My Day At CLASS
				  or
		  A Day from the Diary of a Wannabe
			    18 April, 1994

Warning: There's a lot of crap in here about me, my riding, my bike,
and other things not directly related to CLASS. As much as anything, I
want to record my experience of the event, and doing this involves
lots of digressions. Most people will probably find long sections
boring.

Not only was this my first time to attend CLASS (California's Leading
Advanced Safety School, run by Reg and Jason Pridmore), but it was my
first time to attend any event at any race track anywhere. Lots of new
experiences! I was happy I convinced my SO Lois to go with me to
CLASS; the registration literature they send out specifically mentions
that students are invited to bring guests, and I thought it might be a
good time for her. I knew I would enjoy having her along. She's
thinking of enrolling for CLASS in several months, so it seemed like a
good idea for her to get a preview. We had a nice ride down to
Monterey to stay at a friend's apartment the night before so we could
get plenty of sleep.

I. Before
   A. Tires
I have traditionally ridden with the DoD Bias Ply Street Tires of
Choice, namely Metzeler ME88 Marathon Rear, and ME33 Laser Front.
After a friend took CLASS a month ago, he advised me to get Comp-K's
for the track, saying, "You don't want to go out there and worry about
your tires." Another factor is that I've been sliding my ME88 on the
street a bit, and I didn't know whether this would be good or bad at
the track. My rear-end slides on the street have all been exiting
corners on the throttle, and have been very predictable. They have
never robbed me of any confidence that the bike was completely under
control. But I knew the line between a confident slide and an
out-of-control slide is a fine one, and I imagined that letting just
one slide get out of hand at the track could take away so much
confidence (or worse) that I'd miss the potential of the whole rest of
the day. On the other hand, I felt the track could give me the
opportunity to practice these slides and fine-tune them to a degree I
just can't approach on the street. If I switched to a stickier tire, I
might not be able to go fast enough to slide at all, and I also knew
switching to a different compound might mean abandoning the
ME88's very predictable characteristics. When it's sliding, the ME88
still gives substantial grip; it doesn't seem to let go "all at once,"
and I've been told other tires don't have so much of this property. As
for the front, I've never gotten the ME33 Laser to push at all on the
street, except on wet or otherwise bad surfaces, so I didn't really
have any concerns about sliding the front at the track as long as
there was no rain. In the end, the additional expense and shorter life
of the Comp-K's, along with the familiarity and predictability of the
ME33/ME88 combination played heavily in my choice: I used my normal
street tires on the track. With some reservations, I opted to run the
tires at the track with the same pressures I use on the street, again
because I figured I should stick with the familiar. I run about 40 psi
cold in both front and rear on the street, and although most people
consider these insanely high pressures, especially for the track,
that's what I ran at CLASS.

   B. Bike
I ride a 1985 Honda CB650SC Nighthawk, and I didn't really do much to
prepare it. I happened to have changed the oil recently when the CLASS
date rolled around, and I checked the brake thickness on the front and
rear when I got my new tires. Other than that, I just made sure the
suspension was in good shape and nothing was loose.

   C. What I wanted out of it
I was hoping the experience of CLASS would bring opportunities to
practice several skills that I find imprudent to practice too much on
the street. In descending order by priority to me, the skills I hoped
to address were multi-gear downshifts, gauging my lean angle
consistently, learning a set of curves quickly, confidently using and
controlling rear-end slides, and hanging off the bike in corners. Not
only that, but I just plain wanted to enjoy going fast (for me) in a
safe environment. I had particular things in mind to practice, but the
real reason I went was to have fun!

