LegionMOTO Utah Motorsports Campus Track Day and Racing Season Update

My racing season got off to a bad start back in May at the first MRA round when I failed to control my emotions in the heat of the moment and pitched my Ninja 650 into turn 13 at HPR going approximately Mach 7, lost the rear, the bike switched ends, and violently ejected me from the saddle.

Smashed It To Bits

I went over the bars at speed. I walked away unharmed. The adrenaline rush from that experience lasted about 12 hours. I still can’t believe I didn’t wake up in the hospital.

Damage to the bike was extensive, and there was no way I was going to fix it in time for the next round or even the round after that. I bent the forks and front wheel, shattered the windscreen, broke the fairings, and destroyed the subframe along with everything attached to the left side of the bike. I also broke the plastic petcock on the fuel pump, and the fuel tank acquired a few new dents during the crash. Instead of paying for a new fuel pump, I had a local machinist make me a new petcock for it.

New Race Bike

I set my sights on Round 4 to have the bike ready again. Halfway through repairing it I bought a whole other race bike, something I didn’t intend to do until after the ’24 season. The new race bike is much, much faster, and it’s taken some getting used to in order to ride it at the same level as my Ninja 650. I’m still not even remotely close after having it out 5 times. I managed to crash it the 3rd time out trying to push it like I used to push the 650. The bike was fine and only required minimal repairs, but I’ve since become intimately familiar with the idea that faster bikes magnify any mistakes I make or bad habits I’ve picked up racing a much slower bike.

The bright side of all of this crashing is that my goals this year never had anything to do with proving to myself that I could rack up as many points as I could at every round. I did that last year. This year was always about achieving a good pace as consistently as possible, which is still totally doable using the tools I have and the time I have left in the season. I intended to race the new bike at MRA Round 3, which was cancelled due to a lack of sign ups. Then I made a plan to race it at Utah Motorsports Campus with LegionSBK, which was also cancelled due to a lack of sign ups. Between crashing and cancellations, I’ve only managed to make 1 race start this season despite participating in at least half a dozen track days.

The way that event was cancelled left a lot to be desired. I got a text saying Sunday racing had been cancelled. I waited 24 hours to see if they would announce that Sunday was being changed to a track day instead of racing. After 24 hours, I cancelled and rescheduled my hotel and scheduled work for earlier in the week following. 12 hours after that, they announced that Sunday would, in fact, be another track day. I had no desire to change my plans again, so I decided to only do the Saturday track day, which put an extra $300 in my pocket.

No matter, I loaded up and drove out on Friday morning aiming to arrive at UMC at about 6-7PM. The last time I went through Wyoming headed for Utah was a looong time ago, and I had forgotten just how beautiful those 2 states are. Wyoming is anything but flat; people often get it confused with Kansas in that way. It’s high elevation and crisp, clean air with rolling hills and rocky outcroppings to look at almost all the way to the Utah border.

Mormon Country

The sky is big like it is on the eastern plains of Colorado, and the speed limit is 80MPH for most of the way to Utah. The drive from the Utah border into Salt Lake City rips through one of the most beautiful canyons on Earth. It’s no small wonder someone founded an entire religion based on his experiences in that area. I’ve always had a soft spot for Mormons and found them to be genuinely nice AND kind people regardless of how my own life was going. Maybe there’s something to be said for being treated like redheaded stepchildren in the world of Christian religions for their entire history; Mormons don’t tend to act like the world is theirs for the taking, at least not in my experience. I arrived at UMC at 6:45PM.

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

There’s something to be said, well a lot to be said for showing up with a well prepared motorcycle. I never have to do any extensive work on my bikes after I arrive at the track. I have had to replace parts that have worn out, which is why I carry certain parts and all of the tools to change them when the need arises. I also know where all of this stuff is in my vans, can find anything I need as soon as I need it. This gets into the difference between track day riders and actual racers.

Many track day riders are all about a “I just wanna ride fast, bro” sort of mentality, whereas racing is more about the pursuit of or striving for excellence in all things related to race days; racing is more than just going fast on a motorcycle. There’s A LOT MORE to it. Oftentimes the fastest riders don’t win the championships because they tend to blow their bikes or themselves up at some point during the season, leaving the championship for the best racer to take for themselves. The best racers show up with well prepared bikes they don’t have to spend time repairing or maintaining at the track, so they can focus on doing the best they can on race day. They don’t focus on results and make stupid decisions that result in crashes just to pick up another place during an early season race. They know how to pick their spots and call their shots. Someone can be fast on a bike all day long, but if they can’t keep a bike together then that day isn’t going to last very long at all, and they won’t make it to the end of the season.

Gamesmanship

Racing is a game with points. To get those points you absolutely need to be prepared, your bike needs to be exceptionally clean, you need to plan for everything that could go wrong, and have a plan for making it good again when things do go wrong without having to rely on anyone else in the paddock. If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail. Club racing is about planning, preparation, mechanical skill, and athletic ability as much as it is about going fast on a motorcycle. Going fast is a result of trusting the process and doing the work. It’s not the whole shebang. If you try to rush the process, the spirits of the universe have a tendency to lay you down flat on your back.

I used to wonder why I’d see supposedly fast racers going slow and taking it easy early in the season.

Now I understand why. If you’ve ever passed a racer at a track day thinking you’re fast and wondered why he wasn’t going faster, this is why. Those passes don’t mean shit if there aren’t late season points at stake. It behooves you to stay humble.

The more I do this, the more I realize this sport is about restraint. No amount of talent, skill, and experience will allow anyone to rush the process or break the laws of physics on a motorcycle.

So the big question everyone always asks me is “Did you have fun?” and I still don’t know how to answer that question. It depends on your idea of fun. It wasn’t fun like a track day at HPR full of familiar faces. I had more “fun” at HPR hanging out with Jose and riding one another’s bikes the previous Monday, same day I met a very helpful MotoAmerica superbike racer named Matt who helped me out with a ton of good, actionable advice about Dunlop tire pressures and some great stuff about crashing and just riding a faster bike on a race track generally.

It took until late morning at UMC for me to build a good mental image of the track. I almost got into trouble early on shooting into a chicane called “The Attitudes” when I mistook the entry into the 1st Attitude for a long, fast left instead of a fairly tight left. Luckily I left myself enough margin for error to brake without going completely off the track. I adjusted my own attitude and took it slower.

My day at UMC wasn’t about having fun as much as it was about learning a new track and continuing to familiarize myself with my new bike and how it handles at speed. I wouldn’t use the word fun to describe my experience at UMC, but it was interesting and instructive, and I learned a lot that I’m going to bring back to my home tracks here in Colorado.