Riding skill level necessary to start racing...

trackdays are great and can certainly make your first race weekend a lot less overwhelming. I started doing trackdays and didn't even consider racing for a year or so. My problem was I got used to the trackday logic of not riding aggressively and casually working up to your limits. When I got to racing, I had a hard time pushing hard just because when I was doing trackdays, it was pretty much a casual ride around the track.

I raced all last season and the entire way through the season I would notice that I would get behind someone and just follow them for lap after lap even if I was faster than them just because I wasn't being aggressive enough to make the pass. Doing that is part of the reason I never really got much faster, I just wasn't pushing like I should have been.

I still love doing trackdays though, just getting out and riding with friends and with no pressure is a blast.

 

Judging from a couple of the new racers in the last CCS event at Summit, I would say you could learn how to ride a motorcycle one day, and then race the next.


Pretty fucking bad when someone gets lapped 3 times in a 7 lap sprint.

 

I'll say this:

If you're a racer at heart, getting passed enough times or watching everyone else disappear is incentive.

Then when you set your benchmark on someone else, and HE gets faster faster than you do, THAT is incentive.

If you don't race, what incentive do you have? Winning the 'A' group?

Mongo's right - racers race.

Go out there and race. If you suck, get better. If you're not a racer, then at least you know at last.

 

o...
i thought you said you've never been on a track before

 

poop

 

Ok, ok...you talked me into it.....

Very good posts, thanks.

Ok then. Im gonna do it. Piss on it. I will either get lapped or i wont. If i do, then i will just have to get faster.

Thanks guys.

 

When I started racing, I had two goals:

1) Don't crash.
2) Don't come in last.

After the first race, I had three goals:

1) Don't crash.
2) Don't come in last.
3) Don't get lapped by the leader of your class.

Worked for me.

-jim (who had one CSS trackday at Sears Point before my first race...)

NOTE: When I ran the NRS for Keigwins at the Track (through 2007) we had somewhere in the range of 15 students over 4 years who attended with no full-size track experience. IIRC, only two of them passed the school. There is something to be said for previous big track experience.

 

See post #24 :up:

You might have me confused with the OP...which is my fault because i kinda hijacked his thread.

 

Thanks Jim

I don't want to get too far ahead of myself...so i will limit my goals to just "dont crash" for the time being.

Well, by "big track"...are you saying they had NO previous track experience?...or do you mean they had only ran on smaller tracks i.e. Talladega?

 

More like mini racing, or dirt especially. We'd get hotshit dirt guys that would already have the ego but no checks. Fail. And the folks that had raced the kart tracks just weren't used to the speed and width of big tracks like Thunderhill, Buttonwillow or Infineon. They'd get lost, unable to gather enough reference points in one day to keep pace.

Everybody is different, but experience helps. The two that DID pass with no big track experience were natural-born racers, and have done quite well.

-jim

 

The guys winning trophies were all in the way when they started. And the guy who gets lapped four times might get teased a bit but he automatically gets respect. Everyone else is a spectator.

 

If You have fun on a bike at speed, take a class, get your license and get your ass in a race.

You will be suprised how quickly you pick things up and improve in a race environment.

That said, start out on a bike that doesn't scare the fuck out of you WFO. Something at WFO your going "come on baby, a little faster".

Alot of the intimadating stuff on a race weekend is off the track, so go to your first weekend with someone who knows the drill. That will take a bunch of stress out of the weekend and allow you to learn much more on track stuff.

Bottom line> Don't look back in a few years with regret that you never tried, if only for the great peeps you meet along the way, the experience is worth it.

 

Ahh ok, i gotcha. :up:

I reckon the "biggest" tracks i have ridden were VIR and Barber...and loved every minute of it.

 

Well said.

 

Girl at work said thats exactly what it should be. A little wheel. Her point being that tossing on new pucks seemed wasteful.

I still have no logical argument for her.

 

I am yet to be scared going WFO...even on my R1. Granted, i dont want to start racing on my R1 and i have a 600 track bike that i will start racing on. But im just saying that i feel more "calm" on the race track than i do riding through town. On the track, i feel relaxed, im breathing through my nose and everything just seems slow. It doesnt feel as if im going fast (which compard to yall, im not ). But i never really think "im hauling ass"...i am thinking "ok, i started braking there last time...im gonna try to brake a lil later this time".

You made a great point about the off-track stuff. The off track stuff and the things you dont get to do during regular track days are the intimidating things. I am really not nervous about actually going around the track. I just dont want to be the asshat that forgets some registration paperwork or forgets to safety wire something or doesnt know when to go to the grid or keeps riding through the end of the warm up lap or totally blows the start and fucks everybody up.

I reckon erbody had these same thoughts/concerns before their first reace. I need to just damn do it.

 

Check my times at Mylaps.com. I think you'll do just fine. They haven't chased me out of the paddock yet.

 

Thanks Jed

I actually do feel a whole lot better about the situation after talking to yall about it today. After using the search button and reading various threads covering this same subject, and after talking to yall today...i like the "brotherhood" atmosphere that i have seen. Like yall said, even the guy in last or the guy that gets lapped is still a racer.

 

Quoting John Fosgate:

"It's better to be a racer for a minute, than to be a spectator for a lifetime"

:up:

-jim