So you want to race?

—Alan Spurgeon
from September 1999 BRMC News

Here I sit at the racing school trying to get my license to race motorcycles in Washington. What was I thinking? It all started in January when the club went to the motorcycle show in Seattle. I had not even really thought about racing. I had not even been to a race. So as I was walking through the booths there was the Washington Motorcycle Road Racing Association (WMRRA) booth. They had a large sign advertising for corner workers. You get right up to the action and get in free the sign said. Hmm, I thought that could be fun. I looked at the table for literature and a tall well built gentleman asked if he could help..."Hmm, well yes you can," I said.

I left the booth with lots of literature and thought that corner working sounded like fun. Buried in the literature was the evil seed, their newsletter. A few days later I was reading the exploits of a racer and a turn-by-turn description of a race he was in. My heart pounded as I rode right along with him in my mind. I kept reading through the newsletter and came across the classified. Gosh there were lots of bikes for sale. The spark lit.

I contacted a friend at work who races and told him that I was interested and what was involved. Luckily he ran the beginner (novice) training class for the club. You can not race without first completing a safety class and of course you need a race ready bike.

I asked what kind of bike I should start with and he listed a few. There was a 1990 Yamaha FZR-400 for sale in the newsletter for $2,000(US). My friend said that bike was pretty good for a first bike. I contacted the seller and went to see the bike. I found the house and John showed me the bike.

He had several race bikes and was selling the bike to get new parts for a bike he was building. He started it up. Well, first he had to arc the starter relay to get it to start. It breathed to life like a wild banshee out of hell. "Damn, that thing is loud," I thought.

It ends up the bike has only been used on the race track, never on the street. The first owner raced it and it has been passed from racer to racer since. They jokingly call it the club whore bike. Now I was going to buy it. This was the bike; I picked it up the next day.

To get a license you have to complete a two-day class. One day is spent in a class room going over bike safety, track safety and racing. The second day is two weeks later on a race track. This gives the riders time to prepare their bike. I signed up for the class and paid my dues and paid $1100 for a new set of racing leathers. Think of the leather investment as cheap medical insurance.

Now to tell Jay. Needless to say he was not amused nor very happy about these turn of events.

So the classroom portion went slow as most do. It was interesting to note that there were 20 individuals in the class and earlier in the year they had a class graduate with 40 people in it!

So here I sit on Saturday at the race track. It is lunch time and I am sick to my stomach. The morning did not go well. I am terrified. This morning I arrived in time to get my bike inspected. All bikes are inspected before they can get on the track. It is important to the safety of all riders that all bikes meet a minimum safety standard. This includes safety wiring bolts, removing glass and plastic, not allowing anti-freeze in water-cooled bikes (slippery as hell I'm told) plus a whole host of other things. I passed the inspection with the exception of needing my oil fill cap safety wired. Oops!

So we start out, everyone in their leathers (oh yes), doing practice stops and maneuvering around cones. This was the first time I had ridden my bike and needed the experience. However midway through I noticed that some jerk’s bike was spewing water all over the course and had to keep maneuvering to get away from it. Then an instructor told me to kill my engine as some fluid was pouring from my bike. Shit!

It ends up that the bike was getting hot and this was just overflow. Since we can't use anti-freeze we are allowed to use WaterWetter. This is a product that raises the boiling point of the water and protects the engine. So they let me back on the course and complete the warm up.

When racing, ideally, you are pitted against riders on similar bikes. On this day the club had planned to do the same thing. However the other 400 cc bike did not show up and they placed me with 600 cc bikes. I did not realize what this exactly meant for me.

We are broken up into groups of four novice riders with an instructor in front and one in the back. The idea is you follow the lead instructor, watching what he does, and the one in back critiques your moves. So we got out onto the track.

This is my first time on the track with my bike and I did not know what was going to happen. The first lap was a slow one getting everyone used to the track. Then we started in on getting our lap time faster and faster. The track has a long straight away then a big wide turn to the left, then a series of S turns, then a sharp chicane (125 degree turn), and then a turn back onto the straight away.

Well, after the first lap I never saw the lead instructor or the other 600 cc bikes again. OK. That is not true. I did see them as they passed me like I was sitting still every lap! My 1990 400 cc bike was no match to those 1999 600 cc brand-spanking-new bikes.

I just could not imagine buying a new race bike and getting it set up for racing, even though you had never raced before. One thing the club instructors beat into you is that a good race day is not winning but simply leaving the track with a working bike. I would not want to drop one of those new bikes.

Anyway, back to the track. Here I am in 6th gear at 14,000 RPM and these guys are flying past me. The instructor behind me is trying to get me to go faster but the bike just don't have it. "Cap’n, she is go’n as fast as she can!"

My heart is beating wildly. The instructor pulls me off the course and gives me some tips. He realizes that I am out gunned with these 600 cc bikes. He tells me that I need to hang my butt off the seat and to go faster in the turns. I look at him like he is crazy: faster?

I tell him that I have not ridden the bike before and don't know when the tires will let go. He laughs and says at these slow speeds those tires are not going anywhere.

We get back on the track and he signals me to follow him. We enter the big sweeping Turn 1 and he points to his ass which is hanging off the bike. "Nice leathers," I think. I hang slightly off the seat, nervous. We go around the track and he indicates I need to go faster through the turn, and to do that I must hang off the bike to counter centrifugal force.

The next time through the turn I hang off a little more, my knee is screaming that it wants out of this, and when I come out of the turn I miss a gear and almost lose the bike. Well we are called off the course for lunch.

Lunch was a bad idea. I can now think about what I am doing and I feel sick. The worse part is there is no one to really talk to. I don't know anyone there. This sucks. I should just pack up and leave. I try to calm down. Take deep breaths and close my eyes and force myself to relax. I start to feel better.

Soon a guy comes up to me on a VFR-800fi, the same bike I ride on the street. He says that he is going to be my personal instructor for the day. We talk a bit about the VFR and I start to feel more comfortable. It is time to get back out on the track and he says he will follow me to see what I am doing.

We do this a couple of laps and he pulls us over. He says I need to hang off the bike more but that is not the problem. The real problem is that I am concentrating just in front of the bike. I need to look further out. He says that when I enter a turn I should be looking at the exit point. Now this is pretty much what we are told in all those rider courses we have taken over the years and I thought that was what I was doing.

So we get back out on the track and I decide to just go for it. We reach Turn 1 and I look at the exit of the turn, twist the throttle, and hang my fat ass of the bike as far as I can. So, here I am diving through the turn. My bike is solid as a rock. My knee is inches from the ground and my head is at seat height.The instructor is in front of me, pointing at his ass and making the turn with one hand.

That VFR, on street tires, is inches from the ground. Damn this! I am going to haul through this turn.

I roll on the gas and hang. Like some bat out of hell the bike enters some alternate reality and breaks, what seems to me, several laws of physics and I fly out of the turn right where I was looking. Holy cow! It works.

My confidence starts to rise. Every time through each turn I look at the exit, hang off the bike, and roll on more throttle.

Now I am starting to use the advantage of the 400 cc bike. It is smaller and lighter, and can take those turns faster than the 600 cc bikes. In fact, they look like lumbering dinosaurs in the turns. They still leave me in the dust on the straight-away, but I slowly crawl back on them as we go through the turns.

At the end of the day I am exhausted and I can barely stand on my legs. It feels like I have completed something like a triathlon. The best part is I have my novice license and no one crashed this day, a first for the novice class.

Hmm. Maybe this will be fun after all.

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