So yesterday was the school. Basically the way it works is you pay Brian (the instructor) $200. You come to the track. He pays for your track day, you use his bikes, his fuel, etc… All you have to do is show up, learn, ride, and that’s it. The track is basically a full size GoKart track. I'm talking real shifter karts, not these snails at places like K1. But it's also home to a lot of SuperMoto riding. SM is more geared toward tight, technical riding, so a GoKart track is perfect for them. They built a small dirt section in the infield with a few jumps and run alternating sessions: Karts - Bikes running in the dirt - bikes on asphalt only (there were a few guys on small GP style 250's riding there, those things are pretty quick there too)
So we start out like any riding school, going over basics of getting on and off the track, house rules, etc... Then get into the techniques of riding a SM bike. All of us there were either sportbike street riders, a couple were WERA racers, and a couple were street guys with some dirt experience. I can tell you, these things go against everything you've ever learned in any discipline of riding. Especially sport bike riding. It's literally backwards from everything you know. The first thing you do when you approach a turn is jump on the front brakes (like normal) bang down all your gears (5th down to either 3rd or 2nd depending on what turn you’re entering) all at once, let the clutch out and use the engine braking as rear brake (no rev matching) shift your ass as far forward on the bike as you can and shift one cheek off to the
outside of the bike, stick out your inside foot, and push the bike under you with your inside arm (counter steering) bending the outside arm a ton and the inside arm is slightly bent (only so you're not tight and locked on the bars) roll through the turn, roll onto the throttle and pick up the bike out of the corner. The rear of the bike tends to get very light and like to get a little out of line entering the turns. You have to learn to let it. As you tip it into the turn, things will line up.
So all this to try and learn to do on the asphalt, right? Then after 2 sessions, he says, “OK, time to really ride supermoto and go into the dirt.”
That I wasn’t really enjoying. I’ve ridden a dirt bike on a race track. You have limited grip in the dirt compared to a sportbike even when you have the right tires on the bike. But Dunlop Q2’s in super fluffy 2” deep dirt!!!! For the dirt you don’t even touch the front brake, use all rear brake, pull in the clutch to go around the turns, and just absolutely bably the throttle as you let out the clutch slowly to get turned. Then you’ve got 2 small jumps in front of you! Then you have to do it all again to the left, and now you have 2, 3 foot high table tops in front of you! Lol Then after you get out of the dirt, now you have dirty street tires on a hot asphalt track that you’re trying to get 45º+ lean angles. I was actually surprised how much grip the dirty tires actually had and how only 1 turn in each direction completely cleaned them up to full grip. I almost lost it 3 times in 2 sessions in the dirt section. Once tucking the front and twice the rear was coming around hard. After that, I stuck with the asphalt only sessions. Luckily out of 7 guys, some much more experienced riders, I was the only one who didn’t hit the deck. But then again, I’m also the only one who stopped riding in the dirt too. Lol.
After about 80 laps total, I was done. Neck was sore, I was beat, I started making little mistakes and decided to pack it in before I make a big mistake. So I changed clothes and pulled out my camera and started taking pictures along with Brian. Here’s some pics Brian got of me and some I took of the other riders.
Sheesh.
