First time to track? Read this first.

[Raptor]

The Instructor’s Point of View

 

Extracted from Roadracing World 2007 Track Day Directory

 

They spend years on the track, shepherding flock after flock of new track day and school riders through their first-ever miles on the course.

 

In those years, and thousands of miles, they have seen it all: Brilliant newcomers who take to the track like duck to water, nervous novices who try it once and never come back, and the truly talented who – through some silly or unfortunate mistakes – who managed to scare themselves or toss their bikes down the road.

 

They are the ones standing in front of the classroom, teaching new riders how to exit and enter the course and the proper line through Turn Two. They are the ones riding wingman for the novice, watching and noting what the new rider is doing well and what they are doing poorly, storing it all away for the post ride debriefing.

 

They are the ones who drive the newbie nuts when they go around the outside the new ride, riding with one hand on the bars and gesticulating with the other – rather a brutal reality check for the new rider’s ego. And if something goes wrong, they are often first on the scene, and they’re the ones who remember what happened.

 

They’re the instructors.

 

Roadracing World tracked down a couple of folks who have spent years on the track following track day newbies and trying to make better riders out of them. This is what you look like to them.

 

Curt Utegg

Curt Utegg, 41, of Corry, Pennsylvania, is the advanced group instructor for Fasttrax, a riding school / track day / race organization with operations that centre at Nelson Ledges Road Course in Ohio.

 

The most common blunder Utegg sees among the new track day riders and first timers is trying to do too much, too soon, especially, as he says, with the latest crop of 1000cc machines on the market.

 

“New riders all too often ride over their heads. The ego is just absolutely scary especially when its let loose on a new, powerful litre bike. They just want to go out there and show everyone how fast they are and its hard to get them to learn something, to get them out of that mindset. We really keep them in check. We are riding behind them throughout the day. Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast – that’s an absolute fact.”

 

The problem. Utegg says, is that it’s a ball to pin the throttle on a 160 horsepower bike and rocket down the straights. But a Yamaha YZF-R1 on the throttle stop makes the corners arrive very quickly – sometimes more quickly than the rider realizes.

 

“They are riding with the hair on the back of their necks standing up, hauling from corner to corner. Things are happening too fast, they are not thinking… they are reacting. Don’t get me wrong…that’s a cool buzz, but you’re not going to learn anything riding like that. They think, I’m on the race track, I wanna go fast. But racers know that they learn the track first, then go fast”.

 

His advice?

 

“Take an actual school first. You will have advantage of having gone to the track, you have some idea of what is happening. And it can change your perspective – it plants the seed that you need to go out and learn the track before you can go fast. It eliminates the idea that you can just go out and blast from corner to corner. You can do that, but you’re not having a lot of fun. You’re missing out on a lot”.

 

The worst part of the job, Utegg says, is the crashing, not his but the students.

 

“People get nervous, or their ego kick in and you hate to see someone come out and spend the money and then throw their bikes down” Utegg says.

 

But those experiences are offset by the joy of watching someone listen, apply what he is trying to teach them and become a better rider – all in the space of a few short hours. It’s the satisfaction of seeing someone learn something that might save their life.

 

Todd Robinson

Todd Robinson, 39, splits his time between setting up his new online retail store in Idaho and running the TrackXperience events at tracks on the West Coast.

 

“The biggest obstacle to peoples’ learning ability is the loss of focus – they get stressed or get sucked into riding over their heads,” Robins says. “Once they get stressed out, nothing else will get imprinted. We can work with people who have incorrect assumptions, or even with the people who have attitude challenges – those who think they are God’s gift to two wheels- we can straighten them out. But that lack of focus, that fear level, that’s the killer out there.

 

To de-emphasize that, the school takes steps to encourage students to ignore things like lap times.

 

“We’ve had riders come out for the school with lap timers and we tell them to turn it off – take it off” Robinson says. “Focusing on a single metric-lap times- its one of the worst things you can do. Now, instead of hitting your braking or turning markers or concentrating on making clean passes, you’re focusing on one element and it’s the wrong thing.”

 

For the new rider, Robinson offers “Uncle Todd’s common sense – get a good night’s sleep. That has cost more people more lack of focus over the years I can tell you.”

 

Sleep and a mental adjustment are the most critical tools to enjoying your first track experience.

 

“Come with the right mindset – like you are going to have a friend teach you a new mountain road. You’re going to be open to information, have your ego in check. Those who are the most successful are the ones to have the maturity to submit your ego to the greater process.”

 

Robinson knows what happens when the ego gets in the way.

 

“I’ve had one crash in seven years” he admits. “I was chasing a staffer who was chasing (racer) Jason Curtis. I should know better. It was a learning lesson for me – I was hanging onto my ego, saying I could hang with them”.