Mark Schledorn may be one of the few racers I know who went from racing motorcycles to perhaps an even more risky profession. This photo is Schledorn racing his Suzuki RG500 Gamma at Talladega Grand Prix Raceway in a WERA race during that track’s opening weekend. Mark went on to become a rider for Solmax Racing, one of the leading WERA National Endurance teams of the late 1980s, where he was teammate for a time with Scott Russell. So what did Mark decide to do for a living after racing? He’s a pilot who does aerobatics for fun and his day job is doing aerial inspection of power lines. So he regularly runs a wingtip away from 50,000 volts!

Mark Schledorn racing his Suzuki RG500 in a WERA regional sprint race at Talladega Grand Prix Raceway in 1986. (Larry Lawrence photo)