I think you hit it on the head MM. These days zooming round on a relatively slow CRF150 on a tiny track, or bouncing around on a trials bike in my back yard, or pointing my KTM Duke at a slow but twisty patch of road still brings a huge smile to my face. Probably as much as racing ever did. Maybe it helps that I was never very fast racing on asphalt or dirt, but riding anything on a sunny day still taps into the same thing inside that I first experienced when I was a little kid. It's hard to imagine not riding at all.
Now if I could just shake that pesky ultra-high horsepower drag race jones in my head I'd be golden. :)