But Can You Ride ON ICE?

Natural Selection, like any good purveyor of fine entropies, continues to find remarkably inventive ways to do its job in the modern world. We encase ourselves in cities, removing the threats of things like being eaten by wolves, and we develop medicines to remove the threat of death all but the most challenging of sicknesses. Still, Those of us with a propensity for self-destruction will find a way to get that rush of danger (and perhaps bravery in the face of it) in ever more complex ways.

Brought to you by the makers of "Sure, cars are fine, and way safer, but I bet if we strapped an engine to two wheels instead of four, it'd be way cooler." and "Okay, but now lets race them around turns so fast that our knees scrape the ground." comes this thing I witnessed last weekend: "Now, let's do it on ice, while sitting on liquid high explosive." It looks like this:

The event, held at the Family Arena in St Charles MO, boasts bikes with the equivalent of 1200cc 4-stroke, 4-valve engines, which run on nitromethane. The Arena web site explains that the race laps are so short because otherwise, "the engine would blow, and the rider would not have enough strength and endurance to control the bike" otherwise.

Like I said, natural selection is doing its best here, and I applaud it.

That's not to say I didn't have a good time. I'm a motorcycle guy myself, and I ride whenever I can. This was something new to me, and as I marveled at these daredevils literally tearing up the ice (no lie, the damage they did broke the Zamboni at one point), I was forced to consider what it took to learn the skills to do something like that.

There was a super cringe-worthy moment towards the middle, where the announcer called upon several specifically female volunteers to "race" around the track on tiny scooters, while making light of their struggle in a way that I honestly didn't expect to see in 2018. Yes, I got video of that, too.

In b4 lawsuit.

Although, if the Family Arena does get sued, it looks like they'll have plenty of money to pay for lawyers, judging simply from what they charge for parking at certain events. Check out the pretty glowing banner in this photo. No wonder there were so many empty seats.

I guess racing motorcycles on ice is the natural progression of making ourselves so damn safe most of the time. On the whole, most of human society and development has been about establishing ever more complex rings of protection around ourselves, leaving people with some kind of danger to rise above.

Some cultures walk on coals. Others hunt wild animals. We live in a country where it's possible to go through one's entire life without ever endangering it, and I have a feeling that this leads many to a place where they are forced to prove themselves somehow. 

Just...for the love of God, don't eat Tide Pods.

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TL;DR: Death will also find a way.