YCRS
See it, do it, teach it, if you can pull that off then you’ve got a pretty good handle on the information. Right? I’ve been to the Yamaha Champions Riding School (YCRS) twice now, each time I came away with so much information that I had to wonder how long I was going to be able to hang on to all of it. This time, I didn’t have to wait long to get back on my bike. The school ended on Friday, by Sunday I was back in NM working with students at a local track day. I’ll get to that during a subsequent post.
Now, I’ve read in my training materials for ‘train the trainer’ courses that most people can only retain new information for about a 6 month period. Then they will need to have a refresher. This information was in part why I waited a bit before coming back for my YCRS ‘refresher’. I believed that things would make more sense this time around. I’d pick up on some of the things that I’d missed first time I was there.
After the first class I was dying to get on the track to see if I could translate everything I’d learned into a real life situation. Unfortunately, I ended up having to wait for a couple of months, to get in some track time. Since I saw a 5 second drop in my lap times at HPR, my first time out this year over the lap times that I was turning in August last year. I mean really, at track I hadn’t seen in more then 8 months. 5 seconds, that’s huge. I really had high hopes that this class would get me even lower lap times.
I thought I knew just what we were going to be doing, this time, drill and lecture wise. I was mistaken; everything was quite different this time. There was of course, some things that were the same as the first class, but there were so many things that were done differently this time. That the course seemed so new and fresh, not at all like a repeat or refresher. The staples for the course are van rides to and from the track that I didn’t get to partake in this time. Since this time I was staying in SLC with friends. I kind of missed it. It took me a lil longer to get focused on the tasks at hand in the morning. It’s too easy when on your own to let your thoughts wonder to things unrelated to riding. There was still van the rides around the track to get all the students focused on the correct things like apexes, brakes, corner exits, and entries. There were demos in the vans and on bikes of things that could go wrong, how things work when done correctly. Let’s just say that after riding around the track in the van with Nick driving, I really didn’t need any coffee. I would like to take a moment to suggest to the track to make sure that ALL of the bolts holding the seats in place in the vans are tight.
I had made it a point to talk with the instructors during the World SBK races about what I saw as my biggest issue with my racing was. For what ever reason, I often kill my speed in certain types of corners. I know that at first they thought it was because I was stabbing the brakes on entry, but I knew that isn’t it. I’m pretty darn smooth; anyone who has spent time following me around a race track will confirm that. I’m just not as good with the brakes as I should/could be.
One of the major differences between this class and the first one I attended, was that they require every student to get what they need out of the class. Yes, you did read that correctly. Since I’d talked with them about how the first class didn’t really fix the trouble I’d been having. We also had a guest instructor for this class who spent the whole time out on the track with us. It was great to meet Scott Russell. Man, can he ride; I’m just sorry I didn’t get to do a two up ride with him.
The first day was spent making you think more about your riding and your positioning on the bike more then anything else. Their focus is about making things as safe as possible. Doing things differently with your body position in order to minimize the amount of negative input given to the bike. Giving your self more time and the ability to focus on the bigger ‘things’ while coming into a corner.
Now I could be way off, but looking back at the course and giving it some thought…. The morning of the second day, I’m willing to bet that the exercises we did were picked in order to focus on my braking issues. As well as at least two of the exercises on the third day, there’s no doubt about one of them. Since Nick stated that drill where we had to maintain the brake at least 10 feet past the slowest part of the corner was just for Kim.
Humm, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they picked on me the second day, during the morning classroom session. However, they made their points so clear, that I had a couple of the students ask me at the end of the day how I could possibly have a problem with braking when I was able to go so fast. LOL. There was really a huge difference in my riding between day one and two. I was faster then I had been the day before.
The third day there was even more improvement, I was so much more comfortable on the bike. I know that my exit speeds had come way up. I was spinning up the rear tire at times. Since we’d worked on so many things to make me safer I was able to deal with it and not have any trouble, I also had a better understanding for how to avoid it, once I knew where that limit was. It’s hard to be able to get on the throttle that hard, if everything else isn’t going the way it should.
I was even more pleased with the things I came home with from this class then I was the first one. I left there wishing that I could do a school with them at least once a month. If could get more consistent instruction from them, I’m pretty sure that I’d be able to totally kill the competition during my first expert year. Now, I’ve just got to figure out how to get back to work with them over the winter, in preparation for moving to the expert ranks next year.
Huge THANK YOU to Nick, Ken, Dale, Shane, Mark and Scott.