It doesn’t have to be a pure race bike; for a relatively small amount of money, a high performance motorcycle can be purchased from a local dealer. But riding a sports bike fast requires new skills.

Getting onto a race track is relatively easy now that most race tracks offer track days. These special race track days were designed to give the owners of high performance bikes the chance to ride them much faster than the legal limit on the highway.

Lots of Effort Needed for Quick Lap Times

Riders are split into groups depending on their experience level and although going fast on a race track seems easy, at first, to get a good/competitive lap time takes a lot of effort.

Most competent riders will find that after a number of laps (depending on their skill level), they will hit a plateau with their lap times. However, this lap time plateau must have been achieved with consistency – one fast lap does not make you a Grand Prix rider!

When the rider is confident that his lap times (and therefore riding) are consistent, he can analyze various aspects of the track and decide where his speed could be increased and his lap times reduced. Most tracks have a circuit layout available on their web sites and the track day rider should download a copy to make notes on.

No Coasting

Of particular importance for getting better lap times is to reduce, or eliminate all together, the amount of time coasting. Coasting is a condition where a rider is neither accelerating nor braking, (or even cornering hard). Oftentimes, coasting happens just prior to corner entry. A rider will brake too early and have to coast until it is time to lay the bike over.

Data logging systems are very useful to locate coasting areas; however, a good rider analyzing his lap will realize he was braking too early and make the necessary corrections.

Another riding error that promotes coasting is turning in too late for a corner. The rider will feel he is running out of road and wait (no throttle applied) until his speed and line is appropriate for the corner (even Moto GP riders sometimes leave their braking too late – often referred to as out braking themselves).

Long Fast Corners

When the rider is satisfied that he is coasting only where it is absolutely necessary, the next area for consideration is long fast corners. A rider will spend more time on a long swoop than, for instance, a hairpin bend. Typical corners of this type are: the final corner at Road Atlanta in America, or Gerard’s bend at Mallory Park in the UK.

Before attempting to ride faster around a long corner, it is imperative that the rider realizes that professional riders increase their speed slowly. Braking a little later, accelerating sooner and leaning over more are dangerous maneuvers and should be approached with a great deal of caution (an inexperienced rider may not realize he is near, or on, the limit of tire adhesion).

For most riders, perfecting their braking on a race track is very challenging. With modern super bikes easily capable of achieving 180 mph or more, leaving the application of brakes until the last possible moment is something that comes with experience and, as in all performance riding, should be approached with a great deal of caution.

Late Braking Points

Selecting a braking point on the track prior to a corner is good starting point for late braking. Needless to say, the braking point should be a fixture at the side of the track such as a yard marker board (typically shown at 300, 200 and 100 yards before each corner); there are many stories of riders choosing a person at the side of the track with a bright orange coat as the braking point, only for this person to move closer to the corner! Therefore, only fixed objects must be used for markers.

Limited Amount of Grip

Braking deep into a corner (trail braking) is something that only the most experienced riders will do. A front tire can only take so much load; and if the rider is attempting to turn the bike via the front tire, any braking will reduce the amount of available grip – all tires have a finite amount of grip available, and exceeding this grip will result in the tire skidding (not the best thing to have on corner entry!).

Accelerating sooner will increase the corner exit speed and as most corners lead onto a straight section, applying the power as soon as possible is important to decreasing lap times. However, as in trail braking, the tires only have a certain amount of grip available, and if the rider applies too much throttle as the bike is at full lean, the rear tire will skid.

Riding on a race track can be fun and rewarding if approached with caution. Trying to perfect each part of performance riding in one go will result in a crash. Small incremental improvements will pay dividends in reducing lap times.