Man fallen: Vale the mighty Joe Salas, a colleague and a brother

Friends, I am writing to you today with tragic news. A valued member of the New Atlas team has passed away and it is my turn to pay a small tribute to a wonderful colleague and close friend, Joe Salas.

I first met Joe in 2015; was one of the photographers Zero Motorcycles hired for their 2015 press releases. I was also very interested in photography at the time, and Joe’s compositional eye immediately blew me away. He had an incredible ability to make the road itself a character in the story: I would find myself looking at his shots and unconsciously start selecting lines as if I were taking those curves again.

That requires the eye of a true horseman, and Joe, as I soon discovered, was a great horseman. We kept in touch after the launch and he showed me some of his own stuff… Videos of him jumping an R6 supersport motorcycle almost three meters in the air. Photos of him, resplendent in his bright red leather 4theriders suit, happily dragging some elbows on the race track. This, clearly, was not a normal person.

He told me about his life, driving around the United States from track to track, wherever the action was, taking photos of the day at the track, and acting as a riding instructor from time to time. I could barely believe the stories he told about his antics with Kev, Toe and the rotating cast of absolute nutcases in and around the 4theriders team, where the action seemed even more ridiculous off the track than on it.

We made plans to catch up and collaborate the next time I was in the US. And then, to my great surprise, we did it.

Joe and I filmed the DeepFlight Dragon together in 2015, and he had a cameo in the video when Graham Hawkes offered him the chance to drive the submarine too. We met again a few months later to photograph the fearsome Kawasaki H2; You better believe he had a good time with that beast too. Not long after that, I returned to the US, and Joe and I took an epic road trip following Dezso Molnar to the Snake River Canyon, where we had the privilege of watching Eddie Braun recreate Evel Knievel’s rocket-bike jump… This time, successfully.

We had a lot more planned, but I got hurt. And then Joe got hurt. These things happen to people drawn to the sharper edges of life, but Joe coped much worse than I did. Two days into a three-day party, she popped a wheelie on her dirt bike wearing nothing but a pink tutu and a pair of motocross boots. His knee was twisted and decimated to the point of becoming a medical curiosity. I could never straighten it out again.

Motorcycling is over. Racecourse photography is over. A seven-foot-tall superman who could ride anything, build anything, and fix anything was reduced to a noodle-legged weakling who could barely stand. Pain became a constant companion. Joe was angry, frustrated and depressed. It was difficult to let go of not only the future he saw for himself and his young family, but also a large part of his core identity.

We lived half a world away, but we talked every day, and because we were so far from each other’s circles, we could tell each other things we would never talk to anyone else about. No filters, total trust, a trust that I now happily betray for your amusement:

I came out of my wounds and had to rebuild my sense of identity in the process, so I felt what he was going through on a deep level. Deprived of his mobility and sense of usefulness, he withdrew from much of the world, but remained fiercely connected to some of us.

His physical strength might have been destroyed, but his willpower was epic to behold; He took a job at a gas station to support his wife and two young daughters, gritting his teeth through blinding tears of pain and rage when his boss scolded him for leaning on something to rest during his shift.

Then he called me from the car while he tried to pull himself together and do something he could show his family.

However, at that time I was already in a position to offer him a job. He was not a writer by trade or training, but I knew he was a great storyteller with an incredible wealth of life experiences to draw from, and I knew that New Atlas readers would recognize a kindred spirit in Joe; a take apart and a putter put back together. A guy who really loved understanding how and why things worked.

As far as I was concerned, all I had to do was write like I talked. And he did it. As a result, it was a lot of fun to read; his personality, honesty, passion, silliness, and sheer joie de vivre emerge from the page. This is:

“If you look down, your stomach will tickle. At least I do, and I love it.”

“If you have one and have been able to drive it perfectly straight, let me know and teach me your Yoda cutting methods, because I can’t do it.”

