Riding a track day has become more popular among road riders. It is a great way to learn new skills in a safe (yes I said safe) environment. You do ride a lot faster, but there are no cars, trucks, riders riding in the opposite direction. There are strict riding rules that everyone follows or gets kicked out. There are track monitors along the course so you are forewarned of upcoming safety hazards. If you run off the track, usually you just run into grass. If you do crash, ambulances are on-site. It is super fun riding faster. You would think that it is totally boring riding ~ 2mi of a raceway over and over again, but it isn’t. You will learn so much and break bad habits. Once you get back on the streets, you will feel like you are doing everything in slow motion; difficult curves are easier to handle, and you do become a much better rider. Riding then becomes easier and even more fun. Everyone wants to improve their riding skills, even the pros, and you’ll get high rewards improving your skills in a track day.
We discovered track days a few years ago. Mike had been riding all his life and had raced flat track when he was a young adult, but I took up riding later in life. After a few years of both of us riding, we took two different motorcycle skills classes: Ride Like a Pro and Total Control Riding Clinic. Both were taught in a parking lots. After a couple of more years of riding, we both still wanted to improve our riding skills. We got started riding track days after we had read Reg Pridmore’s Smooth Riding the Pridmore Way (which I highly recommend for learning good riding techniques). Reg Pridmore, former AMA racing champion, runs a track motorcycle school known as CLASS. CLASS was designed to use the track to teach road riders better riding skills. It is an excellent way to start out with track riding. There was plenty of classroom time for track beginners (like me in the Novice class), plenty of riding time (30 min sessions per hour) and the first session or two was fairly mild, great for letting the nerves settle. Instruction was based on Reg’s book. On the track, instructors worked with both of us improving our technique and general riding inadequacies.
One of the things we learned at CLASS was proper braking technique. We believe to be prepared for the vehicle, deer, dog, etc., that unexpectedly lurches in front of you, it is important to continue to practice emergency braking. We practice whenever we are on a 4-lane highway with no other traffic. The rider in the front initiates emergency braking. The rider in the back in an adjacent lane then tries to come to a stop before reaching the rider in the front. Then we switch positions and continue practicing. Knowing how to handle the braking limits of one’s motorcycle has come in handy many times.
Unfortunately the CLASS home base is California, so it only shows up on the east coast at most once a year. We wanted to ride track days more often and found Performance Riding Experience (PRE). PRE runs track sessions at four of the motorcycle tracks close to our location. PRE focuses more on track riding. Track sessions are 20 min for each class (Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced), and sessions run all day (9 am to 5 pm) except during the one hour lunch break. Guide riders ride in Novice and Intermediate rider sessions and help riders learn the lines of the track (entry, apex, exit points of each curve), improve riding technique, body positioning and other skills. They also make sure you are having fun and by the end of the day, riders are tired but happy. In addition, a photographer takes photos of all sessions, and you can look at your photos on-line to check out your riding technique and to purchase any photos where you look great!
In November, 2017, we rode a new track, Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, AL, with a new track group, Sport Bike Track Time. Our experience and photos from Barber are also included in this post.
Here is a list of things that you will need to do to prepare you and your bike for track days:
1.Study the web site of the track you are attending and the track group that will carry out the track sessions. Each track and track group has similar but not identical requirements for bike prep and rider prep. Read the information on flags (e.g., when yellow, red, or checkered flags are flown while you are riding on the track, what does that mean?) The instructors will go over a lot of information before you start to ride, and it is hard to remember everything that morning.
In addition, the track and track group web sites will inform you of accommodations for overnight stay and food. Some like PRE offer free camping in the Paddock.
2. Expect to start out in the Novice group. The guide riders/instructors will bump you up if you are riding at the level of Intermediate or Advance.
3. Study the track group’s web site for information on bike preparation. Some track groups require removal of antifreeze and some don’t. Bike prep may also be different depending on the rider’s group level. Note the percentage of tire wear allowed. It is best to start out with fairly new tires. Your bike must pass inspection before riding on the track. If it doesn’t pass, you don’t ride.
4. Follow the rules of the track group for riding gear. Rider gear may also differ depending on rider’s group level. For example, a back protector may not be required for the Novice level but may be required for Intermediate and Advanced. Most track groups require leather one or two piece suits and if two piece, a 360° zipper attachment. Specific types of gloves, boots and helmets will also be required. If you don’t have the required gear, and don’t want to purchase everything, many track groups will recommend rider gear rentals. For PRE, Trackside Gear attends every event and rents and sells riding gear. Your riding gear must pass inspection before you can ride on the track. If your gear does not pass, you don’t ride.
Track days that we have ridden since Oct 2017 are described below. I will continue to add to this Track Days post as we ride different tracks and/ or ride with different groups. See the list of track days that have been added below. If you are interested in track days, check back to this post every few months.
