The million dollar question is this ? Does he feel that he is the same person as before and is it just circumstances that have changed ?
“ I don ’ t think I have changed ,” said Shakey . “ If you give me anything that means something to me , I will give you 120 % of me to make sure it stays a part of me . We all talk about looking after our families , etc , but if you give me something that I feel as much for as I did about motorbike racing , I will pretty much give my life for it . I haven ’ t changed in that respect , but at the moment I don ’ t know what that next thing is . I am finding that a bit difficult .”
This , if nothing else , demonstrates how much of a change bike racers have to deal with when the noise of the engines is taken away . Becoming a ‘ not racer ’ can take a lot of time for many .
A rider from a whole different era of racing to now is New Zealander Aaron Slight . Always one of the top candidates for the best WorldSBK regulars to not quite win the title , Slight was another who had to give up artificially early . He actually had brain bleeds that were undetected for a while . Does he think he went through any kind of personality change once he stopped racing ?
“ I think I probably struggled a bit because , after having a stroke , I did not know if it was just me or a brain injury ,” said Aaron . “ I struggled with that . Am I the same person as I was before the stroke ? Or is it something to do with the stroke ? On reflection , I just think it was because I retired , and I didn ’ t have that driving force to do anything .”
Slight said that he never watched bike racing for about ten years after he finished up . “ If I was watching a race I would be watching Colin Edwards and Troy Corser still at the font of the field and these were people I was beating . Asking ‘ why is this not me ?’ It was just too hard to watch other people having fun , so I just had to step right away from it . I didn ’ t buy even a dirt bike until about 2010 .” He had his last big race season in 2000 .
It sounds like Slight missed even the tougher bits of racing for a time . “ Not having the stress of racing was probably just as bad ,” he stated . “ The stress would build up and you could get it all out on the weekend , which was amazing . Suddenly there was no stress in retirement but you were looking out for an adrenaline rush .”
Slight raced cars for a while but they never gave him the kind of outlet that bikes did . In a way that only a real top line rider can describe , he said , “ I don ’ t want to over-dramatise it but maybe it is that life or death thing , where you are vulnerable on a motorbike ? In a car you are wrapped up in a big cage .”
Maybe Slight is another example of how you came to retire being responsible for how you looked at yourself and the new life you have after racing . Until you find the new ‘ you ’.
The most recent of our riders asked to examine how much his personality changed - or not - after racing is Eugene Laverty . “ I suppose I didn ’ t realise that on a race weekend , you are a different person , even though I was fairly easy-going ,” said Laverty , who is now part-owner of the Bonovo Action BMW WorldSBK squad , and thus still a paddock regular . “ The mechanics in our team , that had worked with me as their rider
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