N2 split from WERA?

My experience with the daughters of sheep shaggers differs, but then I never had to bring their fathers a sheep to distract them from my intentions with their daughters.

 

Good luck convincing the racer boomers that haven't been to a paddock in 10+ years that this is the case these days. You are spot on.

 

The part you have to realize with track days now, is that the majority of them never go racing.
Trackdays are a completely separate group of people that normally ride with one trackday group most of the time and it is just as much about that group of people as it is about riding.

 

The biggest issue when I encountered when I put a bigger tank on the bike (26 litre) was having riders who could maintain the lap times for such a long period. I was very appreciative of the bonus payout that the new endurance series provided. It was the ONLY time in 25+ years I actually came close to breaking even. A bigger tank was part of that but it wasn't 2500.

 

I realize. I do 40+ trackdays a year plus racing. Maybe if trackday orgs tried to get people to go racing, more people would. And they might just take their groups of friends with them. Regardless, people that go racing don’t stop doing trackdays.

People want MA to promote club racing because it’s the on ramp / feeder to MA. Trackdays can be / are a feeder to club racing.

 

Am I the oddity, started racing, lost pretty much all interest in track days?

 

No.

 

Since all the same topics come up over and over, is this when we bring relay endurance back into the discussion? Since all of a sudden we're trying to save money on endurance racing costs...why even waste money with a dry break?

 

I started motorcycle road racing in '92 with a WERA school in April. I'd done a CSS day at Watkins Glen (of all places) in '91 and, much to my surprise, was 3d-4th fastest by the end of the day. That lead me to think I could actually race a motorcycle and bought a used FZR400 over the winter. I wasn't aware of any track days and my FJ1200 street bike would've been scary in any event. I never finished better than 5th my first year, mostly in two and three wave races, but in my second year I was winning novice races and by the end of the season, chasing the experts from the first wave. I'd previously raced karts for 10 years, so switching to 2 wheels wasn't a stretch, but the learning curve that fosr year was pretty steep.

I didn't do any track days until I returned to motorcycles in 2020, after not having ridden one since '03. As a more "mature" rider, I was mostly ignored as I tried to remember how to ride fast, and I never felt like I fit in with the "track day" mentality or social scene, so I started racing again in 2020 (but, to be fair, I had raced cars for 8-9 years) . Other than as part of a race weekend or when visiting a track new to me, I haven't done track days since and probably never will. I much prefer the honesty of the stop watch and finishing order, to the track day esthetic as I experienced it. But I'm a racer, and have always been a racer even when I took time off from racing. I can appreciate that there are people who enjoy riding on a track but who don't want to be tested every time they ride.

 

I raced (dirt cars and bikes) a few years many many moons ago, life happened (job, wife, kids) and racing fell out of favor. Kids gone, career settled, wife does not care if I kill myself, so I got back into dirt racing for several years but got priced out of racing about 10 years ago... about three years ago, a buddy and I were drinking a few scotches and looking at our FTRs and thought why could we not have a little fun before we time out and go hooligan racing... so, we worked the bikes over and looked MA Super Hooligan rules... no way we would be able to qualify with our mostly stock bikes, it seems to have turned into a profession racing series.

So, we looked for something else, did several track days with a TD group two years ago. We told them we wanted to race in the near future, so we wanted to get some experience/practice in order to enter WERA and ASRA racing the next year. That seemed to turn them off and not care whether we showed up or not... they took every opportunity to discourage us... hmm, they will not get my money in the future.

So, fast forward to this year, we did Ed Bargery Race School last December (following Ed around the track seeing the lines and braking points was worth the price) like everybody recommended, applied for WERA and ASRA license, and showed up for some races... We did not get to race all the events we wanted but we had a lot of fun at the ones we were able to attend.... we wished we had thought to go race several years ago...

Sorry for the long story, all this to say, I would love to consider racing in endurance, would be hard with the bikes we have, so sprint races will likely be our fix... would consider doing track days for more track time but with so many races offered, real race experience is the best way to get race experience, so racing will take precedence. For all the expert racers, this may not be needed, but it would be nice to have a TD on the Friday before racing on the weekend such that the first practice it not my first time on the track. I did take advantage of that when they were available.

The WERA folks were great at every event and the racers were very good about helping out (and a big thank you to Sean for being patient with all my questions this year).

 

People such as yourself that do both trackdays and racing regularly are the exception, not the rule. Less than 10% of our customers at our events are active racers. The rest just want to ride.

 

I think most people who race use track days to stay fresh, test parts, and practice. It's often hard to get a clean lap in.

 

Relay blows....

I understand why it's there but I think there needs to be more incentive to moveaway from relay. Stop giving them purse money. Give them a dry break or maybe certs to a company that makes dump cans.

 

I can't speak for other orgs, but we do promote racing a fair bit, from many aspects. I have a drawer in my RV with WERA literature in it, and we do several race licensing clinics over the course of a year for the people that want it.

I also like to remind people that a trackday is not a race... if you want to race, go race. Don't do it at a trackday.

 

Which relay team hurt you?

There's people bitching about track day riders. People bitching about big gas tanks. Bitching about all these things that aren't drawing people into the endurance scene...so they use the relay class to get those people to attend the endurance weekends and participate...and you're still bitching

 

I think its when the relay teams pretend that they are actually competing against the endurance teams. And all the complaining last year before the Pitt round.

 

Everyone I know from trackday riding has been interested and follows professional racing of one sort or another. I didn't get into track riding until I was well into my 50's. Thought I get a race license then watched the "senior" guys go...Change the rules to "have to be on social security" and I might have a slim chance... In any case I still get my speed fix in and I don't give 2 fux about getting a license anymore. Just my personal story, the way things worked out. Different time, different situation and things could have been different. I don't see any reason for one type of track riding to dump on the other.

 

I think the relay thing is pretty cool. It's not something I had really ever thought of, but when they launched it, I was like heck yeah. That's pretty cool! To me, being able to ride you own bike is the best part.,

 

For me, I love to be on track on two wheels. In order of desire it goes racing > member days > kart mini member days > track days.

 

I stopped doing TD's instantly after picking up racing. But my goal was always to race, Only did a few trackdays before racing.