The Buckhead 300 Mile Time trial Loop for Open Road Motorcycles

Museum: A mysterious inscription on these maps that you need to explain: who is Dr. Curve?

JR: Dr. Curve was a name I did not invent. It came about when I left Tallahassee in 1987. I had been talking back and forth for years to the guys in California. I was building engines and the like. By that time quite frankly, everybody in California assumes they are the best riders in the world and when they hear a whiney Cracker accent like mine, they just think, oh my God, it’s another carhop down there in the South. A flatlander, they called us.

They started a race called “The La Carrera Mexican Road Race.” It has a wonderful history that goes back well into the fifties, where you are running cars on very, very difficult roads in Mexico. In approximately 1986 they reinstated it to run from Ensonata to San Filipe. So, you cross the Baja, three mountain ranges: the San Andreas Fault is right there. You go through three mountain ranges and you end up on the Sea of Cortez and then down to San Felipe. That road was built by the French and it is an extensive road, extremely dangerous. Our motto for the race was: “No guardrails, no hay bales, no snivelers allowed.”

Jim Roche, The Buckhead 300 Mile Time trial Loop for Open Road Motorcycles, 2009, graphite and color pencil on paper, 36.25 x 50.25 inches.