Who's going Sept 1st and 2nd Trackdays?

[R-silaxin]

Well, all in all, had a great day out there with everyone!

That highside was brutal, but thanks to everyone who helped get me back out there!

Other then being a bit sore, I had a blast! I'll post up a few links to the videos I got tomorrow sometime for anyone interested! Especially the highside video, from two diff camera's... Hahaha

[EP_Shane_600]

Well, all in all, had a great day out there with everyone!

That highside was brutal, but thanks to everyone who helped get me back out there!

Other then being a bit sore, I had a blast! I'll post up a few links to the videos I got tomorrow sometime for anyone interested! Especially the highside video, from two diff camera's... Hahaha

crazy.. we got a new Tony???

I wish i woulda put my Go-pro when I had my big crash on the street in 2010


Post them UP!!

[Thomas]

I got to see the highside live, from about 6 feet behind him. He got some good air.
Glad your alright.

[thunderun53]

Thomas, you always seem to hover around when people are crashing. You might be bad luck. thanks for bringing my swing arm spool back, too.

[Thomas]

I was no where near you when you went done in the same corner. I think people like to throw there bike at me so that i don't pass them. (that should get a comment from Greg)

[R-silaxin]

Yeah that wreck was not all that much fun, but luckily walked away relatively un-harmed. I'll post up a few vids tomorrow when I've got access to my computer. The crash, and the rest of the afternoon. Hope you guys can give me some pointers on what I can work on, maybe teach me a few things... I'm brand new to track riding so any feedback would be great!

Check you guys tomorrow... Thanks again for all the help! Hoping next time out I can get some coaching and work on my skills if anyone is willing...

[blendedfamily]

if you've got the time, take Roger's school. I think there is one in october, and it's badass. Not only will it make you a better rider, it'll set you up to have the knowledge to make some independent decisions and boost your confidence, i.e: my bike runs wide while turning, what can I do with my setup to address the problem... lots of experience and info from the instructors.

[kz2zx]

Or you can follow Tony's example and learn from the School of Hard Knocks (with special mention given to highsides).

One school is MUCH more expensive than the other, and is a lot less-forgiving while you learn.

[findgold]

Yeah that wreck was not all that much fun, but luckily walked away relatively un-harmed. I'll post up a few vids tomorrow when I've got access to my computer. The crash, and the rest of the afternoon. Hope you guys can give me some pointers on what I can work on, maybe teach me a few things... I'm brand new to track riding so any feedback would be great!

Check you guys tomorrow... Thanks again for all the help! Hoping next time out I can get some coaching and work on my skills if anyone is willing...

I wasn't there and don't know the details. But..Here is some info that may be of some use/help..

