The Fast Money

The Assassin. Why doubt?

"Got him in the last 100."

"Be damned."

"Richie, man."

Mark Taylor picks up a few bucks. He's 44, retired from the Marines a few years ago, now works as a foreman at the Blue Plains sewage plant. Loves this stuff.

"Never bet against Richie," he says.

Summer is cycle riding's nirvana, and professional drag races, the summit of speed, go on all summer long all over the country. So do their illegal street counterparts -- seen locally on Route 50, guys blowing by you at 140 mph.

Tonight's races are showdowns designed to get blasters to blow out their testosterone on a track instead. It works, to a point. At least 384 bikes from all over the East Coast are registered for the weekend of events, 75 or 80 more in the grudge matches only. You see bikes tooling up and down Route 5 all weekend, bikes lined up at little country motels.

Maybe one or two Harleys parked out at the track. No Buells, no Ducatis and, for heaven's sake, no BMWs. Everything out here is Japanese speed bikes, stock bikes that start out at maybe 130 horsepower, then are modified in search of ever more juice. The wheelbase can be lengthened, the engine reworked for greater torque, the wheels changed for traction. You use 98 octane racing fuel, it can add 2 or 3 mph on the top end.

All this to outrun some guy you meet in the parking lot, straddling his bike, running off at the mouth. Or maybe talking smack on one of the Web sites like Psychobike.com and you agree to meet out here.

It might go something like:

-- You putting that piece of [expletive] on the track?