Welcome to the Track Day Section
To the Right is a list of articles that have been gathered up to help you start
or improve your track day experience. When contemplating about going to the
track you have a zillion questions and when you finally do get to the track
for your first time you have a zillion butterflies in your stomach, hell many
people still do after several track days. More will be added to this section
including site member's stories and accounts of their experience. These the
articles will get updated and referenced with quotes of different riders experiences.
As you contemplate stepping up to a track day, considering your safety and others,
especially if it's your first time, it should be paramount.
Would we recommend going to Star
School or Keith Codes
as your first experience, not usually. Why? Well it depends on your current
experience. If you have been riding for 2-3years on the street and frequent
the canyons and are use to other bikes being close around you then maybe, short
of that, it's not a great idea. We recommend for your first experience a track
day organization that has an intro class to the track, basically a track day
school. Fastrackriders
is an excellent choice for a local track day organization with a very good novice
track day introduction program. If you would like a bit more instruction you
can use Fastrackriders
2on1 program
to get a more personalized rider education with only 1 other student and the
instructor. Fastrackriders uses 20min sessions with 3 different skill levels
(I,
II,
III)
to keep people safe and prevent them from getting too tired.
After you have been through Fastrackriders programs and attended a couple of
track days with them, you will better understand how track days operate and
the commitment to safety that they have. You will have better stamina, throttle
control and want to stay out on the track longer. You are now more ready for
a no sessions track day such as Micky and Clif's SoCalTrackDays
experience. Here you will be your own tech inspector, you will be allowed to
stay out as long as you want and rest as long as you want. SoCalTrackDay is
for the more serious rider looking to sharpen and hone their different skills
in riding there sport bike at the next level...here you will see very often
Willow WSMC racers, from time to time AMA pro racers and share the track with
them. So it is very important to know the rules of the track at this level for
both your and their safety. If your looking to get to the next level without
the frustration of another track day, it's time for some formal instruction
from Star School,
Keith Codes, or other
similar school.
Riders that go to Star
School or Keith Codes
or similar schools are looking to step up their skills with formal trained and
experience instructos. Being surrounded by riders who have been on the track
quite a bit know the rules better and are more predictable riders. If you have
less riding experience and get on a track with no sessions*, you could be fine,
but you could also endanger yourself and the other riders. Be smart about it
and go to the track day organizations that have these schools such as Fastrackriders.
Most of the time you will already know quite a bit of what they are talking
about, but recently several have stepped up their school program to teach more
than just entering and exiting the track in conjunction with what the flags
and hand signals mean. The stepped up programs are smaller versions of the bigger
schools. In other words you learn about the racing line and why to use it, corner
entry speed, braking techniques, corner techniques, and sometimes more advanced
techniques to help you control your bike better such as rider positioning. All
of that comes to you for an additional price above your track day, but it will
keep you and everyone else safer.
After this experience you should be bitten by the track bug, you'll want to
figure out which bill not pay the following month just to get back. Soon after
attending a few track days, many people start riding smarter on the streets,
but less often as they know their improved skills could get their license taken
away faster. No Joke! However almost all track day attendees have a big percentage
drop in the "Oh Shit!" factor as they have picked up more experience and skills,
they can handle more situations calmer and faster. Take a look at our Links
page to see the different Track Day Organizations we use and support and
they support us and your safety. Take notice of the "SCHOOL OPTION" to make
them your preferred selection for your first track day experience, after that
try the other organizations, each has special options and unique approaches
to their track days. Some rotate which track they will be at, while others pretty
much stay at one track. THESE are highlighted in our new section Popular
SouthWest Tracks, which is still being worked on, but will have a lot of
information on each track!
* Sessions: a limited amount of bikes for 20 minutes intervals, usually
If you have a Track Article or Experience you would like to share, please register on this site and then PM ME your article or a reference URL!
Please feel free to:
1) Join the site and read the introduction post
2) Tell a friend about our site
3) PermaLink to this Page
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