Keeping Focus By MARK HOYER(CYCLE WORLD MAR 2010
PANIC CAN PRETTY MUCH RUIN ANYTHING. After all these miles and all these years of riding, much of the time as fast as I can, the absolute number one thing I’ve learned to avoid as panic. Well, that and crashing.
But panic and crashing often go hand in hand. The first time I wrecked a streetbike was a perfect example. Like any smart, 16-year-old kid, I’d purchased an excellent bike for learning the street riding ropes: a pearl-white 1979 Yamaha RD400 Daytona Special. Then I did the second thing a smart kid does, which was to have somebody install expansion chambers, thereby moving all the power even higher up in the rev range. Sure, there was no bottom end, but at least delivery was abrupt….
Naturally, it wasn’t long after the pipes were mounted that I went into the local hills to try out all this newfound power. I was bending the RD deeper and deeper into corners as I became more comfortable on the bike and started learning how it behaved. I came upon a nice strightaway and let it rip toward the next left turn.
Then it was the classic chain of events that has been repeated countless times: I got in “too hot,” freaked out, locked elbows, clamped brakes, stood the bike up and rode off the road.
But the only thing that I’d actually done was to outride my –perception- of the corner. I’d barely scraped the kickstand; the bike itself had plenty of performance left to make that corner at the speed I was traveling. It was my brain that didn’t have any performance left, and my response was to panic.
It was difficult to apply the lesson when trying to ride my next bike fast, but I remembered vividly the result of panic, and this was a real aid in keeping my head clear when facing the unexpected or reading a corner wrong. Panic had a bad result, so while I’d have that initial twitch, I’d quickly breathe and relax and continue to operate the motorcycle.
I still wasn’t fast, but I was getting faster, smoother and thinking more while riding. I was also thinking farther ahead. Progress!
That’s why, after all these years, I would say the number-one riding skill I have developed is the ability to remain intellectual when things are going way wrong. I’ve learned not to panic at a much higher speed now!
Fortune, of course, has smiled on me in many situations. In fact, I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve lost the front or the rear and had it come back before it was gone, so to speak. That is, it all happened so fast that by the time I was finished screaming in my helmet, the wheels, and the universe, were back in alignment, all with no thanks to any of my actions. The lesson there is that sometimes doing nothing except continuing to ride the bike and –acting- like nothing’s wrong is the best thing to do.
A kind of example of this took place during the 1998 Honda CBR900RR press introduction at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where we got to ride the bikes with custom-made Bridgestone slicks. It was my first time on real racing tires, and the feeling was incredible, like I could do no wrong. Except, of course, that I -could- do wrong. I kept pushing the entrance of infield Turn 2 harder and harder until this one time…. It was a shock when the front tire let go, but my knee was down and there were no riders nearby. I’d never been in that situation before, but at least when I had that initial moment of freezing, my right leg went stiff enough to hold the bike up for the short time necessary to reduce corner speed, and the bike began to turn before I ran out of track. The success was that after that initial shock, I continued to actually ride the motorcycle instead of doing what I’d done on the RD(panic). Still, this was when I coined the phrase: “luck makes me a hero once again!”
These days, I almost never freeze. A recent example? I was at Phillip Island in Australia for a Suzuki GSX-R 750/600 launch a few years ago. I was running around at a decent pace, occasionally probing the stock street tires limits of adhesion when, lo and behold, who popped up in my rearview mirror but - THE Kevin Schwantz.
As any “intellectual” rider will tell you, it’s always those moments when you absolutely have to prove your manhood, particularly on the brakes, that you lose your head with a kind of primal, angry-monkey response. Yes, you’re going to show one of the demon late-brakers of all time –how good you really are. Of course, I got in to the Turn 4 hairpin way too hot and had to run it quite wide. By that time in my track-riding career, I’d blown enough apexes that my first feeling was not panic, but simply embarrassment. I knew enough not to freeze up, and that there was plenty of track left to gather up and get it turned with no danger of falling off.
I talked to Kevin about it afterward and he said, “Hey, at least you knew what to do about it.”
I replied, “Yep, plenty of practice!”
So While I may never outbrake Kevin Schwantz or intentionally save a front-end slide on my knee, I do try to learn something every time I ride, and the best way to do that is by keeping focus. Now if I could just control my inner primate…
BY MARK HOUER-KEEPING FOCUS-UP FRONT-CYCLE WORLD MAR2010

[R-silaxin]

if you've got the time, take Roger's school. I think there is one in october, and it's badass. Not only will it make you a better rider, it'll set you up to have the knowledge to make some independent decisions and boost your confidence, i.e: my bike runs wide while turning, what can I do with my setup to address the problem... lots of experience and info from the instructors.

I'd absolutely love that! Had no idea he taught/held schooling at the track. I need some good coaching on, well, everything! Been riding a few years now, but I'm a complete noob on the track. I was out there this past weekend trying to teach myself, not only the track and turns, but also working on my braking points, lines, etc... Just sort of making it up as I went... I def need some coaching, and need to be taught a lot! I was out there trying to fly around like a pro, when really I should have started slower, and asked for someone to tow me around, show me some lines, and give me some pointers on what I need to work on! I won't make it back out till Oct so if he's holding a class I'm in for sure! Wont have the bike back together for this weekend, and really need to let me leg heal before I get back out there. I should have just asked for some help from some of the experienced guys out there. Just didn't think anyone would have any interest investing their time in helping me out... When I'm sure that's not the case at all. Oh well, learned the hard way first time out. I'll be back out there though for sure! Just want to soak up some knowledge and
learn as much as I can! I'll post up the vids I promised tomorrow also, maybe get some feedback from you guys on what I need to work on as well!

Thanks guys!

[EP_Shane_600]

Dude one thing you will learn very quickly is that most every person out there that is riding that is a regular racer or normal track day junky will be willing to try and help in any way possible as long as you are willing to listen and do what is asked when coached on something. Honestly the main people i would try to learn from out there in no particular order: Marios Burgos, Mickey Rupe, Tom Mcfarland, Craig Talbot, Brian Eves, Roger of coarse, Sebastian Moresausage.