“Definitely a 5 on the AR:SE scale (Apple Rating: Standard of Excellence). That’s my made-up packaging scale, where a Bazooka Joe is a 2, a Rolex is a 10, and of course Apple products are an 11.”

“Will I take him camping with me? 100%. A bear can’t catch you if he can’t see anymore.”

If you wish, browse the author’s page and enjoy some of the words he left us.

However, beyond the writing and behind the scenes, Joe dedicated every ounce of his fire and drive to this website and this company. If you haven’t seen many of his articles lately, it’s because he stepped up to take on a lot of the technical challenges I’d been struggling with and obliterated them.

A few months ago, we promoted him to Technical Lead, but the badges and titles never meant much to Joe or me. There were things that needed to be done, so we rolled up our sleeves and did it.

He knew what it was like to run his own business, always looking for ways to improve things, and he only had one gear: overdrive. When you’re struggling to move a mountain, it’s great to have someone on your team who loves to move.

Joe made a difference in so many ways: for me, for us, and for his family. Within a couple of years I had made incredible progress on the epic project of building Joe 2.0. From fighting to keep the rain out of his RV, to moving his family into a small house, to moving them to a large stone fortress in a place that could withstand the fury of a South Texas hurricane season, to bringing his mother to live with him, Brianna, and now three girls… I’m vaguely aware that they have real names, but to me they’ll always be Sqweebs, Meatsack, and LB.

Each of us was building a new self for a new era. A little older. A little more responsible. A little less exciting on the outside, but our shoulders were broadening and we were putting family first. Joe and the girls were on a new trajectory. They would be fine.

And then, over the weekend, I got the call from Brianna. Joe had fallen off an electric scooter while they were riding together. He had hit his head. He wasn’t wearing a helmet. He was gone. Instantly, forever, he disappeared, his last creative work a hideous stain on the pavement.

Joe fucking Salas, who could fight a superbike around Thunderhill in his sleep, with one arm tied behind his back, dead, and he was a scooter That got him. The absolute nerve of it.

He loved those scooters. For a man who was denied the chance to ride a motorcycle again and who struggled to walk any distance without pain, they represented freedom and autonomy. He also reviewed one of those self-balancing electric unicycles for us and loved it even more.

He sent me videos almost every night as he cruised the back streets and beach, playing a fun selection of songs on the monowheel’s built-in stereo.

God how I miss that beautiful idiot. I keep hitting things and yelling “A TEN DOLLAR HELMET, JOE, AND I COULD GIVE YOU SHIT FOR THIS,” but at the same time, it’s Joe. Full leather suits on the track, full Aerostitch on the road, but yeah, he wasn’t getting ready to ride around on an electric scooter. There are no condoms between Joe and the world.

“There are a million things, activities, hobbies, professions, and more that are dangerous,” Joe wrote in a comment on his monowheel review a few weeks ago, in response to a couple of reader comments. “BASE jumping, motorcycle riding, skiing, sledding… even football. It’s the risk we take for the reward. Frankly, having suffered debilitating personal injuries for the rest of my life from motorcycle riding (not to mention having personally witnessed several gruesome deaths and life-changing injuries), it’s worth the risk for me. 🙂 Hopefully, the EUC rider in question came out with one last impressive explosion. That’s all us “extreme” people we can ask.”

Well, there was an explosion: a skull against the cement. I don’t know, that’s the kind of explosion you had in mind, Joe, you stupid idiot, but it comforts me to know that you went out with your beloved and felt the wind on your face right before it happened.

We are all poorer for her passing, none more so than the lovely Brianna, her three children, and her three children from a previous marriage. Life is complicated, but I know that he loved them and enjoyed them all very much.

What this damn sexy fool didn’t do was live long enough to support them in the long run. So while we look at what we can do for Joe’s family as a company, there is a GoFundMe up and running if you feel motivated to contribute.

Thanks for everything, Grumpy Cat. Except that last bit and the giant hole you leave in the world. You were deeply loved.