List of Track Days that we have ridden since Oct 2017 and track days we plan to ride:
- PRE at Carolina Motorsports Park, Kershaw, NCSC – October 2017
- STT at Barber Motorsports Park and Raceway, Birmingham, AL – November 2017
- PRE at Virginia International Raceway, North and South courses, Alton, VA – July 2018
- PRE at NC Bike, Garysburg, NC – August 2018
- PRE at Carolina Motorsports Park, Kershaw, SC – October 2018
- PRE at Carolina Motorsports Park, Kershaw, SC – October 2017
We completed two track days with PRE at Carolina Motorsports Park (CMS). The 2.279 mi motorcycle racecourse has no elevation gains, 14 turns, is in pretty good shape has great track worker support and is totally entertaining. When riding with PRE at CMS, camp sites are free but it costs $25.00 per night for 30 amp electricity. Most people in RVs or tents get their power with generators. There is also a day garage that can be rented out. A snack bar sells breakfast and excellent sandwiches for lunch. PRE always has a meet and greet Saturday nights. Check out their web site for more info. I am always impressed with the helpfulness of the very skilled PRE Guide Riders; they are really interested in helping you get to the next skill level and will happily ride in front or in back of you and help you all day if you ask. Most riders at PRE track days ride sport bikes.
Other Pictures taken at CMS
After the track days weekend at CMP, we stay over at the KOA Charlotte/Fort Mill. It is quiet; the bathrooms are clean, and there is a Publix with other shops close by. It is an easy on/off I-77.
2. STT at Barber Motorsports Park and Raceway, Birmingham, AL – November 2017
We traveled to Birmingham, AL to ride two track days with the track days group Sportbike Track Time (STT). This was the first time we rode with STT and the first time riding at Barber Motorsports Park. We parked and camped in the paddock at the raceway.
There are a few idiosyncrasies that we wished we had known before visiting the raceway:
Check with Barber Motorsports Park to find out when you can get into the raceway. If there is an event on the day of your arrival, no one new will be able to enter until the track has been cleared for the day which will be around 5 pm. We arrived before 5 pm and were directed to a parking lot (Parking Lot G). We then waited until a guard showed up at 5:30 pm and he directed us to registration.
Before being allowed into the raceway, you will have to register. You will drive to the Porsche school building just in front of the raceway entrance gates. You will park your vehicle as directed by a Barber parking attendant, and register at one of the booths in the building. The Barber support crew will first register the STT workers. We had to stand in line for about 30 min and wait until all STT personnel had registered. Then track day riders were allowed to register. This is very important: you must pay cash to pay for camping fees (~$40.00/night) and electricity ($35.00/night, but you could instead use a generator to skip the electricity fee). You will then be given a receipt to display in your windshield and a wristband that you must keep on the entire length of your visit.
After registration, you will show your receipts to the guard at the raceway entrance gate and then drive to the paddock area. The paddock area has three camping areas on three levels (Tier 1, 2, and 3). There is also parking (no camping) on Tier 4, the highest level. Tiers 2 and 3 have electricity. Tiers 1 and half of Tier 2 (the half closest to the track) do not. There are no water/sewer hook ups.
There are bathrooms with showers on Tiers 2 and 3. There are 4 showers per building for men, but only one shower per bathroom building for women. The bathrooms are very clean, but it takes about 10 min to get the water hot in the showers and then the water is sort of lukewarm. There are also plenty of bathrooms in the building closest to the track on Tier 1. I’m not sure if there are showers in any of the bathrooms there though. We parked on Tier 3, and liked it. It had a great view of the track and paddock area and it was a little more quiet. We did have to walk a little further to get to meetings and classes though, but we like walking.
We only rode Sat and Sun. However, we could stay three nights (Fri, Sat, and Sun) since STT was running track days Sat, Sun, and Mon. It was nice not having to rush to pack up and leave after our last session on Sunday. If STT had not run the Monday sessions we would have had to leave after the last Sunday session.
There is a food truck that opens early and closes around 3 pm. They serve typical grill type food. I didn’t eat there, but Mike ate lunch there and said they were super fast and had pretty okay food. The truck was on the 2nd Tier.
The sequence of riders for the sessions is Intermediate, Advanced, then Novice. If you are Intermediate, go to the mandatory morning meeting (at 8:20 am) in your leathers because you will have to get on the track soon after the meeting. If you are Novice, there will be a class directly after the mandatory morning meeting. Then there will be classes after each Novice track session for the first part of the day.
It will take time to learn the curves of the track. I did best learning it by following the guide riders to learn the lines and then studying a map of the track in between sessions. The STT guide riders are very professional and helpful but you have to ask them for help. I asked for help especially on the first day, and my guide rider bent over backwards to help me. It seemed that unless you were doing something drastically wrong, they wouldn’t bother you. Once you learn the track and its lines, it will still test your abilities but will be fun!
We both are looking forward to a return to Barber with STT. It is a beautiful challenging track with an amazing unique paddock setup. As far as we know STT is the only track group that runs track days on this raceway.
In addition, plan a full day before or after your track sessions and go to the Barber Motorsports Park Museum. It is open from 10 am to 5 pm. If you get there between 10 am and 11 am, the bridge over the raceway will be open and you can walk out over the raceway. We went on the Monday after our Sat and Sun track days, and STT was having a track day that Monday so we got to watch our peers ride portions of the raceway. It was fun because we knew the difficulty level of the curves. It looked a lot easier when watching!
