You can always know a motorcycle racer by the way he drives: quickly and with immaculate precision. Like a skateboarder weaving through a sidewalk full of pedestrians, Tsutsui maneuvers his van through traffic with rashness that leaves me cringing in anticipation of imminent catastrophe. And where a skilled American driver would miss other cars by feet, on Tokyo's crowded streets those feet are reduced to centimeters. We are heading to the outskirts of Tokyo, Tsutsui and I, to get measured up for new leathers for an upcoming photo shoot at Fuji Speedway. "I drive a delivery truck for living," he says, inadvertently putting me at ease. "It's a crap job but they let me off to go racing."

We met for the first time a few hours ago at Kawasaki's ad agency. Although I am at least fifteen years older, we are both racers at heart and are soon bench racing like old friends. Tsutsui is of average height and slim build, his long hair dyed a fashionable shade of brown. Yet his most attractive quality is his smile, a warm and unaffected smile the like of which one seldom sees in modern Japanese men. And he likes to laugh, another rare quality in Japanese men.

Unlike the Japanese women, whose warm smiles and bright laughter are like sunlight on a cold morning, the men of Japan generally frown on such public displays of emotion. The most you will ever see is the smile ironic, the smile forced. Tsutsui is a refreshing exception. His is the heartfelt smile of a man truly happy. And why not? With a red-hot ZX-9R in the back of the van, a cute wife waiting at home and the promise from his old friend Hirai of a job at Kawasaki's ad agency whenever he stops racing, who wouldn't be?

A new class for lightly modified 1,000cc street bikes is being introduced at the upcoming Suzuka 8-Hour, and Tsutsui and his partner have an entry. "Mag wheels, an Akropovic pipe and a few engine tweaks are all we can afford, but if we can hang in there for eight hours, who knows? If we finish well maybe we can find a sponsor for next year."

I ask him about pushing the front wheel on the pavement, a skill I had mastered on dirt tracks but one I can't even imagine performing on pavement. "I try to keep the front wheel planted at all times." Sounds sensible to me. When I ask about training, he says he has a Supermotard bike that he rides on the undulating roads of the Izu Peninsula on his days off.

The leathers place turns out to be a small outlet for Kushitani, where they offer us cups of hot green tea and sweet bean cakes, take our measurements and wish Tsutsui luck at Suzuka. Two weeks later we meet again at a business hotel in the town of Gotemba, not far from Fuji Speedway. The business hotel is a particularly Japanese institution: small rooms, Spartan furnishings, toothbrush and razor, and a TV offering pay-per-view soft-core porn. If you're lucky, the window opens enough so you can get a breath of fresh air, but never far enough for you to jump out and commit suicide (or climb out to avoid paying your bill). Like a fast-food meal, the business hotel offers the same bland experience wherever you find it.

At dinner that evening, in a cozy Korean Barbecue where we roast paper-thin slices of beef on grills set into the tables, Tsutsui is the life of the party. He relates a recent incident where he delivered a package to a lonely woman living with a house full of cats. The woman takes a fancy to him. Asks him in for tea, then for something more. He declines, the lady, now indignant, berates him. The cats start yowling. Dishes of cat food are upset as he beats a hasty retreat. Tsutsui has a comedian's innate sense of timing. He soon has everyone in an uproar.

No one is laughing the next morning when we drag ourselves out of bed in the pre-dawn darkness and drive off to the track without breakfast. However, there are other compensations.

Fuji Speedway is a rider's dream. Surrounded by dense forest, with a brooding Mt. Fuji nearby, it offers elevation changes, a long grandstand straightaway and a swooping infield section with plenty of grassy run-off in the turns. Our Ninjas, a pre-production12R and last year's 9R with new C&G, sit on race stands in the garage, a mechanic checking their fluids. Tsutsui, joking around as usual, clambers into his new leathers. I do the same, trying to hide my nervousness. For the past year I've ridden nothing but my `67 BSA650 and `66 Ducati 350 Sebring, the combined power of both equaling less than the output of two of the 12R's cylinders. Thrown from an airplane, the BSA might be able to equal the 12R's top speed.

The shot list calls for me to ride the 12R, Tsutsui the 9R, with me on the 9R for the frontal shot where the rider's face is visible. Fortunately, the first shot is on the straightaway, with the two of us tucked in and looking racy, while a car follows us with the cameraman sitting in the trunk. Once on the bike, my trepidation vanishes and it all becomes fun.

For the next shot, I jump into Tsutsui's leathers and hop onto the 9R. The last turn is an uphill spoon curve leading onto the front straight. The trees and distant landscape in the background make a perfect backdrop for showing off the 9R's cornering performance. I start making passes for the photographer, picking up the pace with each pass. But no matter how fast I go I cannot out run my feelings of inadequacy. Far from making me feel like a good rider, these modern high-performance bikes only make me feel slow. "Is that it?!" The 9R seems to chide anthropomorphically, "I can go through that corner at least 15 mph faster. On the brakes already!? What sort of a wanker are you?"

Fortunately, I have only to look fast--my specialty. So, pasting myself to the 9R's tank, I'm soon into a rhythm. Three upshifts, tuck in, slight hang off, left knee out, become one with the bike, then hard on the brakes--over and over again, and always very careful. The automaticity of it all leaves room to ponder. Why does age bring such caution? With less life ahead of us than behind us, one would think we would be more carefree with what remains. But, no, it is the young, with their whole lives before them who treat life with such casual abandon and ride as if there were no tomorrow.

I take a pass on Suzuka. Eight hours of crowds, heat and noise, with a three-hour commute tacked on to each end, are a bit too much for me. However, I never miss the live broadcast on the giant-screen TV at Honda headquarters in Aoyama. As usual, the place is packed. But there's plenty of room on the large patio outside where one can sip on a beer and watch the action through the large showroom windows. Hundreds of bikes turn up from all corners of Tokyo. Highly modified Buells, tricked out TW200s, heaps of SR500s, sportbikes, flathead Harley rat-bikes--if it's got two wheels, it'll turn up at Honda on Suzuka night.

Another nice thing about Japan's motorcycle scene is that a surprising number of girls ride bikes, and many of them come to Aoyama to watch the race. This makes Suzuka night at Honda a good place to make new friends--friends who share a common interest. And when the race ends, at eight o'clock in the evening, the warm summer night is still young, and all of Tokyo's many attractions are but a short ride away. Tsutsui and his co-rider are in the top five in their class during the early going, but during the fourth hour his partner throws the bike down the road. They fix it, get back into the fray and finish somewhere among the backmarkers. Oh well, that's racing. Better luck next year. Honda wins, of course, as they do almost every year. Honda also owns Suzuka racetrack. The live broadcast at the HQ is just a small part of the giant advertising campaign of which the race itself is also a part.

A few weeks later I'm back in States. I've had enough Tokyo for a while and will spend the next few months surfing, messing with my old bikes and doing the odd translation job.

I'm just settling into my new routine when Hirai calls from Japan. He sounds upset. It's about Tsutsui. It seems he is dead—found lying next to his crumpled Motard bike on a lonely back road in Izu. No one knows what happened.

Outside, the birds are singing in the garden.