i. Downshifting
It's amazing how forgiving the street can be of certain bad habits
(and how unforgiving of others!). One of my bad habits was to
downshift and engage the clutch before I began braking for a turn.
This is a bad habit because matching the engine speed to the road
speed in the lower gear can rev the motor far too high. This never
mattered much to me on the street because I very rarely get above
8,000 RPM on the street, and my engine redlines at 10,000. But I knew
this habit could be costly on the track, and I decided a few months
before CLASS to break it. Downshifting should happen near the end of
braking, not near (and damn sure not before!) the beginning. Putting
this better idea into practice on the street proved fairly easy
because I was already pretty comfortable with controlling the throttle
while applying the brakes. Even so, I still have to put more
attention on this "new" way of downshifting than it will ultimately
consume when I'm more practiced at it. Furthermore, I learned recently
that many excellent riders recommend that when downshifting more than
one gear (from 4th to 2nd, for example), you let the clutch out in the
intermediate gear(s) to make sure you know which gear you're in. In
the time since I first heard this technique mentioned, I've come to
believe it's standard practice among racers and many others who ride
well. I wanted to learn to do it because this preponderance of opinion
makes it seem like a valuable skill. When I started making a habit of
it, I found it fairly easy to let the clutch out in intermediate gears
if I focused only on downshifting and didn't need to concentrate on
anything else, like coming up to a stop sign. But I noticed it was
much more difficult when I was braking hard while I downshifted. My
problem is that while I'm used to controlling the throttle while I'm
braking, I don't have the precision that seems normal when the brakes
are off. Without releasing the clutch, this isn't a problem because
blipping for a downshift doesn't require a precise engine speed --
close enough is close enough. But to let the clutch out smoothly while
braking hard, you have to get the engine speed spot on. I tried to
practice this for a few weeks before going to the track, but I found
the street doesn't really give me lots of opportunities to downshift
more than once while I'm on the brakes hard. I hoped the track would
give me lots of chances to practice my multi-gear downshifts on the
brakes. It didn't let me down...

ii. Lean angles
How much more can I afford to lean over? It's a question whose answer
many motorcyclists worry about. I know from my riding on the street
that in good conditions, ground clearance is a bigger consideration
than traction in deciding whether a particular lean angle is safe. In
riding on the street, I've had a hard time gauging how much further I
can lean without scraping something hard. I hoped my time at the track
would let me practice getting a footpeg on the ground in every corner
so I could really get a good feel for the "limiting angle."

iii. Learning a track
I was hoping to see what it was like to start learning a track. I
wanted to see how quickly I could develop a feeling of familiarity
with the layout of the track, and how quickly I could begin to pick
out the relevant parts of each scene and choose reference points that
were helpful.

iv. Sliding practice
I hoped I could slide the back end of the bike more, and improve my
feeling of control in rear-wheel slides.

v. Hanging off
I wasn't sure whether I'd feel the need or desire to hang my butt off
the side of the bike to get around corners with more ground clearance.
But I decided it would be fun to practice it if the need arose.
Because this was a low priority, though, I told myself I wouldn't
concentrate on this unless I needed to hang off to avoid dragging
things. The handlebars on my bike are definitely not sporty in their
position, and they make it a bit of a pain to hang off comfortably.

II. The Experience
On arriving at the track, I was struck first with the HUGE number of
sport bikes compared to everything else. There was one bike less
sporty than mine, a Honda Shadow. There was a Nighthawk 700S, still
what I would call a "standard," but considerably sportier than my
"standard" Nighthawk 650. There were a few K75's, arguably standards,
although I don't think any of them were completely stock, and many had
engine mods as well as suspension changes. There was an R90S. The
instructors rode K1100RS's, which aren't _that_ sporty. There were a
couple of R1100RS's, which I would call sport-tourers, and a Concours
that also falls under the "sport-touring" heading. All of the
remaining 45 or so bikes were serious sport machines (some people
would quibble about VFR's -- there were a few of those). I started
telling myself, "Be prepared to be passed. A lot." I saw only two
machines I figured I could pass in a straight: The R90S, and a bike
with a "DUCATI" decal on its fairing that looked, as far as I could
tell, like a Ninja 250. I was also struck with the number of people
and bikes. I had expected the class to be smaller; we had about 60
students. I hoped traffic wouldn't keep me from getting some good
practice time on the track.

