Eugene Survives New Jersey in a Leather Suit

Posted by Eugene Mirman at 4:48 PM, January 10, 2006

A little while ago I had the pleasure of taking a trip to an arena in New Jersey. Why? To go as a correspondent for ESPN Classics' show Cheap Seats and meet a new kind of sport—Motorcycle/ Fourwheeler Ice Racing. It turns out that for the past decade (probably) people have been putting spikes into the tires of vehicles and racing in circles on ice skating rinks. Who knew? New Jersey knew. That's who. (Feel free to turn those last few sentences into a pretty good song.) Who else? Probably many other people in many other states. (I bet the French have no idea, however, that we do this.)

It was pretty fun to go, and as a kid I never went to see stuff like monster trucks or wrestling (you may know it as "Fight Theater" because you went to a fancy up-north liberal arts college that gave you new words for already existing words—for instance—History becomes HERstory, Filmmaker becomes Broke-Face-Oops-Guy, and French Kissing becomes Freedom Kissing.) Still, I had a nice time at the race and learned about race bikes and American fun. And I got to meet some of the biggest names in Motorcycle Ice Racing—from the head of the organization to the man in the black leather suit, who is very good at it.

Because there was a camera crew with me, you can see how it went. Here is the video. It is sort of ridiculous. And my energy in it may at times feel false, but energetic.