[findgold]

if you've got the time, take Roger's school. I think there is one in october, and it's badass. Not only will it make you a better rider, it'll set you up to have the knowledge to make some independent decisions and boost your confidence, i.e: my bike runs wide while turning, what can I do with my setup to address the problem... lots of experience and info from the instructors.

I'd absolutely love that! Had no idea he taught/held schooling at the track. I need some good coaching on, well, everything! Been riding a few years now, but I'm a complete noob on the track. I was out there this past weekend trying to teach myself, not only the track and turns, but also working on my braking points, lines, etc... Just sort of making it up as I went... I def need some coaching, and need to be taught a lot! I was out there trying to fly around like a pro, when really I should have started slower, and asked for someone to tow me around, show me some lines, and give me some pointers on what I need to work on! I won't make it back out till Oct so if he's holding a class I'm in for sure! Wont have the bike back together for this weekend, and really need to let me leg heal before I get back out there. I should have just asked for some help from some of the experienced guys out there. Just didn't think anyone would have any interest investing their time in helping me out... When I'm sure that's not the case at all. Oh well, learned the hard way first time out. I'll be back out there though for sure! Just want to soak up some knowledge and
learn as much as I can! I'll post up the vids I promised tomorrow also, maybe get some feedback from you guys on what I need to work on as well!

Thanks guys!

Till then a little more info on going fast and being a little safer at it:

THE THREE MAXIMS OF ROAD RACING.

There are three Maxims a rider must adopt to be a good racer
1. SMOOTH
The first and most important maxim of good racing is to be smooth. Smooth applies to every aspect of racing… Your line through a turn, your braking and your throttle technique must be smooth.. Road racing looks graceful when done properly. If you watch the top pros, you can see they are not fighting the bike but actually flowing with it.

The most critical feedback from the bike is transmitted through the handlebars. If you are smooth, you can actually feel what the motorcycle is doing. If you are bouncing and wobbling severely the feedback will be lost. When you are riding in a smooth manner, the bike will respond predictably to your controls. When you are smooth, your own mistakes will be obvious to you and easier to correct. In the long run with SMOOTHNESS, speed will come automatically.

BE SMOOTH TO BE FAST

2. DISCIPLINE
Discipline means several things. First, it means the conscious concentration on what you are doing or about to do. Is the ability to shut out every other thought from your mind while racing. The only thought you want is controlling your bike.
The second aspect of discipline means not allowing the actions of another racer to influence or affect your actions: ie: braking deep, speed through turns etc.

The third aspect of discipline is the use of restraint while trying to find the limits of your motorcycle. Example: braking. You believe you can go 20ft. deeper before braking. Using restraint, take several laps to work up to this distance by braking incrementally later until you either reach your goal or the limits of the bike and tire.
The major cause of crashing is trying to make the bike perform beyond its limits. Approach the limits incrementally and have the self discipline to never exceed them.
Total concentration is a universal trademark of all the best racers. Develop your mental skills as you work on your physical riding skills and know that a lapse in concentration is the primary reason for single-bike accidents on the street or track.


DISCIPLINE AVOIDS CRASHES



3. CONSISTENCY

Consistency means doing everything the same, every lap. One good lap time by itself means very little. Most races are at least 10 laps long. If four of your laps are one second off your best, it is the same as being 0.4 seconds slower each lap. In many cases this 0.4 seconds can mean the difference between a mid pack finish and a win. If you watch the top expert riders, you will see their times won’t vary more than 0.1 to 0.2 seconds from lap to lap.

Inconsistency leads to poor lap times and/or crashing. For example, if you use depth perception or “seat of the pants” to decide where to brake, it is impossible for you to brake at the same point each lap. If you are early on the brakes, your lap times will be slower. If you are too late on the brakes, you will find yourself in the dirt.

You must develop every technique you can to eliminate riding by the seat of your pants. One technique is to find and use visual markers for everything. These are clearly visible and permanent marks on or near the track that can be seen at speed. Examples big skid marks on the track, pavement changes, pavement repair patches, painted marks on pavement.

Another benefit from consistency is the illusion of being relentless. A consistent rider trying to pass is applying a lot of pressure. Every time the lead rider makes even a small mistake the consistent rider can show a wheel. This will eventually unnerve the less rider and cause him to make a big enough faux pas to allow the pass. Many times the difference between first and second is only one small mistake. Consistency is vital to winning!

