Spudstr
New Member
I attended YCRS on 5/5 & 5/6 at NJMP after riding for almost 10 years, 3 or so on the track but only a handful of track days. I will say this has been the most valuable and fun time I have ever had, despite tipping over my bike on day 1. (#13 isn't so lucky anymore).
The Staff:
Nick Ienatsch and Ken Hill - These two guys have more passion and care more about teaching and helping riders than anyone else I have ever met, also two of the most friendly and welcoming people I have ever met. These two guys together make an outstanding team and can explain the same thing about 5 different ways so it clicks.. no matter how people are looking at things.
Scott Russell - This guy, the uber rider former World superbike champ knows everything inside and out. He mainly was giving people two up rides and riding around controlling the groups and picking people up if they were needing help. All around, he had great input whenever someone had a question or needed help.
Kyle Wyman & Chris Peris - These guys are young, much younger than the other 3 but have a ton of knowledge and were leading groups of riders. Our typical group size for this event was about 4 riders per instructor. Chris and Kyle seemed to be the grunt teachers of the group, they were always helpful with any questions and Chris gave some great information and was great to talk to at dinner.
Bed Edmund - ? Former NESBA CR/coach/rider? He was part of the staff but mainly was a 1 on 1 with a new rider. yes YCRS took a guy who basically has never rode before and they had him on the track after day 1 running the lines and learning how to trail brake. The guy did a fantastic job.
About the Class:
Overall - Everything that I learned, or thought I knew was basically 100% wrong. From braking to body position and even acceleration. I learned that YCRS is a form of mythbusters
1. "never put your weight on your hands" - was crap. Common sense tells you you have to put your weight on your hands when braking its physics... but its more about how you place your hands and distribute the weight so your fingers can wiggle.
2. "do all your breaking in the straight and not into a corner" was also crap. The most valuable lesson I learned at YCRS was trail braking and how to build and apply brake pressure into a turn, learning how to load the front end and trailing off the pressure (yes building, releasing the front and trying to build front brake pressure will result in a crash this is certain).
#3 don't be scared of your rear brake. Sure, that rear brake can be a dangerous thing to touch, but being told to go do 4 laps and ONLY use your rear brake.. You lean pretty fast how to build brake pressure on your rear like you do with your front.(right turns are a real bitch when you only have a rear brake).
#4. Lean Angle is everything - Sure there is a time and place to apply lean angle, such as missing apex's and diving into a corner to make it, Body lean > Lean Angle. You can save your tires and be safer with correct body lean vs laying the bike sideways and eating up the tires. Under extreme speed yes you need more lean angle.
#5. Tank humpers - I've seen people ride and watched a fair amount of videos and even asked how do i ride? humping the tank or back in the seat? Tank humping gets you no where. it makes you move a lot more and be a lot more jerky with your movements, it isn't natural and hinders your body position. You can not properly put your head and shoulder into a turn if you are humping a tank, you get twisted and it just will not work. You can't put your body where you need to because you have a stupid gas tank in your way and it blocks you. Sit back and this now allows your body to go way lower and drop your head.
We also covered things such as your head is a magical tool for turning. Using a 30lb weight that can move whenever you want it drastically helps turning. First 5% and last 5% of your braking is absolutely critical. Foot position is a huge as well. Placing your balls of your feet on the peg is one thing, but placing your heel up and the peg in your ball of the foot drastically increases your weight on the side of the bike and drastically helps with turning. We went over the 3 types of corners, identifying critical points in a track and how to prioritize them. The drills we did both days was a great experience, the cone drill helped identify road hazards, track obstacles and how to properly scan the horizon and be aware of the track. The last drill of the day the Champions lap was a blast too. Every lap was a different scenario that the coaches randomly put on every ride, my scenarios consisted of.. I broke both my thumbs, so i had to control the bike without using my thumbs, my butt was stuck in the middle of the seat.. i couldn't move it.. so no leans
... Wave to all the corner workers as I hit every apex. Miss every apex of 10 feet, then ride the lap, stuck in 4th gear and lastly, Your left foot peg is now broken... Have fun. All of these situations with the exception of waving to the corner workers at every apex has potentially a real life situation that could happen at the track.
One other thing that was drilled into our heads, if you miss an apex or screw up, don't beat yourself up over it. Your lap now starts at the next apex. In other words water under the bridge, get the hell over it and look forward.
After spending money on my bikes, new suspension, exhaust, steering dampner.. it really does not make sense and isn't needed. These bike were 100% stock with no dampners or any fancy suspension work done. If your thinking about spending 3k on a suspension.. don't just go to YCRS.
One other thing I will point out that they did at the school was instead of having just Apex cones, they had Apex directional cones. Which means they had 2 cones at the apex. If you hit the apex correctly, your bike would be perfectly parallel to the apex cones. This now gave you the proper direction to exit the turn. I would love to see N2 utilize these cones and I believe it would greatly help the B and I groups. These cones greatly helped us identify if we entered or exited a turn to early or late and allowed us proper time to build up more brake pressure and correct our direction and still hit the apex correctly to correct our line.
