I know this probably doesnt mean much to most people but while I was taking a driving course for the military I realized who he was and started to pick his brain, any squeeze as much knowledge out of him as I could during the 5 min breaks in between classes.

a bit about him off of the yamaha champions riding school website: Mark has a pair of No. 1 plates on the wall from Colorado’s MRA and is also the club’s new-rider coach and representative. Mark has joined the other four instructors for special programs and has worked extensively with Nick on rider training; Mark also teaches tactical driving for the US military.

Heres the notes that I wrote down.... (sorry it includes a bit of stuff about cars as well because it can be applied to riding).

So in no real particular order.

• use small muscle groups not large ones (ie your finger tips on the brake lever not all of your fingers)
• look through your corners
• if your looking too close it will slow you down because you dont have enough time to react.
• keep your head up and off the bike
• if you come off the track get to neutral brakes and throttle, use small steering input to get back on track.
• front wheel skids ease off the gas and hold what steering you got. dont try to correct it, just slow down!

when learning a new track and corners.

• go at 80% and late apex, finish all braking and major turning before hitting the apex and start accelerating.
• as you learn the track bring your apex forward until you start to run out of track and start hitting the dragons teeth.
• slow into corners fast out, dont try to dive into the corners because you will have to slow down too much to make it out of them
• if you apex too soon than you will come out of the corner slow and run out of track.
• if you apex to late than you will be slow out of the corner because you are using all your traction for steering not accelerating.
• your exit will tell you about your entry.
• if your still on the inside of the turn upon exiting then your apexing too late and not accelerating hard enough.
• if your running out of track and find yourself getting into the dirt your apexing to early.
• you will know when you hit the right spot because you will be accelerating as hard as pos and will come to the outside edge of the track without running off the track.
• Do all shifting before you turn to keep the bike settled and you can your traction for steering.
• to make a 0.01 sec change in your lap time you need to move your braking point 10ft.
• Its more efficient and safer to accelerate out of turns harder.
• the easiest way to get through chicanes that have more than two corners is to late apex all but the last corner and hug the outside of the track. when you get to the last corner take like you normally would.

other info

• If you are in we conditions, once you feel wheel slippage shift up to prevent the torque from overcoming your traction.
• dont rush the corners
• wait to enter a corner until you can see the exit. (applies to the majority of corners but he said he does this on all).
• focus on finite input into the controls
• minimize bike lean angle and maximize rider lean angle.
• use pegs as gyroscopes and platforms for stability.
• dont try to muscle the bike with your arms.
• there is no such thing as body steering. use counter steering.

more technical stuff.

 

Good stuff CJ. Sounds like you had a blast & learned a lot. Thanks for taking the time to post up.

 

Man it was a blast! My two instructors were him and a guy who used to be a nascar pit crew chief and is now a proffesional driver/tester for porshe. I got to race around a private track trying to pit the other students and not have that done too me. After a few days we took to off roading for the remainder of the class so if anyone wants those notes Ive got those as well.