We have all heard it many times before: “you don’t need coaching, just find someone to follow and do what they do” or “why waste money on coaching when you can figure most of that stuff out on your own?”, or even “you’re not fast enough yet to need coaching, keep on working on it solo until you get all of the easy stuff figured out and THEN get some coaching for the hard stuff”.
While many people do use these approaches and turn out “just fine” as riders, these approaches are absolutely the worst way to go about becoming a better rider on the track. Regardless of whether you’re goal is to become the next MotoA star or just enjoy some low stress trackdays where you can enjoy your motorcycle in a safe environment, the sooner you seek out higher education, be it coaching or a school, the better. In fact, I would say the BEST time to take a school or seek out coaching would be your first time at the track.
I’ve come at this opinion through 31 years of racing, 25 years of coaching and 7 years of running my own school. Along the way, I’ve helped thousands of riders improve their craft. Trying to learn how to ride fast and safe on a race track without any instruction has been proven to be the path that leads to the slowest progress, the biggest mistakes and the highest percentage of riders that end up quitting sport after a very short time. When you approach the sport “blind” with no guidance, you are almost guaranteed to end up making multiple painful/costly mistakes, any of which can potentially put you into hospital or worse, plus you are certain to pick up several bad habits along the way. Bad habits take a LOT more effort and time to “unlearn” than it takes to simply learn the right way from the start.
Years ago, figuring it out on your own wasn’t an option. When I started racing in the 90’s, the current concept of “trackday” did not exist. If you wanted to ride your motorcycle on a race track, you had to take a school and get your race license. Yes, there were “tune and test” days where you could ride without racing, but they all required that you hold a competition license to ensure that you had at least a basic understanding of the minimum rules and techniques for riding safely. This lead to an overall much safer experience than we find present day because everyone that was out there had received proper education on how to get around a racetrack safely and efficiently.
When the modern trackdays, where you didn’t need a race license to ride started, there were some sketchy things going on in the early years where riders with no idea what they were doing were going out there and getting badly hurt (or hurting others) as they tried to “figure it out”. Eventually, the TD orgs all figured out they needed to have separate groups for the novices with restrictions on passing and most also started offering a “novice orientation” where at least some of the most basic safety rules and techniques were taught.
This system, while a big improvement over the chaos of the early TDs, still leaves a large gap in rider education that the riders are left to figure out on their own. This results in riders spending a lot of time and money going around in circles, learning very slowly. While they are doing this, any bad habits they have picked up are now being repeated and reinforced, so even when the rider eventually realizes they have a bad habit to fix, it now becomes very difficult to change the behavior due to how long it’s been reinforced.
The answer to this is to seek out instruction as early as possible in your track riding/racing journey. By taking proper race school or seeking out a qualified coach in the beginning, you virtually eliminate the risk of picking up bad habits, while greatly improving the rate at which you learn and your safety while doing so. A good school will explain the techniques in a classroom setting where you have time to ask questions and clarify anything you’re not understanding and then go out and work on that specific technique in the next session. They also use a progressive “crawl, walk, jog, run” approach with a very slow, controlled pace in the early sessions that gradually increases every session, so you don’t get overwhelmed by more experienced riders blasting by you at 130mph when you are going slow, trying to figure things out.
If you don’t take a school, working with a qualified coach can also be a huge help. While most coaches don’t spend as much time on the classroom style education, the benefit of having an experienced racer giving you feedback, showing you lines and answering your questions every session is invaluable. There may not be quite as much information thrown at you as there is in a school, but the 1 on 1 aspect makes up for a lot of that.
Coaching is also a great help after you’ve been riding a while and start to hit some plateaus. Our progress in most things, especially riding on the track, tends not to be linear. Instead we tend to have periods of rapid progress where we are actively learning new things, followed by plateaus where we are repeating and refining the things we have learned, improving consistency and confidence. Sometimes we get stuck in these plateaus and cannot figure out what the next thing we need to improve is. This is where working with an experienced coach can be very beneficial. The coach will not only provide an outside perspective that may clearly see what you are missing, but more often than not, the coach likely has already gone through the exact same plateau as you earlier in their riding journey, so will be able to give specific advice on how to break through to the next level.
Regardless of your experience level, seeking out higher education in the form of a school and/or private coaching, is the single best return on your investment you can get in this sport. All of the motor work, suspension work or bling in the world won’t help your lap times if you have bad lines or are failing at any of the other basic fundamentals. When yo invest in your education, you gain knowledge that you can apply to any bike and any track. This knowledge stays with you forever and also makes it easier for you to gain even more knowledge. Just like building a house, you want to start off with a solid foundation before you start building up. In track riding/racing, it is imperative to get the basics locked down first before you start adding in more advanced techniques. Taking a school or hiring a coach is not only the best way to ensure you have the basics down, but it’s also the best way to break through to the next level and build your skillset even higher.
Mark Morrow
We offer 4-5 schools every year, mostly at Roebling Road Raceway in GA and also offer private coaching at any track. Check out our website for more information about both and get signed up for some higher education!
