COTA MAY 27. - RIDESMART

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craig bush said:
I’m surprised they let him on track in those.
Click to expand...
Last weekend I lined up to start the first session after lunch. I look at the dude next to me, on my right, and his boot which has a buckle and a vertical zipper on the rear isn't fastened. I eventually get his attention, and say "Your boot," pointing at his left foot. The guy says, "No, it's good it doesn't zip." He tries to pull the zipper up and it doesn't budge. He fiddle with the buckle to no avail. How this dude was allowed on the track like this is beyond me. If he highsides, that ...... is getting flipped right off, and God help him that his heel won't contact the pavement on the way down, nevermind the airborne boot a rider could take to the face. There was a lot of other sketchy .... going on as the session progressed. I did maybe four laps, hit pit lane and packed up.
 
Having done a few track days with different organizers, I'm starting to see some differences, both good and bad, in how they organize. I think novice groups, which I'm in, need to be more heavily regimented. Track Day Winner did this well. You had the same coach for your sessions. They told everyone no passing in the morning sessions, and after lunch if everyone was riding safely, they'd allow passing on the straights with a 6' safety buffer. I don't want to slam the group that hosted my last track day but it was very obvious they had much more of a free range approach and a lot of people who had little to no track experience or knowledge.

On one lap in particular, I'm barreling down the straight in which 150-170 MPH was typical. The group I was in caught up to another group who for some dumb reason were four or five abreast entering a right hand turn and going really slow as I was closing on them really fast. I got on the front brakes hard and felt the back lift up and the front gave me a little shake then the rear settled back down. The stoppie was unexpected and a bit unnerving given the speed but I had the thought that it probably looked really cool and all was well. The next lap was a guy who went down exiting the final turn to end up with cracked ribs, a fractured vertebrae and bleeding on the brain.

The biggest gripe is that the coaches, which it was a stretch to call them that, seemed to be more like first lap guides who merely showed new riders the pit out procedure. After the second session I never saw him again and in one instance two of them were just following each other around and passing all of the other novice riders. I suppose if you want a free range style where you can just go out and do your own thing, it probably would have been preferred. I think the problem is that it doesn't take into account skill gap. I'm not the fastest guy but not the slowest either. I recognize good technique and bad. I saw a lot of people that weren't using good track riding skills that weren't getting any direction.

Maybe I was just expecting a more coached environment and my expectations didn't match their vision for how a track day is run. I like the track, but I wouldn't go back if it was hosted by the same group.
 
bp_SFV4 said:
Having done a few track days with different organizers, I'm starting to see some differences, both good and bad, in how they organize. I think novice groups, which I'm in, need to be more heavily regimented. Track Day Winner did this well. You had the same coach for your sessions. They told everyone no passing in the morning sessions, and after lunch if everyone was riding safely, they'd allow passing on the straights with a 6' safety buffer. I don't want to slam the group that hosted my last track day but it was very obvious they had much more of a free range approach and a lot of people who had little to no track experience or knowledge.

On one lap in particular, I'm barreling down the straight in which 150-170 MPH was typical. The group I was in caught up to another group who for some dumb reason were four or five abreast entering a right hand turn and going really slow as I was closing on them really fast. I got on the front brakes hard and felt the back lift up and the front gave me a little shake then the rear settled back down. The stoppie was unexpected and a bit unnerving given the speed but I had the thought that it probably looked really cool and all was well. The next lap was a guy who went down exiting the final turn to end up with cracked ribs, a fractured vertebrae and bleeding on the brain.

The biggest gripe is that the coaches, which it was a stretch to call them that, seemed to be more like first lap guides who merely showed new riders the pit out procedure. After the second session I never saw him again and in one instance two of them were just following each other around and passing all of the other novice riders. I suppose if you want a free range style where you can just go out and do your own thing, it probably would have been preferred. I think the problem is that it doesn't take into account skill gap. I'm not the fastest guy but not the slowest either. I recognize good technique and bad. I saw a lot of people that weren't using good track riding skills that weren't getting any direction.

Maybe I was just expecting a more coached environment and my expectations didn't match their vision for how a track day is run. I like the track, but I wouldn't go back if it was hosted by the same group.
Click to expand...
This was the first event RideSmart has done at COTA since the founder retired (and the company is now under new management).

Hopefully they figure it out and become fun again, but my experience (Saturday) won't have me rushing back to sign up for a RideSmart day soon.

It is my hunch that most of the "coaches" are guys just trying to get a free track day as I believe most (if not all?) of their compensation is just no fee for riding.

Sad because as I was learning out at COTA, there were some great entry level coaches that did care and were value-add (like old man Tony with the heavy Irish accent)
 
I'm sorry you had bad exp. Duc! yes some of the coaches are anythning but...however there are some that are really great at their craft and are willing to share a lot of learning.
dont give up on them, as you say, the new management is much more superior than the pervious, AND they are still weeding out the ...... coaches.

What group were you in SAT?
 
I think they need to work out something more of yellow flags

Red flagging every low side, with the ride OK, was just to much.

People pay 500 dlls a day and travel from faaar far away, for 5 red flag session out of 6
 

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