If I can get a hold of Ken i'm going to see if I can get him to upload the videos and show the day 1 vs day 2 progression.
The Staff:
Nick Ienatsch and Ken Hill - These two guys have more passion and care more about teaching and helping riders than anyone else I have ever met, also two of the most friendly and welcoming people I have ever met. These two guys together make an outstanding team and can explain the same thing about 5 different ways so it clicks.. no matter how people are looking at things.
Scott Russell - This guy, the uber rider former World superbike champ knows everything inside and out. He mainly was giving people two up rides and riding around controlling the groups and picking people up if they were needing help. All around, he had great input whenever someone had a question or needed help.
Kyle Wyman & Chris Peris - These guys are young, much younger than the other 3 but have a ton of knowledge and were leading groups of riders. Our typical group size for this event was about 4 riders per instructor. Chris and Kyle seemed to be the grunt teachers of the group, they were always helpful with any questions and Chris gave some great information and was great to talk to at dinner.
Bed Edmund - ? Former NESBA CR/coach/rider? He was part of the staff but mainly was a 1 on 1 with a new rider. yes YCRS took a guy who basically has never rode before and they had him on the track after day 1 running the lines and learning how to trail brake. The guy did a fantastic job.
About the Class:
Overall - Everything that I learned, or thought I knew was basically 100% wrong. From braking to body position and even acceleration. I learned that YCRS is a form of mythbusters
1. "never put your weight on your hands" - was crap. Common sense tells you you have to put your weight on your hands when braking its physics... but its more about how you place your hands and distribute the weight so your fingers can wiggle.
2. "do all your breaking in the straight and not into a corner" was also crap. The most valuable lesson I learned at YCRS was trail braking and how to build and apply brake pressure into a turn, learning how to load the front end and trailing off the pressure (yes building, releasing the front and trying to build front brake pressure will result in a crash this is certain).
#3 don't be scared of your rear brake. Sure, that rear brake can be a dangerous thing to touch, but being told to go do 4 laps and ONLY use your rear brake.. You lean pretty fast how to build brake pressure on your rear like you do with your front.(right turns are a real bitch when you only have a rear brake).
#4. Lean Angle is everything - Sure there is a time and place to apply lean angle, such as missing apex's and diving into a corner to make it, Body lean > Lean Angle. You can save your tires and be safer with correct body lean vs laying the bike sideways and eating up the tires. Under extreme speed yes you need more lean angle.
#5. Tank humpers - I've seen people ride and watched a fair amount of videos and even asked how do i ride? humping the tank or back in the seat? Tank humping gets you no where. it makes you move a lot more and be a lot more jerky with your movements, it isn't natural and hinders your body position. You can not properly put your head and shoulder into a turn if you are humping a tank, you get twisted and it just will not work. You can't put your body where you need to because you have a stupid gas tank in your way and it blocks you. Sit back and this now allows your body to go way lower and drop your head.
We also covered things such as your head is a magical tool for turning. Using a 30lb weight that can move whenever you want it drastically helps turning. First 5% and last 5% of your braking is absolutely critical. Foot position is a huge as well. Placing your balls of your feet on the peg is one thing, but placing your heel up and the peg in your ball of the foot drastically increases your weight on the side of the bike and drastically helps with turning. We went over the 3 types of corners, identifying critical points in a track and how to prioritize them. The drills we did both days was a great experience, the cone drill helped identify road hazards, track obstacles and how to properly scan the horizon and be aware of the track. The last drill of the day the Champions lap was a blast too. Every lap was a different scenario that the coaches randomly put on every ride, my scenarios consisted of.. I broke both my thumbs, so i had to control the bike without using my thumbs, my butt was stuck in the middle of the seat.. i couldn't move it.. so no leans
... Wave to all the corner workers as I hit every apex. Miss every apex of 10 feet, then ride the lap, stuck in 4th gear and lastly, Your left foot peg is now broken... Have fun. All of these situations with the exception of waving to the corner workers at every apex has potentially a real life situation that could happen at the track. One other thing that was drilled into our heads, if you miss an apex or screw up, don't beat yourself up over it. Your lap now starts at the next apex. In other words water under the bridge, get the hell over it and look forward.
After spending money on my bikes, new suspension, exhaust, steering dampner.. it really does not make sense and isn't needed. These bike were 100% stock with no dampners or any fancy suspension work done. If your thinking about spending 3k on a suspension.. don't just go to YCRS.
One other thing I will point out that they did at the school was instead of having just Apex cones, they had Apex directional cones. Which means they had 2 cones at the apex. If you hit the apex correctly, your bike would be perfectly parallel to the apex cones. This now gave you the proper direction to exit the turn. I would love to see N2 utilize these cones and I believe it would greatly help the B and I groups. These cones greatly helped us identify if we entered or exited a turn to early or late and allowed us proper time to build up more brake pressure and correct our direction and still hit the apex correctly to correct our line.
If I can get a hold of Ken i'm going to see if I can get him to upload the videos and show the day 1 vs day 2 progression.