Consistency has three definite benefits:
1. Less chance of crashing
2. Good lap times
3. Fewer mistakes
CONSISTENCY WINS RACES

Knowing these maxims and their meanings will not in and of themselves make a racer fast. The racer must routinely examine his or her riding habits. If the racer finds his riding is becoming sloppy and careless, he will need to make a conscience effort to reapply the three maxims.

The three maxims will keep you:
FAST—SAFE—AND WINNING!

[Thomas]

I have no problem showing riders around the track. I was towing Josh around the track pointing out some of the key marks on the track so he would be on the correct line. It was his first trackday as well. He kept getting better with each lap.
The most important thing, like Roger said at the riders meeting, "ride at your own pace". No need to try and do too much too soon. It can be costly to you and your bike. All those fast guys didn't start out being fast. Isn't that right Mario? I was one of his instructors a few years back. Now he's way faster than I will ever be. The school Roger teaches is great, worth more than he charges. Just my .02 cents.

I'll be happy to show you around the track next time. And there are many others that will do the same for you at ASMA.

[Super Mario]

Thomas and Loren are right. I was the slowest guy on the track 3 yrs ago. I bought my first bike 4 yrs ago. Then I road on the street for a year and got bored. Then I found Arroyo. From day one, I was hooked and crashed from trying to go over my limits. But being the person I am, I hated being slow and I wanted to learn to go fast and be safe about it. So after hitting every race school the Roger had and every track day. Thanks to Thomas, Roger, Mickey , Kevin and Tom Savoca ( my teachers ). I'm where I'm at now. Dumb as hell, and slow as shit.. Lol.. Your in the right crowd if you want learn this sport..

[R-silaxin]

Thanks a ton guys! Got parts on the way and off crutches now so I'll be ready for Oct. I'd really like to take Roger's course but when is it? I see two trackdays listed in Oct, is it on one of those days? Can I pre-register? Is there a cut-off for how many can attend? I know a couple people who may be interested.

Also, I'll post up some vids from my first trackday today when I get home and see what you guys think... Afternoon wasn't too bad. The morning when I wrecked was ugly riding all around. I was just out there trying to learn the track and teach myself really. I'd really enjoy some coaching and pointers from you more senior guys! Next time out, if I'm not taking the class I'll def ask if anyone wants to bother towing me around, and following me and giving me some feedback on what's good, and what I need to work on! Thanks again everyone! Looking forward to getting back out there, and getting better!

Videos will be up this afternoon...

[blendedfamily]

the school is listed on the schedule, lower on the page than the track days -- I believe it's on the same day as the track days in October.

[Roger@Arroyo]

The Oct school is held during the Saturday trackday, as well as it's own day on Sunday. No Sunday trackday in October.

[R-silaxin]

The Oct school is held during the Saturday trackday, as well as it's own day on Sunday. No Sunday trackday in October.

So, does that mean I can take your rider course on the 6th? If so that'd be perfect! What's it cost for the day? Also, do I need to bring anything special, or just the usual trackday stuff. If I can I'd love to pre-register this week! I need some coaching for sure! I want to get better, and progressively faster! Let me know! Thanks!

Also my vids are up on Youtube, just search for me adam2cox. The highside is up, as well as other videos from the rest of the afternoon... I'll post links tomorrow! (I know, I keep saying that... Haha)

[Roger@Arroyo]

It's the 6th and 7th, it's a two day class

[findgold]

Thanks a ton guys! Got parts on the way and off crutches now so I'll be ready for Oct. I'd really like to take Roger's course but when is it? I see two trackdays listed in Oct, is it on one of those days? Can I pre-register? Is there a cut-off for how many can attend? I know a couple people who may be interested.

Also, I'll post up some vids from my first trackday today when I get home and see what you guys think... Afternoon wasn't too bad. The morning when I wrecked was ugly riding all around. I was just out there trying to learn the track and teach myself really. I'd really enjoy some coaching and pointers from you more senior guys! Next time out, if I'm not taking the class I'll def ask if anyone wants to bother towing me around, and following me and giving me some feedback on what's good, and what I need to work on! Thanks again everyone! Looking forward to getting back out there, and getting better!

Videos will be up this afternoon...

I would be happy to tow you around..
I have been told that my lines are fair to good and somewhat smooth. And because I am riding a 250 ninjette I am farily easy to keep up with..If I go a little to fast in the corners I am easy to catch back up with on strights. and i plan on being at Arroyo on the 8th and 9th...The good Lord willing..