There are tons of motorcycles and cars in the museum, and even if you take a complete day to see them, you will not have been able to catch all of them. The museum only has vending machines for food so you can leave to get lunch and return if you show your receipt at the entrance.
In addition, if you are leaving late and don’t want to make the entire return trip to your home on the day you leave, there is a good KOA in Georgia off I-59. It is a few hours drive from Barber Motorsports Park. The address is 930 Mountain Shadows Drive, Trenton, GA 30752 (423)661-7655.
3. PRE at Virginia International Raceway (VIR), North and South courses, Alton, VA – July 2018
South Course – The South Course at VIR is a 1.6 mi track with elevation changes and full of curves with one long downhill straight-a-way. (See South Course map under Configurations at the VIR web site.) This course was a workout to ride but totally fun and constantly interesting. The PRE guide rides were as usual very friendly and very helpful. We will definitely be returning to ride the South Course.
There is no electricity (well two outlets that will already be in use) in the paved paddock area so bring a generator. There are clean restrooms but the only showers are outdoors but fully enclosed with cement floors and are separate from the bathrooms. There is an indoor classroom, and vending machines for sodas and unhealthy snacks.
North Course – The North Course is 2.3 miles, has elevation changes, curves and straight-a-ways. It is a great course for a novice to begin track days episodes. (See the North Course map under Configurations at the VIR web site.) The North Course paved paddock area is large, with 50 Amp hook ups, has clean bathrooms with showers and a snack bar for breakfast and lunch. There is a store that sells shirts, tire pressure gauges etc, but it is not open on weekends. There is very expensive gas also available in the paddock area. VIR maintains a very nice setup at the North Course.
4. NCBike, Garysburg, NC with P.R.E. – August 11-12, 2018 and September 8-9, 2018
NC Bike is a track located at the North Carolina Center for Automotive Research (NCCAR) facility. NCCAR is an independent non-profit research center for automotive research.
Several other track day groups besides Performance Riding Experience (P.R.E.) use this track for their track days but so far we have preferred staying involved with P.R.E. P.R.E. has excellent advanced guide riders for all riding levels and those guide riders have really helped us improve our riding skills. The group encourages safety first, and the atmosphere at the track is very welcoming, fun and friendly. Plus gate fees, camping fees, electricity (when available) are free.
The 2.0 mi track at NCBike is totally flat. There are no blind curves. Each apex is marked with a sign that has a big red dot. The turn-in and exit points of each curve are marked with orange cones. The track is very wide (~40 ft). See www.n2td.org (NCBike/ N2 Track Days) to find a map of the track. You will be curving and twisty yourself all around the track, no places to rest. There is one straight-away for major acceleration and braking practice. Most riders say the track wears them out since it is such a workout but the track is also a great place to practice body position, looking through the curves, etc. According to the guide riders, there are several lines that can be taken for many of the curves. It is a matter of finding the line that works best for each rider. Being a novice rider, I am a stickler for trying to follow the guide riders’ lines. And, I did notice that different guide riders had different lines for certain curves. Now if I could just follow them exactly…. LOL.
There are some unique features of the NC Bike set up that are nice to know before you get there:
The paddock parking lot, where most of the RVs park, is gravel only. Most RVs park in the gravel lot close to an electrical hook-up and close to the street that leads to the track. There is a drainage ditch between the paddock parking lot and the street, but the ditch stays fairly dry and drains quickly after a hard rain.
It is best to set up a canopy on the street and keep the bikes, lawn chairs, fan, tire warmers, etc. under the canopy. Make sure you have a long extension cord that can traverse the ditch from the electrical outlet to the canopy.
Other items that were nice to have under the canopy were a six pack cooler for water and other drinks, a small brush to brush wet grass off our boots, and a spray bottle filled with water. We stayed cool by spraying water on our torsos then catching the wind from our fan and while riding.
We hung out under the canopy most of the day when riding sessions were underway then retired to the air conditioned RV for lunch. There is a hot dog stand for lunch but selection is limited to hot dogs and BBQ sandwiches.
There were two porta-johns set up in the paddock parking lot. Not many people used them. Most of the guys walked across the street into the woods (between the street and track) to relieve themselves during the day. There are nice bathrooms with showers in the main air conditioned NCCAR building. This building is about a quarter of a mile from the paddock parking lot and takes about 5 min of walking time to get to it. Most people rode their paddock motorcycle (i.e., Honda Grom) or pedal bicycle to the building to use the bathrooms/showers. We walked and that was pretty hot and tiring in the middle of the day. It is always nice to get a walk in between sessions though. The bathrooms and the one shower are clean and work very well. Hot water after a long day on the track feels great.
If you want to become a better rider on the road or at the track, the best way to do it is to take advantage of the guide riders. The P.R.E. guide riders are the best in the business. They will show you how to easily improve all aspects of your riding. If you think you are a good rider and don’t need their help you will never improve. Going around the track quickly will not help you become faster, and it probably will cause you to crash. If you take the guide riders’ advice, you will learn how to control your bike in ways you never thought possible and become a faster, more fluid rider with great looking body position as a result.
Motorcyle Routes from M&M's RV 
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