Best state/city in the US for track days/track riding?

Not a big Doors fan huh?

lol

this is the end. my only friend, the end

Come on baby take a chance w us : )

Come on baby light my fiiire,

How are those tracks? What are the costs to ride them, hotels etc?
Someone posted photos of Barber - that looks really fun.
Laguna and COTA are the big MotoGP tracks, so there's state of the art safety airfence, run-offs etc. Sears is where you go to get a head injury as someone put a highway next to it and a concrete wall to separate them that's too close to the track. ThunderHill is low budget but really safe, and as fun as any of the big tracks IMHO.

We should make a track rating page. Available hotels, food, girls, Ducati dealers, costs, etc.
Yelp for tracks. Yelp for street riding

Something like
SF BAY ****° 4 of 5 stars
Year round riding. Best weather as it's 65F-75F, 320 days a year 20hrs a day.
3 Excellent tracks. 1 semi-dangerous
Crazy expensive.
Crazier women. Must be millionaire.
Epic street riding.
City riding to be done with caution.
5 Ducati dealers. 2 very good Ducati indie mechanics way less $ than the dealers.
Sierra Mountains and Pacific coastal riding ****** 6 out of 5 stars

Phl said:

Upstate SC, distances (time) to tracks:

Road Atlanta 1.5h
AMP 2h
CMP 2.5
RRR 4h
NC BIKE 4h
Lil Tally 4
Jennings 4.5
VIR 4.5
Barber 4.5

Not to forget mountain roads starting 30min from my house, 2.5 -3h to get to the tail of the dragon

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Don14R said:

Yeah it’s cheaper fer shur...

But everyone that’s fast lives on the west coast

“The west is the best! Get here and we will do the rest” JM

: )

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We have some of the fastest up coming riders coming out of Loudon right now.
Check out Ben Gloddy and Teagg Hobbs lookout for Eli Colby too.

CA. If you can deal with that looney state.

The OP is from Canada. I think Canada’s politics/laws is more similar to California’s politics/laws than most other states but that’s just a guess.

Yeah, but it tracks are a priority and not smoking weed and supporting over ambitious governing, my vote is not going to the west coast

Do not smoke the pot here

It is worse for your mind than the fiberglass fumes that ...... Mick up : )

Hello again,

Getting closer to needing to make the decision, I guess the more important question is ...

@Vbreeze
which of the Cali tracks are most accessible year-round? (through track days or otherwise).

@Phl
Same question for you for tracks in NC/SC area

@WyldCFH
Same question for you for tracks in Texas.

Because I would rather master one or two major/difficult tracks over the course of a year or two, than have access to 10 easy/different ones...

Thank you

The weather should be factored into your equation. The weather in Southern Cali can’t be beat. We ride all year. There is no off season here.

Yes that is a big one actually. Tilting mostly towards Cali for that reason. Would you say the same for the Northern half?

As far as Cali, I will go either with MilPitas/SJ or the Burbank/LA area. Track selection for either looks like this ...

Burbank/LA
--------------------------------------------

Auto Club Speedway - 53m
Streets of Willow - 1h11m
(+Willow springs)
ButtonWillow - 1h44m
(+ButtonWillow "Track 2")
Chuckawalla - 2h50m


Laguna Seca - 4h30m
Sonoma Raceway - 5h30m
Thunderhill - 6h40m


MilPitas/SJ
----------------------------------------------

Sonoma Raceway - 1h05m
Laguna Seca - 1h15m
Thunderhill - 2h30m
ButtonWillow - 3h06m
(+ButtonWillow "Track 2")



Streets of Willow - 4h50m
(+Willow springs)
Auto Club Speedway - 6h05m
Chuckawalla - 8h10m


From the looks of it, it is a tough call. But can't go wrong with either?

tftrained said:

Burbank
MilPitas/

But can't go wrong with either?

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Oh no, ya, you can go really very very wrong with either of those places hahahaa
You can find yourself in an ... ugly place and want to cut your wrists. Right next to it you can find a really awesome place and find your bliss.
North, yes riding all year round. January & 1/2 Feb gets not great. SO Cal is definitely warmer. It's not snowing, it's just not 70F. More like 50, occasional 45F. Almost never rains.
I'd go San Jose over MilPitas which is a little bit of wasteland like Burbank. LA over Burbank. But it Totally depends on what you're after though. The hills west of San Jose are cooler in the summer and pretty green with trees. Down Town SJ gets pretty hot in the Summer. South of SJ are grassy hills that get a little fog cooling them down in the Summer, not as much as the coast though.
Saying, "ya LA is cool." Is like saying, "ya there's stars in the universe." LA is freaking HUGE. The right set up there is really amazing. You can have a top lifestyle. The wrong one can be pretty horrid. Same with the Bay area. Depends on your commute and where exactly you live etc.
South or west San Jose is starting to fascinate me more than it used to. The riding out to the coast and down to Laguna is all year and really top. Hwy 1 is a masterpiece from Oregon to Santa Barbara. You can find a place in the hills Above Malibu for example if you have to be in Burbank. That's not as bad a commute. LA to Burbank commute is suicidal. You can sit in your car for 3 hours going 10MPH at 2AM. You really do not want to do that commute.
Northern Cal the traffic has gotten way worse than it used to but, nothing touches LA traffic. LA has some truly special nightmarish traffic. You kind of want to find your corner and stay mostly there, then go on adventures to other places. You just don't want to commute a long distance. If you live at the beach you basically can't leave on the weekend because you'll never get home in the Beach traffic. If you leave you have to wait until 5 or 6PM when the traffic dies down. If you live and work near in Malibu though, you win. That would be my top choice. But that's me. It's super mellow. LA is 58 flavors of everything.
Thunder Hill is a total blast, but Laguna is the real deal MotoGP track.
You'll have to look up the season schedules etc. THill is kind of far from San Jose, Laguna is pretty easy to get to from there. Sonoma is not as far but all the way across the Bay. THill - not sure about noise restrictions, Laguna has noise restrictions.

