The Colville National Forest 310 TT

JR: I did finish. I won my class and set an absolute record that was not broken in my class and I finished twenty-three seconds behind the factory Ducatis, coming in third. The name Doctor Curve stuck because, of course, they covered this in Cycle World and everything. Here was this guy and they wrote stories about him. He had come out of nowhere and had run this race. They later stopped La Carrera. There were people killed every time. Every time we lost someone and it was an extremely dangerous race. I mean, it is an extremely dangerous road. Later, I would go back, again, violating my own rules, I had run a section the day before and when I ran it the next day coming back, the federales had taken out a section in this one set of curves and replaced it with gravel. We never knew why. I hit that and it was a very, very serious accident. But, Dr. Curve stuck and I began to write for the magazine, which is international. A big magazine. I wrote fifteen articles for them under the name Doctor Curve. Our national motorcycle BMW club is the largest single Marquis club in the United States. It is bigger than the Harley Owner’s Group. We have over 120,000 members. In these maps, that persona comes through where I occasionally will sign it, Jim, “Dr. Curve” Roche.

Jim Roche, The Colville National Forest 310 TT, 2006, graphite and color pencil on paper, 30.75 x 44 inches.