    A. Classroom Sessions
We went into the classroom after everyone got through tech inspection,
and had the day's logistics explained to us. After the logistics, Reg
explained the rationale behind the lines they asked us to use. They
have a rule stating that passing on the inside of turns is not
allowed, so that the person who wants to go faster is the one who
incurs the additional risk associated with being on the outside of the
turn when the rider on the inside might fall. This rule also
discourages competition. In conjunction with the "passing on the
inside" interdict, they recommend a low, tight line through corners,
leaving room on the outside for faster riders to pass. We got divided
up into an "A" group (people who'd been to CLASS before) and a "B"
group (people who hadn't been to CLASS before, or who wanted to take a
less aggressive pace on the track). Since I had never even been to a
track before, it was really clear to me that I belonged in the B
group. After the first brief session in the classroom, we went out to
the track. The A group started doing laps behind instructors to get
oriented to the track, while the B group went slowly around the edge
of the track, stopping at turn two, turn five, and the corkscrew
(turns 7, 8, and 8A) to listen to Reg make suggestions about lines and
setup for each of the corners. I didn't feel right about taking Lois
around to see the track on the back of my bike because I thought Reg
might get bent out of shape. I didn't know how much access they wanted
to grant to non-paying customers. I regret not taking her with me
because I think now it would have been fine. My main impression of the
track at this point was that it's big, long, and really cool-looking.
It has some turns, some straights, and a corkscrew.

    B. Laps with the instructors
We returned to the paddock area after our stops around the track with
Reg, and the A group went into the classroom. We in the B group formed
lines behind instructors, and went out, six or eight per instructor,
to do some slow laps and get acquainted with the lines they suggest.
At the end of each lap, the lead student in each group drops to the
back of the group so every student gets a lap directly behind the
instructor. I lined up at the front of our group, hoping that I'd get
a look at the track right behind the instructor to start with, then be
able to refresh my memory after a few laps by returning to a position
near the front of the group. I was really thankful that the instructor
took our laps slowly, so I could concentrate on looking around at the
track and on noting their suggested lines. When I moved to the side to
drop back, one or two bikes went by, and then a huge gap. I still
don't know what happened (maybe the instructor just didn't go slowly
enough for everyone to keep up), but the fact that someone had let a
big hole open up in our group made the next several laps useless for
learning anything about lines, since the instructor wasn't even in
sight much of the time. I took the opportunity to look around the
track and try to get more familiar in some nebulous way with my
surroundings. I was still too excited to notice particular reference
points or anything specific. My strategy of starting at the front of
my group turned out to work pretty well, because after a few more
laps, the instructor came back into view as the renegade gap-opener(s)
dropped back behind me.

    C. Switching groups
After our laps behind the instructors, we returned to the classroom
for a session with Reg. He talked mostly about the track and the lines
he suggests. He recommended keeping your upper body relaxed, riding as
smoothly as possible, and being sensitive to the feedback you get from
the bike. At the end of the classroom session, he mentioned that the
sizes of the A group and the B group were very different, and he would
like to shrink the B group a bit. He asked us to consider whether we
might be willing to move into the A group after the coming track
session. I considered switching, but because we hadn't done any riding
on our own yet, I didn't know which group I'd feel more comfortable
in. I asked Reg what might make a person uncomfortable in the A group,
and he said, "Passing speeds, mostly." This reassured me that it might
be OK to switch, since I don't mind being passed by people going much
more quickly than I am.

I went out onto the track along with the rest of the B group, and we
started riding! I had been looking forward to getting out on a
racetrack forever, it seemed (but really only a bit over a year), and
I was finally there! It was great! My plate was really full with me
trying to concentrate on an unfamiliar part of my riding technique
(multi-gear downshifts) in an unfamiliar environment, but even though
my riding showed that I was overloaded, I was having a great time. I
had been worried that it would be hard to pass people who were slower
than me in the corners since all the bikes there were so much more
powerful than mine, but I found this wasn't really a problem in the
first track session. All my passes went really smoothly. I worried for
a while that my riding was making it hard for people to get by me from
behind because no one came around me, but after a few laps an
instructor blew past me on a straight and gave me a big thumbs up! I
assume if I was riding some antisocial line, he would have told me.
Later, I would wish this instructor were around again...

