Track attack
Q Last year I did my first trackday at Mallory Park, which I loved! For this year I’m planning on doing more, but at other circuits. How do you go about learning new tracks without wasting lots of time on track? Phil, Preston That’s great. Do you
A have a favourite road that you’d always ride? If so, how is this your favourite? Can you describe the features which you expect to see on this road – for every corner? What do you remember about Mallory Park? Did you have any favourite corners there? Could
Reference points are immovable circuit features...
you describe the features which made these corners your favourites? How about the corners you didn’t like. Were there any of these? Why were they not as good as the others? Could it be that the corners you liked had many familiar features and the ones you didn’t like either had some unfriendly characteristics or nothing memorable at all? If you could either banish the unfriendliness or find some landmarks on the track to ‘make friends with’ would that help to make the ‘bad’ corners less so? It’s highly likely that your favourite corners have good reference points (RPs) that you can use time after time – and the bad corners have fewer or no RPs at all. The RPs are immovable, permanent features that you can use to locate yourself and appoint a purpose to. Go ahead and draw a circuit map of Mallory Park as you remember it, putting in all the things that you can remember for each corner. After you have done that look at the drawing to see if there are any obvious gaps or empty spaces – do these correspond to your ‘bad’ corners? What would be the minimum number of RPs per corner that you could sensibly use to help you get round? Two, three, five or ten? Would three sound achievable to mark the entry, middle and exit of each turn? Some turns may need more; Goddards at Mallory may need a couple in the middle, for example, to keep you on line. If you can highlight at least three reference points, at each new track for each corner, and draw them on a circuit map you will be well on the way to accelerating your learning of a new track. What could a reference point be? Could it be a surface repair patch, a change of surface, the beginning, or end, or a kerb, a service road, surface skid marks? Anything which is on the track or permanently making contact with it can be a reference point. If the track is completely barren and clean, your choice of RP will need to extend to other non-track features. The skill in developing RPs is to have the right number; too many will make you busy and not enough you’ll feel lost looking for them – while looking at them too long, rather than being aware of them, will inhibit your progress too. All of these skills can be learned at a Level 2 School – and are equally applicable for road riding as trackdays.