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Racing certification course.



Hello Fellow ST'ers,

I took a MRA Race Certification Course last weekend at Second Creek
Raceway in Denver.  This was the first time I had ever been on a race
track and I learned a lot!

The first day consisted of a classroom session where we talked about
rules, bike set up and riding techniques.  We were told that if we went
down we would fail the class and have to take it again.  I got home
around 11:00pm.

The next day we met at the track at 6:30am.  I can already tell the two
things that are going to keep me from becoming a professional racer.
Getting up at 4 am and refraining from drinking coffee!  (The instructor
told us to lay off the coffee.)  I did get up at 4am but the coffee
thing was too much for me!

A friend of mine who races a lot came with me to offer moral support and
help me with my bike as well as ride in the practice sessions they were
having that day.  At the end of the class there was to be a mock race,
but you had to have a steering damper on your bike to participate.  For
this reason I decided to take the course on one of his race bikes
instead of my Sprint.  My choices were a Kawaski KX 500 2-stroke set up
with racing slicks or a Yamaha SRX 500 4-stroke, old but fast for a
single.  (Around 60 HP!)  I chose the Yamaha, and brought my Sprint for
the practice session afterwards.  I was on the second smallest bike in
the class,  with the smallest being a Ninja 500 2 cylinder.  There were
a lot of R-6's, R-1's, F-4's and big V-twins as well but no Triumphs.
Basically their was a mix of everything.

First came Tech where we had to pass our bikes to ride on the track.  I
put both bikes through tech.  I taped the lights raised the muffler and
pulled off the center stand on my Sprint.  I was told that on any other
sanctioned track day I would also have to have a oil catch system in
place but today would be an exception.

They divided us into groups with 4 riders to an instructor and we
started off the class with no-brake practice,  basically riding the
track without using any brakes, to learn the corners.  After this we
were allowed to use brakes but were forbidden to use our rear brake as
we were told it would only get us into trouble.  We did a few other
riding exercises and ended up with mock starts and the race.  On the
last lap before the race some guy on a Buell about two riders behind me
locked up his rear wheel and went down in the middle of an s-turn.
Ouch! but he was OK.

They put me on the last row since I had one of the smallest bikes for
the race start.  The guy on the Ninja couldn't race because he didn't
have a damper so there went my competition!  I caught and passed a guy
on a 1000 who was holding me up and proceeded to catch up with another
guy on a 1000 before catching and passing him on the last lap!
Meanwhile the first 5 or six guys all lapped me!  Wow what a rush!  One
guy went down in the tightest corner on the track and they pulled out
the yellow flag.

After the race we were done and allowed on the track for open practice,
with one fast group and one slow group.  I was hoping for an extra slow
group!  The first time out on the Sprint I was feeling a little anxious
and was being passed like I was standing still.  I came into the pits
and stiffened up my suspension.  The second time out I felt much more
confident but still didn't have full trust in my tires,  as I was riding
the stock Bridgestones, but I did manage to pick up the pace
significantly.  I didn't scrape anything except the belly pan in one
corner when I bottomed out my suspension.  Riding the Sprint was a lot
different than riding the little single and took some adapting to.

All in all it was an unbelievable experience and I would recommend it to
anyone who wants to improve their riding or gain more knowledge about
racing.  It also helped me to become initiated to track etiquette so
next time I'll be more prepared.  The next day on the street I felt much
more confident (and sore!) of my abilities.  Well I hope I didn't bore
you all with this long winded post.

Kenny Roberts=20
Nederland, CO
'00 Sprint / Blue ( the only color at the track! )



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