Originally Posted by The Awesome (Post 396158)

I understand holding novice riders back from passing in corners. The issue I have is organizations that allow passing in corners, but only on the outside. There is certainly nothing wrong with passing on the outside, but opportunities to do it are few and far between compared to a traditional inside maneuver, so new riders should start working on that very early on. If riders were better at passing across the board, track days would be much less frustrating. Having your first opportunity to pass traditionally come when you are grouped in advanced with a bunch of racers and seasoned track riders is a bad situation. Not only will you have trouble filtering through traffic, but you will be unprepared for the maneuvers that faster riders will be putting on you.

Which is a nice segue into...



From the perspective of a faster amateur rider, I do NOT want a slow rider to try to help me pass them. As I approach a slower rider, I already know exactly what I am going to do to get around them when I get there. When riders alter their line, look behind and slow down, or do anything else that is unpredictable, it changes the situation from a calculated maneuver to an educated guess. Educated guesses can end badly if one or both of the riders guess wrong. Some of the closest calls I ever had were scenarios exactly like this.

When slower riders do this, it's often because the faster rider caught them in a spot they personally find difficult/impossible to pass in, therefore they have no idea what the faster rider is about to do to get around them. To execute the pass, the faster rider is counting on the slower one to maintain a predictable race line. If the slower rider becomes aware of the presence of the faster rider and tries to "give up" to allow the faster rider by, they can easily create a collision scenario.

The best thing a slow rider can do for everyone else on the track is to ignore what's behind them and ride in a predictable and controlled manner.

Originally Posted by Trip (Post 396160)

I am glad there is no passing rules for fiddy racing. Kicking, punching, wrecking, headbutting, running over are all acceptable forms of passing.

Originally Posted by shmike (Post 396179)

If I saw you going off-line and looking back, we'd have chat on hot-pit.

Originally Posted by smileyman (Post 396184)

Oh...like in Canadian Superbike?

Originally Posted by fasternyou929 (Post 396189)

What org are you CRing for?

Still need to get you up here for for an event. NESBA just added 3 dates over the Halloween weekend at Road Atlanta, would you be able to make it? I ride A with them so we'd be in the same group and could turn some laps together. At least until you learned the track. :lol:

Originally Posted by Trip (Post 396190)

If we didn't have helmets there could be possibly some biting incidents. It's no holds barred and it rocks.

This is why I dislike track days, it's too regulated.

Originally Posted by shmike (Post 396192)

I had my first track suit get ripped when I got run over racing 50's with SEMRA.

The guy behind me was on a TTR 125 and his peg hit me in the shoulder as I face-planted in the dirt section.

I could lose him on the asphalt but he always caught me in the dirt. I think that kid ran over me like 3 times that weekend. :lol:

Originally Posted by azoomm (Post 396129)

That someone shouldn't have to be "courteous." Sean, you know better :nee:

Passing is hinky in most inexperienced groups to begin with. Passing on the inside simply encourages people to act on their impatience. Stalk, learn how predictable that person is, then pass where you can do it safely. This is what we practice.

Originally Posted by Captain Morgan (Post 396148)

She's questioning my reasoning for looking behind me and waving people by on my trackday this weekend. Here's the full story, if you haven't seen it in the other thread.

I was on the V-strom on the track. It was sportbiketracktime. If any of you have ever ridden any of their events, you know they have classroom instruction for beginners and then they take the beginners out in groups of 4 or 5 riders with an instructor. I didn't want to ride in a group of people like that and wanted to ride my own pace. The only way to do that was in intermediate. I was the slowest person in the group, by far, simply because of the bike I was on. I scraped peg numerous times and the back end got loose a few times. I was also running the stock "Death Wings" on the bike. I simply couldn't go much faster without losing it.

I am fully aware that it's the passing rider's responsibility to pass safely and I maintained a consistent line on the track to allow them to do so. However, out of courtesy for the other riders on the track, I would look behind me in certain stretches where it was safe to do so, and I would move off the line so they could pass.

Is there really something wrong with being courteous to other riders that have paid good money for a track day and want to push it to the limit and not be held up by a guy riding a much slower bike?

ETA: I did consider dropping down to the beginner group after the first session in intermediate, but was told I was doing fine and it was ok to stay where I was.