    D. Ride with Jason
We pulled into the paddock at the end of our track session, and I
decided it was probably OK for me to switch to the A group since only
an instructor had passed me during the first track session. This
switch was made even more tempting by the fact that if I switched, I'd
get to go right back out to the track! Essentially, I got to trade a
classroom session for more track time, and for me, this was a definite
win. I went and told Reg I would be happy to switch, and came back out
to prepare for the next track session. I saw Jason about to start up
the hill to the pits, and I asked him where the queue was to get rides
with him. He told me no one was waiting, and I could hop on right
then. I felt I had seen enough of the track to benefit from taking a
ride with him, so I decided to get it out of the way early. In riding
with him, I learned a lot about his choices of line and about being
consistent with inputs to the bike. Experienced CLASS-ers had told me
to expect a different world of smoothness and to expect to go really
fast. Neither of these expectations reflected what I got, exactly. At
my smoothest, my riding seems as smooth as his. I could feel every
shift in the ride I took with him, for example, and they felt like my
shifts when I'm doing well. Also, he is definitely no slouch
speed-wise in giving those rides, but it didn't seem we went all that
fast in the corners. His pegs just touched the ground the same amount,
every single time. *That* was the amazing thing about the ride for me.
It was incredibly consistent. We did two laps, and I didn't notice any
difference between them. We were in the same place on the track, every
shift felt like every other shift, every application of the brakes
came in the same place, every corner put the footpeg gently on the
pavement, no less, no more. I get brief glimpses of riding like that
for one, maybe two corners. Nothing feels magical or incredible about
it, but everything just works. I can't make it happen in my riding on
command, and I can't make it last. It just comes and goes. I'll have a
couple of corners where everything's smooth, then I'll lurch the bike
with a slightly-off downshift. He does it right, the same way, lap
after lap after lap! It was really something. I hope I can be half
that consistent someday. Another thing I noticed was that 1,100 German
CC's of 1994 are far greater than 650 Japanese CC's of 1985 (aged 9
years to boot!). The K1100RS we were on would definitely put some
serious distance on my bike in the straights. Much more acceleration.
Wow. If I ever get serious about this track stuff, I might need a
liter-bike after all... :-)

When the ride with Jason was over, I had lots of questions. I didn't
take the time to ask them all right then (hell, I was so excited I
couldn't even remember them all), but I did ask him about his line in
a couple of turns. In turn nine, especially, I was surprised at how
low he entered. I asked him about this, and he explained that it lets
him get better drive out of the corkscrew, and doesn't really slow him
down coming out of nine, either. I tried it, and sure enough it seems
to work. I would never have thought of going in that low.

Before Jason and I had taken off, someone suggested that Lois ask
Jason for a ride. She did, and he told her he'd be happy to take her.
When I got off his bike, Lois was suited up and there was still no
queue, so she got on and the two of them took off. She said she had a
"love/hate" relationship with the ride, and didn't have much chance to
learn about the track because she was concentrating on staying on the
bike and setting up for the turns. She was definitely impressed with
Jason's riding, but I'm not sure she quite managed to get used to the
speed before the ride was over. She's been riding herself for some
time now, so I'm sure she got a lot of value out of it. I know I get
more self-conscious with her as my passenger now that she's ridden
with Jason! :-)

