Motorcycle Racer Leslie Porterfield: New Female Exemplar? Hope So.

I'm not known to indulge in the business of hagiography. I generally find the public worship of notable types to be nauseating. It's too often undue, bought n' paid for, justified on wobbly grounds such as hotness or egregious public naughtiness -- but mostly just a bore.

I will now undertake this very indulgence, and hope after reading it that you'll agree it was well due.

Gentlemen, start your engines

And they'd better be huge, well tuned engines and accustomed to a serious thrashing, as should your egos. And women, get ready for a new kind of role model, the kind humanity could do with a hellovalot more of.

She's the founder/owner of High Five Cycles, an independent, non- denominational motorcycle dealership in Dallas, Texas. She's sharp as sharks' teeth, focused, steely and exceedingly fearless. She's a talented brand creator and marketer -- of both self and above-referenced enterprise. She's humble -- for a Texan. She is also, one assumes, quite financially savvy. And she's working at least three careers simultaneously -- speed, business and modeling. Yes, her inner qualities are well matched by spectacularly puissant outer ones. Glad we got that out of the way.

This is the purview of one Leslie Porterfield

I came across a news feed on her at F800Riders.org last night, and was quickly knocked aback. She was at the Land Speed races at the Bonneville Salt Flats, riding her twin-turbo Hayabusa, aiming for a woman's world speed record -- which she owned in excess of 234 mph. That was pretty entertaining stuff, but further digging revealed what I would have to call a remarkable human being.

First off, she's already been listed for years in the Guinness Book of World Records as 'Fastest Woman in the World on a Motorcycle', which, while it might be a bit cute, sure out-awesomes Paris Hilton's and Kim Kardashian's world records. Second, she's not one to let a chestful of smashed up ribs and a holed lung deter her from returning to the salt. Thirdly, she's got a speed addiction real bad, now fed by a Honda CBR1000RR, the world's fastest production litre bike, for the next few minutes anyway. And that's a high-end respectable quality in any human.

It's International Day of the Teacher

Let's let Leslie teach us what a little hyper-normal determination and a set of massive ovaries can do for a girl.

For more on Leslie's latest redline action, go here: http://www.leslieporterfield.com/ or here: http://www.ultimatemotorcycling.com/2011/cbr1000-worlds-fastest-production-motorcycle or here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/High-Five-Cycles/73642156710