    ‘Good work, mate,’ I said, squeezing him in a blokey hug. Our motel was at the busy end of Hindley Street, Adelaide’s