The Fast Money

In Bikers' Grudge Races, Eight Seconds Can Take a Guy a Very Long Way

Richard "Little Richie" Gadson revs up at Maryland International Raceway in Mechanicsville, where bikers stage showdowns on motorcycles modified for speed. (John McDonnell -- The Washington Post)

MECHANICSVILLE, Md.

Leave the Harley at home, Ed.

This is Saturday night motorcycle drag racing, where nothing matters but speed, sweet outrageous speed, G-forces that peel your eyelids back and push your retinas back against your skull, the smoke of burning rubber drifting over the empty grandstands at the Maryland International Raceway, bikes exploding from 0 to 190 mph in seven seconds, your feet four inches off the asphalt.

It's all about adrenaline, nature's narcotic. It's so thick down at the starting line, down there in the eardrum-scraping engine noise, you can inhale it right out of the smoke and feel it slide around the back of your brain.

But why stop there? Why, man? Why do one drug when you can mainline two? How about speed speed speed and cash cash cash?

Oh, yes, back there in the shadows of the trailers in the parking lot, where guys are working on their modified Suzuki Hayabusas, their Kawasaki Ninjas, hip-hop busting from a boom box, corn dogs with mustard and a cold can of Bud, bets are shaping up. The midnight races tonight are all "grudge matches," guys taking each other on for -- officially unknown to the track staff -- lots of scratch. Rumpled wads of $100 bills are pulled from front pockets of jeans, from jackets of racing leathers. The quarter-mile under nine seconds with six gear shifts, baby. It is to speed what pornography is to sex.

"The driver's cut is usually 10 to 20 percent of the bet," says Richard Gadson, his surname emblazoned across the back of his black riding leathers, standing beside a black Hayabusa with "Godzilla" stenciled on the side. "So if the bet is three grand, you get like $300, $600."

Let's see: $600 for eight seconds work. You think this isn't a skill? That works out to a billing rate of $270,000 per hour. Try that, Mr. K Street lawyer.

Gadson is from Philly. He's in the center of a knot of bikers, guys with arms folded across their chests, talking loud in the parking lot behind the race tower. It's 11:30 p.m. Gadson is 20 years old, maybe 5 feet 5, 135 pounds, a legend in the making. He's like a jockey -- he rides other people's bikes in one-on-one showdowns, one taking the inside lane, the other the outside. He's a hired gun, an "assassin," in the words of one bike owner, because "he takes everybody down." Most others call him Little Richie. The man reeks of star quality, the megawatt smile, the personality to burn. He's Richard Petty on two wheels.

He's down here tonight, way out in the country darkness, for the money. He'll take as many races as he can get, piling that cash up. His day job is working as a laborer at a landscape company. Left his girlfriend back home; got to have something to show for it come Monday.

Now here he goes, zipping up, strapping the helmet on, straddling the bike. It sounds like a jet engine. Takes his place in the line of guys waiting to go, side by side. Through the awning directly behind the strip, waved forward by the guy with the headphones covering his ears, beckoning the next two racers forward with arm motions like a guy directing airplanes on the tarmac.

Richie is running the outside lane.