Track days
Looking for something different to do on your bike? Well it’s definitely worth thinking about doing a track day. Many people don’t think a road rider has anything to learn from the racetrack, but most can readily see the difference that off-road skills can make. Well the track offers a similar yet different avenue for improvement. The opportunity to explore a little of your bike’s performance, braking and handling on a one-way road with a good surface does a lot to improve people’s confidence, understanding and smoothness; which translates directly onto road riding. Having said all of that, most people do track days because they’re so much fun.
Now there are some organisations that run track days and others that give you the opportunity to ride your bike on a track. The subtle difference is in their attitude and if you haven’t been before you definitely want the latter. The trick is in knowing which groups to go with. One firm runs them like it’s a race meeting, with a number of morons with no consideration for anyone else and very little for themselves. If you want to race, go racing. On the other hand there are well organised events where we’ve seen one guy who had only been riding for 4 days have a great time.
Some days will be organised to simply allow you to do what you want, while others will have the offer of some instruction and then others will have a training syllabus they work through. There’s lots of stuff on the internet about what to expect but most days are run on similar lines. You specify what your experience is (not the size of your bike) and go into one of 3 groups. ‘Novice’ for people who haven’t done a track day and haven’t been riding long; ‘Intermediate’ for experienced road riders or people who have done a few track days; and ‘Expert’ for experienced track day people. If you find yourself in the wrong group during the day, it’s easy enough to request a change.
You then get a thorough briefing before each group takes it in turns to ride on the track for 20 minutes each hour. With a lunch break you end up with about 7 sessions, which is more than enough concentration and fun for anyone.
With the California Superbike School www.superbikeschool.co.uk it's all about training; teaching you what to do (& not do) to keep your bike stable when cornering. There are a series of 5 classroom theory sessions, such as throttle control or counter-steering, each followed by a practical session on the track with instructors. The emphasis is on precision and control, not speed. Indeed if you go fast you don’t learn much and get told to slow down.
The instructors are there to follow and demonstrate, with additional tips during the practical session and in the de-brief afterwards. Then it's on to the next classroom session for another topic and so on. The topics are fundamental skills in machine control and considered one at a time to improve that aspect of riding, building confidence during the day. All of this relates directly to the road and is something that almost everyone can benefit from.
They use Silverstone, Brands Hatch and Rockingham tracks mainly. It's not cheap at £350 for a 08.00 – 17.00 day, but you feel that you get very good value for money because you’re constantly doing stuff and all the staff and instructors are ridiculously friendly and want you to succeed. There are actually 4 levels of CSB school training and everybody must begin with level 1, which is about stability and control techniques before moving on to Level 2, about the use we make of Vision. You don't need to do further levels, indeed by the time you reach level 4 you're on 1 to 1 tuition and could be club racing!
Hopp Rider Training www.hoppridertraining.co.uk run track days at Cadwell Park with the emphasis on training for the Novice and Intermediate groups. They also teach a specific skill for each session (but without a formal classroom set-up) building to free-lapping in the afternoon. The ‘Experts’ get let loose fairly early on after the first session, with the offer of instruction if wanted. Martin Hopp prides himself on running a Hooligan Free Zone and the constant presence of Instructors on the track (being race experienced, police class one, Nurburgring Instructors or all 3) ensures respect by everyone. The cost is about £150.
Talking of the Nurburgring, whether you like riding abroad, track days or watching racing you'll probably have heard of the Nurburgring in the Eiffel region of Germany (that's 2/3rds of the way up on the left). Built as a test track in the 1930's, it saw many fantastic years of racing, until some bloke called Lauda had a bit of a crash and burnt his ear. Now it's open to the public and anyone can turn up and do a lap for about £17. It's around 14 miles long, has about 35 bends with names and another 35 without. It features on the BMW K1200S promotional DVD you might have seen running in the showroom or you might have
seen Clarkson on the telly being seen off by a girlie in a van.
Some say it's a dangerous place, but just because about 15 people a year are killed there it doesn't stop thousand's of others going. You can find out more than you ever wanted to know at www.nurburgring.org.uk where you'll get an idea of just how fantastic the place is. The safest way to enjoy the ’Ring is on an organised course, and BMW run one every year for 3 days in August. www.fahrerlehrgang.info
The cost at £900 puts many people off straight away but if you compare it to a track day, when you get about 2 hours track time for around £140, it's a bargain. The time you get equates to about 10 track days in one. It also includes complete instruction on the best line and `section training', where you get to walk on the hallowed track and ride the wrong way, which is verboten at any other time. The best part is that the `Ring is closed to all other traffic during the course and this all accounts for the cost.
All sorts of people and bikes do this course, as well as cars. There is also a 2-day bike's only course, but this works out to be more expensive on a pro-rata basis.
You know when you've been meaning to do something or go to a place for ages and you eventually get round to it and think `wow why haven't I done this before?' Well track days are one of those experiences. So if you could be interested in joining a CW Riderclub outing then check out the Newsgroup Events pages.
