![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.diomederacing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2011\/06\/ycrs1-300x199.jpg\" "\\"ycrs1\\"")
<\/p>\nYCRS<\/p>\n
See it, do it, teach it, if you can pull that off then you\u2019ve got a pretty good handle on the information.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 I\u2019ve 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. \u00a0\u00a0This time, I didn\u2019t have to wait long to get back on my bike.\u00a0 The school ended on Friday, by Sunday I was back in NM working with students at a local track day. I\u2019ll get to that during a subsequent post.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019ve read in my training materials for \u2018train the trainer\u2019 courses that most people can only retain new information for about a 6 month period.\u00a0 Then they will need to have a refresher.\u00a0 This information was in part why I waited a bit before coming back for my YCRS \u2018refresher\u2019.\u00a0 I believed that things would make more sense this time around.\u00a0 I\u2019d pick up on some of the things that I\u2019d missed first time I was there.<\/p>\n
After the first class I was dying to get on the track to see if I could translate everything I\u2019d learned into a real life situation.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I ended up having to wait for a couple of months, to get in some track time.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I mean really, at track I hadn\u2019t seen in more then 8 months.\u00a0 5 seconds, that\u2019s huge. \u00a0I really had high hopes that this class would get me even lower lap times.<\/p>\n
I thought I knew just what we were going to be doing, this time, drill and lecture wise.\u00a0 I was mistaken; everything was quite different this time.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The staples for the course are van rides to and from the track that I didn\u2019t get to partake in this time.\u00a0 Since this time I was staying in SLC with friends.\u00a0 \u00a0I kind of missed it.\u00a0 It took me a lil longer to get focused on the tasks at hand in the morning.\u00a0 It\u2019s too easy when on your own to let your thoughts wonder to things unrelated to riding.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 There were demos in the vans and on bikes of things that could go wrong, how things work when done correctly. \u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s just say that after riding around the track in the van with Nick driving, I really didn\u2019t need any coffee.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 For what ever reason, I often kill my speed in certain types of corners.\u00a0 I know that at first they thought it was because I was stabbing the brakes on entry, but I knew that isn\u2019t it.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty darn smooth; anyone who has spent time following me around a race track will confirm that.\u00a0 I\u2019m just not as good with the brakes as I should\/could be.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 Yes, you did read that correctly.\u00a0 Since I\u2019d talked with them about how the first class didn\u2019t really fix the trouble I\u2019d been having.\u00a0 \u00a0We also had a guest instructor for this class who spent the whole time out on the track with us.\u00a0 It was great to meet Scott Russell. Man, can he ride; I\u2019m just sorry I didn\u2019t get to do a two up ride with him.<\/p>\n
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The first day was spent making you think more about your riding and your positioning on the bike more then anything else.\u00a0 Their focus is about making things as safe as possible.\u00a0 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 \u2018things\u2019 while coming into a corner.<\/p>\n
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Now I could be way off, but looking back at the course and giving it some thought\u2026. The morning of the second day, I\u2019m willing to bet that the exercises we did were picked in order to focus on my braking issues.\u00a0 As well as at least two of the exercises on the third day, there\u2019s no doubt about one of them.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Humm, I wouldn\u2019t go so far as to say that they picked on me the second day, during the morning classroom session.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 LOL.\u00a0 There was really a huge difference in my riding between day one and two.\u00a0 I was faster then I had been the day before.<\/p>\n
The third day there was even more improvement, I was so much more comfortable on the bike.\u00a0 I know that my exit speeds had come way up.\u00a0 I was spinning up the rear tire at times.\u00a0 Since we\u2019d 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.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to be able to get on the throttle that hard, if everything else isn\u2019t going the way it should.<\/p>\n
I was even more pleased with the things I came home with from this class then I was the first one.\u00a0 I left there wishing that I could do a school with them at least once a month.\u00a0 If could get more consistent instruction from them, I\u2019m pretty sure that I\u2019d be able to totally kill the competition during my first expert year.\u00a0 Now, I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
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Huge THANK YOU<\/strong> to Nick, Ken, Dale, Shane, Mark and Scott.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" YCRS See it, do it, teach it, if you can pull that off then you\u2019ve got a pretty good handle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":745,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}