Now I have never been able to pass up free track time. This one wasn’t any different. Besides, it’s been a couple of years since I was down to Arroyo Seco. I think the last time I was there it snowed… There was no way I was going stay way from this event, the weather was going to be perfect.
I took Rachael down with me, she was the reason I taught the last New Racer school. She wanted to get to another track and was thinking about sleeping in her car. I figured there would be plenty of room in the trailer for both of us. I just hadn’t planned on not being able to get into the track. We had to camp outside the fence for the night… it made unloading the bikes undesirable. We we improvised with how to sleep around the bikes. The one down side to this trailer when you aren’t traveling alone.
The next morning we got in to the gate pretty early, the only ones who beat us in were the poor couple who had tried to sleep in a tent next to us that night. They gave up at about 4 am and moved into the truck so they could warm up. It was pretty cold that night, so I’m glad the bikes stayed in the trailer with us and the heat.
I spent the first 1/2 hour figuring out how to ride the 675 around the track figuring out where I wanted my lines. It really came back quicker then that but heck I just wanted to stay out there for a while before I began to track people down to help them.
The first girl I started with is the one who went off the track in the first 10 minutes, they got her back out there so I had her follow me around after I spent some time talking with her about how to think about riding at the track. It is different then riding on the street, but it really does help you once you get back out on the streets. I spent close to an hour with her. By the time she had to go for the day she was back to grinning from ear to ear and excited about coming back out! After that I just went out and rode around until I came across someone who I figured I could help in some manner. I think by the end of the day I had managed to work with all but a couple of the ladies.
Overall, they were really happy to get the help and said for some reason it made more sense coming from me than it did when their boyfriend or spouse tried to get them to do the same things. 🙂 I am really hoping that I can make it to the one next year and help Roger grow the event a bit more.