Chasing my Dreams!

Sunday July 26th 2015, I headed down to Stapylton near the Gold Coast in Qld, to ‘my Team, and my Racing family’, DJR Team Penske for their annual Open Day.  After enjoying a very special night at DJR Team Penske the night before at their annual Team Mates Night, I was ready and pumped, for what was to be more of an adrenaline-filled day that I could ever have imagined, and dreamed of!

After wandering around for a while, and catching up with a few of my fellow Team Mates and DJRTP supporters, I sat and watched the boys from Showtime FMX do their thing, on their stunt motorcycles.  These boys and bikes have always fascinated me – they do what they do with such precision, skill….and a lot of fun!

…this is when things start to get a little interesting…

My friend, and ‘friend of the Team’, Darren wanders over for a catch-up, and I just casually say “I’d love to do that….its on my bucketlist to be up the top of a ramp while stunt bikes jump over me!”. I look at Darren…he looks at me…he has a mischievious glint in his eye –  “Stay right here….I will be back!”.  I’m left there thinking, ‘am I about to have something incredible ticked off my bucketlist?!? oooooh….really?’

A few minutes later Darren came rushing back to me, and states “Guess what?  In an hour, you, me, and Ryan Story (General Manager of DJR Team Penske) are going to be on the TOP of that ramp!”  I looked straight at Darren, not knowing what to think, do, or say…all we could both do was look at each other, and burst out laughing…. “Wait…WHAT!!” haha.  Nothing like being thrown in at the deep end on the spur of the moment!

Darren sums it up perfectly with his Facebook post he put up in that moment:
“Sometimes helping a friend can lead you into trouble.
Most of you who know Tania Sherley know of her bucket list.
One of the things on her list is to sit on the top of the ramp whilst the motorcycle stunt team leap over the top of her.
Here’s where I step in and speak Ryan Story GM of DJRTeam Penske to see whether it can be organised.
At 12.30pm today she is going to tick it off her list. The bad part is Ryan has told me that he is going to be doing it too BUT that I have to do it as well.
Quietly sh*tting myself. 😧😧😧 “

All Darren, myself, and the friends and people we ran into from the Team who had heard what was going on, could do in that hour before we headed up there, was laugh!! We couldn’t believe what was about to happen!

Before we knew it, it was time to head up onto the ramp…then THIS happened….

(thank you to Glenn for taking the video footage)

Yeeeewww!!! SO MUCH FUN!! haha

With the man himself, Dick Johnson – affectionately known by me, as my ‘Racing Dad’.
Without this great, yet very humble man, I wouldn’t be doing ‘what I do’ today! 🙂

What a special moment, having it happen not only on the Teams Open Day (with DJRTP being the people who inspired me to start my bucketlist and live this crazy life four years ago!), but having Managing Director from the Team, Ryan Story up there with me, as well as my friend Darren (thank you Darren for approaching Ryan to make it happen!) Thank you to the many people who took the shots when we were up on the ramp….and thank you to Chris for pushing me up that massive (and steep!) ramp up to the top of the truck cabin!
“People helping People”, creating memories….this is what life is all about!

Thank you so much to the boys (and bikes) from Showtime FMX….and to DJR Team Penske, for making this happen, on the Teams Open Day 2015!

ANYTHING is Possible….when you see an opportunity – GRASP it!