As a car racing fan I had heard of a race track near Grand Rapids, MI. While out 2wheel exploring MI with my riding buds I decided to try to find it. We did. We thought it was a race but it was an STT track day. We were let in (they made us sign in but did not charge us the $5). Some very enthusiastic dude saw us talking, no doubt looking lost and confused but excited, and asked us why we were not on track. That "dude" was coach Kenny Sullivan. We talked for about 20 minutes. I decided then and there I had to try this at least once. From there I got on the forum to investigate more and eventually won the ride-right at Gingerman later that summer. That was the final straw. All three of us in that trip have done many track days every year since.
I knew they must exist coming from the car world. Some internet searching and maybe a road racing world mag or two led me to STT and I haven't looked back.
it was early morning around 3am one day in the summer of 2012, i just bought my 2nd bike(08 r6) a few months prior, im at a friends house in the living room flipping through channels cause we just played video games for like 7 hours and he passed out and i was bored of the game(call of duty 2 or somethin) anyways i come across motorcycle racing, it wasnt just any motorcycle racing, these guys were dragging knees around turns and such, so i got all antsy in my pantsy and started feeling things i never felt before just watchin these maniacs break the laws of gravity and fly around this track at crazy speeds(it was world superbike) so i started googling and found this sportbiketracktime company had a "trackday", whatever that is, at gingerman raceway, never heard of it, on october 6, so whatd i do, i signed up for that sh*t and told my dad, hey im racing my motorcycle on a track and youre taking me, my dads response, "okay, when and where", so its still about two months out so i buy a suit in the weeks to come, i take my bike out with the suit on the backroads and get pulled over by my own department for doing a few over lol he lets me go so i take my bike home like yeh thats right, im fast, im READY, so fast forward and my dad and i arrive at a hotel down the road from gman friday night with his big ass family van, all the seats taken outa the back and my bike and gear inside the van, my lucky number is 22 which i had on my bike that day and still have on my bikes today, and whenever i see it i have a good feeling about things, so we get our room at the hotel, its room 22, we go to dinner and are seated at table 22(didnt ask to be) and our bill was 22 and some change, so im feelin good, so we go back to the hotel to sleep .. well i cant lol i stay up all night by the window watching trucks and trailers full of bikes and gear and extra tires(why do they need those?), arrive at the hotel, fast forward to the next morning it is 20 degrees with an awful windchill in the morning, it end up topping out at about 40 degrees and sprinkled rain most the day, i got up to about 125 on the straight on my r6 and drug both my knees my very last session, i was on top of the world as my dad sat on the bleechers at turn 1 freezing his ass off, we load up and head out after the day is over, no crashes and got my knee down and some compliments from those fast guys with the flourescent shirts on in novice, i thought okay this was only the most fun thing ive ever done in my life, and now my credit card is maxed and i travel sometimes up to 800 miles for trackdays lol thats how it started and where it started and why it started
That's easy..Founding member of Team Gixxer..Mr. Keith Abner in Robbinsville, NC at the Busa Bash. The rest is history....Here's T paving the way...
This. Its well known to almost everyone that trackdays are available. Most that want to do it will make it happen. I've found that many dont because they're apprehensive about riding on the track despite the fact that it's much much safer.
i knew about track days for cars and when i bought my bike i figured there must be something like it for bikes. internet searches at the time turned up NESBA, so away i went. when i bought my r6 from the dealer, one of the selling points was $600 in NESBA track days that came with it at the time. i found STT after NESBA slowly pulled out of the mid-west and a friend signed up for an event at gingerman. not even sure how many years ago that was...
I learned about STT and track days when I wadded up a Ducati on the Dragon in front of Dave with 129photos.com. After he helped me haul the bike back up the side of the mountain and offered me a bottle of water, he asked me if I'd ever been to the track. I told him that I hadn't, and he replied that I probably would have saved it if I had. We've been friends ever since.
I learned about track days at a bike night.I believe it was Eric Cell that was talking to people about them. Afterwards I searched the internet and Found STT and went and bought all the necessary stuff (if I had only founds this forum especially the Ride Right). Set the hook with my first trackday. Jane was my coach was great fun a couple years later my fiancée at the time started riding trackdays shortly after a crash on the cherahola. So I mount and balance a few motorcycle tires a year or sell take offs. I always point people to ride right and tell the, it includes the first leather rental for free. Between a couple ride right winners and the staff coupons I got for people thinking about track days from the coaches I know I brought 7 new people to the track addiction
I had stopped into Cycle Gear in St Louis after buying a sport bike (an addition to the stable of touring bikes) in 2008. The guy asked me if I was going to track it. I said I didn't want to race, and then he told me about track days. Handed me a brochure about local St Louis days at Gateway. When I got home to Chicago I searched and found local TD Orgs. Went and watched one, then a month later rode on the track for the first time.
I first heard about track days from an ad placed in a motorcycle publication, went to their website, signed up for a orientation day and the rest is history.
My husband has been trying to get me to try track days for at least 15 year. I'm thinking ... NOT A CHANCE !!! In my imagination I expected a whole bunch of squids ready to kill me or run me off the track !!! Soooo 15 years later he suggested I try it ... not sure what happened but I immediately said yes. Attended a level one school in Canada, then started with local tracks. I WAS TOTALLY ADDICTED !!! Now I'm the one doing all the bookings for everything and I just tell him where he is driving us. We are riding tracks from Canada to Florida to Alabama to Georgia ... and we are not done exploring yet LOL Guess he knew what he was doing when he got me involved ... now all our vacations are all about track days LMAO
I think I first got the itch when searching gixxer.com for info on how to lower a gsxr 600. It was then (not so) gently explained to me how bad of an idea that is and just 1-foot it with race boots. So, I bought race boots. Then it was "how do I get the best performance out of this motorcycle?" Again, it was (not so) gently explained that, "the bike is plenty fast enough, you just suck. Go get better on a race track near you." So I searched motorcycle tracks near me and boom. Putnam shows up. Those strangers were totally convincing and I have no idea why.
Yeah, I've pulled her hair a few times and that was one of them. Mostly she just swings wildly so it's not hard to dodge, but sometimes........
I met Brian Wink ... he said ... come to the track with us ... it will be fun. And I crashed on the second day of my first weekend and was hooked on since then.
Was this the magazine? On a serious note, can you post your pic from the racing magazine? I would love to see it. We missed you at Barber in September! Re. how I heard about track days, about a week after I bought my Ducati back in 2007, I rode to the Gingerman Trackfest with someone from our local Ducati club. After watching everyone ride at the track, I knew I had to try it. It was the most fun I ever had, and I was hooked.