Hillclimbs are fairly insane. You drive as fast as you can, right next to the edge of a cliff.
What makes it fantastic to watch is not only the speed and the danger, but the respect that's involved. The driver knows what would happen if the car spins off the road or crashes. You see a picture like this, where a guy strips the body off of his Jaguar C-Type to set a record up the Mount Washington hillclimb back in '54, and you can see a lot is going on in the driver's head.
While we were watching a squid get chased by a Scubie, we got a look at the military side of the danger, respect, and vehicles equation from MottPower.
You hit a car and then proceed to try outrunning him at high speeds without observing the damage to the bike? Stupid.
Having gone to college in a city with a prominent military base and having encountered motorcyclists from there, it's all the same story. They psychologically think they can handle anything and buy a race replica motorcycle as their first bike and proceed to use to beyond their maximum abilities.
Two old buddies of mine rode some street fighters around town and always ran into these military guys in shorts and flip flops on new R6's and GSX-R600's who thought they could outrun them (not knowing they were usually on the same bikes). One night two military guys attempted to keep up with them, later down the highway my buddies lost them. When they came back around the highway later that evening they saw EMT's all over and later found out they had ran into each other after not being able to navigate a high speed corner and one was slammed into the guardrail while the other flew over the concrete embankment and landed somewhere in the woods 75 feet down.
It is a problem and I'm glad they are starting to make a mandatory class for military personal. I honestly fear military guys on motorcycles more than your average around town squid, mainly because they're ideological view of death is completely opposite in most cases.
Photo Credit: Mt.Washington Auto Road