Okay then NorCal will work better. As I prefer cooler over warm/hot.

Have ridden through April mornings in Vancouver and I was okay.

Also live a low key life. Cannot stand too much people/noise either. Hence MilPitas over SJ or even SF.

work is remote so no issues there. Honestly will only “commute” when riding for the sake of riding.

COTA usually has a track every other month or so through either Ridesmart or 316, March thru Nov
Harris Hill is a membership track and has open track every Monday for bikes, and I think 1 Saturday a month
MSR Houston & MSR Cresson are also about every other month from COTA. Also with Ridesmart and 316, March thru Nov. MSR Cresson also has 7Eleven motorsports that run tracks days... not sure how often of how long through the year

Check out EvolveGT, Fishtail, Penguin and Tonystrackdays web sites for listing of tracks in North Eastern US. Lots of options in SC (CMP), NC (NCBike), KY (NCM), PA (Pitt Race, Pocono), VA/WV (Summit, Danville), NY (NYST, Pineview), NJ (NJMP), MA (Palmer), CT (Thompson), NH (Loudin, Tamworth) but not year round riding until you get down to Charlotte, NC or farther south.

tftrained said:

Hello again,

Getting closer to needing to make the decision, I guess the more important question is ...

@Vbreeze
which of the Cali tracks are most accessible year-round? (through track days or otherwise).

@Phl
Same question for you for tracks in NC/SC area

@WyldCFH
Same question for you for tracks in Texas.

Because I would rather master one or two major/difficult tracks over the course of a year or two, than have access to 10 easy/different ones...

Thank you

Click to expand...

None of the tracks I’ve mentioned have seasonal restrictions.

but you’d be better off with a camper with an AC in the summer

tftrained said:

Okay then NorCal will work better. As I prefer cooler over warm/hot.

Have ridden through April mornings in Vancouver and I was okay.

Also live a low key life. Cannot stand too much people/noise either. Hence MilPitas over SJ or even SF.

work is remote so no issues there. Honestly will only “commute” when riding for the sake of riding.

Click to expand...

Sorry TMI:
The Bay area has a full 2 seasons of weather that is usually Autumn or Spring and they don't follow a seasonal order that you'd know; North Bay & South Bay have Summer as well! You can usually change seasons by changing locations. For example, if you ever get too hot, head to the coast, it's never too hot on the Hiway 1 PCH which is also really a masterpiece of two lanes from Oregon to Santa Barbara (Subtract in the cities). You can go from 85F inland to 65F on the coast any day. Winter it goes opposite. Inland can be 45F coast 55F as the Pacific keeps temps stable. (IMAGE) The magenta zones are HEAVEN for riding and living. I never got bored with any of it. Hiway 84, 9, & 1 are dreamy in the South Bay. Go to Alice's Cafe on 35 (Find 50 motorcycles at any given moment on Sat / Sun) then head down 84 to Pescadero, then Pescadero Road back to 280. If you do it in that direction the curves are less blind and more fun. Be careful on 35 though it's squidland, seriously. Then rest is awesome.
North Bay Hiway 1, all day every day is magic. Get out before 10AM though at 11: you can play, pass the tourists in minivans. Check out: SF - go over the Golden Gate Bridge to Panoramic Hiway to HiWay 1 go down to Stinson Beach. That'll be a day you'll want to video. Go North on Hiway 1 in the :AM, then South on Lucas Valley Road to go back home, and you'll miss all the tourists. That is balls-out-fun always.
I haven't checked out Milpitas to be honest. SF is really fun to visit, but you have to be really careful riding there. People are from everywhere and you can never count on what they'll do. Hiway 101 SOUTH BAY is to be AVOIDED as if it was on fire. Just don't go there. All the idiots commute with the truckers, packed always.

280 is basically a racetrack, no idea why it's mostly empty, from south SF to San Jose. Occasionally there are cops, but rarely, Sat afternoon maybe. Bikes, Porsches and Ferraris can be found cruising past 90mph any afternoon and they're usually up for seeing who can accelerate.
The only reason San Mateo county exists is to write traffic tickets. If you pass through there, plan on getting one. Years in SF I only ever got traffic tickets in San Mateo ever. Fought 2, won both, paid others ;P Oakland you'll never get one. If you slide sideways through an intersection the cops will ask, "is that the best you can do?" You will see the craziest .... imaginable there.
The Sierras, Hiway 4, & hiway 120 I think were gifts from the Gods. Summer, go there, do that. GO to Yosemite. It will blow your mind. Slow down in the small towns, otherwise you can rip it up. Get to know it a little though. The engineering is predictable until a certain altitude then it goes super random. If you miss a turn up high past 6-7,000 feet, you can find a 1,000 foot drop, so take it serious. June-Sept up there is a dream.

TMI does not apply when it is useful information. Thank you, much appreciated. Might DM you later this year when I am actually there.