Letting it Rip on Track Day

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.com

Have you ever wished you could get out on your motorcycle and just let her rip? No worry about speeding tickets. No worry about hitting that pocket of gravel as you carve that turn. No worry about that idiot cager who’s just about to pull out in front of you at the intersection.

That’s why God invented race tracks.

The really cool thing is that race tracks are not just for the pros. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of days when race tracks sit idle and you’d better believe the people running them welcome additional users. The perfect scenario is for your riding club to hire the track for a day, bring in a couple riding instructors to give pointers and offer critique, and then each of you pay your share of the cost to go ride the track for a day. Alternatively, sometimes the tracks themselves set it up and provide the instructors. Then all you have to do is sign up and pay.

The Concours Owners Group that I have intermittently belonged to organized a track day at one point and I jumped at the chance. The day was set up in segments, alternating classroom instruction and parking lot practice with track time. They divided us up into three groups based on skill level. I knew I wasn’t in the top tier but I sure didn’t want to think of myself as bottom tier, so I went for the middle. My thinking seemed to predominate, so there were more than could be accommodated in the middle, but I was not one of the ones forced to join the lower group.

My group started in the classroom, and in many ways it was very much like the Experienced Rider Course (ERC) sanctioned by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, just omitting the portions on looking out for other traffic. They talked about braking before entering the turn, late apexing, where you go deep into the turn before initiating a sharp turn, and other such techniques.

Then we moved out into the parking lot. We practiced swerving, turning our heads to look as far into the curve as possible, standing the bike up before braking, and modulating braking to achieve maximum stopping power without skidding. Then it was time for the track. Hot dang!

As each group took to the track, the instructors also mounted up and rode with us. Singling out each rider individually, at times they would ride behind and observe your technique, and at other times they might pull ahead and motion for you to follow them as they demonstrated what you should do.

It turned out you really couldn’t blast your way down the track at warp speed because the straightaway was not long enough to reach that speed before you needed to start backing off. And no, there were no worries of gravel in the curves but there was one spot coming into a curve where an asphalt patch was much softer than the area around it and, of course, target fixation lead me to hit that spot consistently. One of those times my rear wheel would have slid out from under me in a low-side get-off but I planted my left foot well enough to recover and stay up.

I also found that my riding ego was a bit puffed up. While I had not wanted to be relegated to the low-skill group, I was the slowest rider in the middle group. Everyone else kept passing me, and I never passed anyone. Time for a little humility.

After lunch we repeated the circuit, with the added input of the instructors’ critique of our earlier riding. We each now had a better understanding of our strengths and weaknesses, and what we needed to work on. But the track day is only a beginning. Techniques do not become skills unless you continue to practice them. I have, and I believe I’m a better rider because of it, but nothing beats a refresher course once in a while.

For me, if things work out as I hope they will, I’m going to be right back out on the track for another lesson in just a few weeks. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.