    E. My bike
Before going out on the ride with Jason, I had stopped for a minute to
think about how my bike had felt to me during the first track session.
I was pleased that it happily took all I was willing to give it. This
was the first time I had had the throttle wide open with the tach at
redline, and it was the first time I had braked and cornered it hard
one turn after another. The engine never complained, and the brakes
and suspension never faded. I could feel flex in the frame, of course,
but I never got the feeling that it was wound up tight like a spring,
waiting to spit me off when I unloaded it. I have Works Performance
shocks on the rear and Progressive Suspension springs in the front,
and I had no complaints about them at all. There are bumps at Laguna,
but compared to most roads it's really smooth. So I don't know whether
I really gave my suspension a work-out or not. I looked at my tires
after the first track session, too, and noticed that they weren't just
scrubbed and a little balled up at the edges like they usually get.
Instead, the rubber looked shredded near the edges of the tires. I
didn't know ME88's and ME33 Lasers would do that, but I guess any tire
will under the "right" conditions. They were warmer than they'd ever
been before, and much stickier. In the whole day of riding, I only
managed one little slide, coming out of turn eleven. Taking corners
that hard on the street seems to get the rear loose more often, and
apparently the difference is that I don't get the tires as warm on the
street, so they're less sticky. My only concerns with the bike as the
day went on were that I found myself wishing for more ground clearance
and sometimes more engine, but I guess that's what sport bikes are
for...

    F. More Time on the Track
After I talked to Jason briefly about our ride together, I hurried to
get back on my own bike and have some more time on the track. As I
increased my speed, I found myself scraping footpegs quite a bit, but
pretty inconsistently at first. For example, I think I folded my peg
all the way up just before starting the exit of turn two a couple of
times (it doesn't fold all the way up to the frame -- it has pretty
limited travel. I don't know whether it folded to the stop or not, but
the quality of scraping definitely changed suddenly as I leaned over
more), but I didn't scrape in turn eleven at all until much later in
the day. And even in turn two, I would scrape some times and not
others. I also found I had trouble just getting used to the idea that
scraping the pegs is normal and OK. It was always tempting to wiggle
just a little on the bike to try to make it stop, and I didn't get
over this too well as time passed. I was indecisive: Should I try to
scrape the pegs less since there is the risk of running out of ground
clearance altogether? Or should I learn to live comfortably with
scraping footpegs and become consistent enough about it that I can do
it confidently? I spent some time with each approach.

    G. Hanging Off
There are three ways to keep footpegs from scraping: Go slower, be on
the gas more, or hang off. A big part of the point of the day for me
was to go fast and have fun, so I didn't want to slow down except to
work on particular aspects of my riding. As I said before, my tires
weren't sliding, so I could have been on the gas more, but most of the
time I wasn't brave enough to buy myself significantly more ground
clearance that way than I already had. So I decided I'd try hanging
off a little. It's fun! It felt a bit awkward sometimes, but it got
lots better with a little practice. I found the transition from one
side of the bike to the other an interesting timing exercise in the
corkscrew, but it didn't take me long to learn to synchronize my
movement from left to right with the heavy-to-light-to-heavy
transition through the turns. When the bike started getting light, I'd
come up off the seat and be in position to hang off the other side
when it got heavy again. By then, I had it flicked over. It worked
really smoothly a few times, and felt great!

    H. A Bad Track Session
The first track session immediately after lunch went pretty badly for
me. I was beginning to be tired and I had trouble concentrating,
perhaps because I'd just eaten. On the track, I rode really
inconsistently, screwing up shifts, braking too early, finding every
imaginable false neutral, changing everything I did on every lap, and
getting frustrated. To make matters worse, this was the one time I got
stuck behind everyone's nightmare rider: just enough slower than me in
the corners, and just enough faster than me in the straights. I had
lots of opportunities to pass underneath him, but I was a good boy and
let every one of them get by. He had apparently not taken the
"Pridmore Line" to heart, because in spite of his low cornering speed,
he was using the whole track on entrances and exits, and I wasn't
skilled enough to pass him in the middle of the corners. He had lots
more horsepower than me (almost everybody did!), but he would use only
enough of it to make sure he'd still be in my way for the next turn!
Lots of people cornered more slowly than I did, but at least most of
them had the consideration to motor down the straights fast enough to
stay way ahead of me anyway. Not this guy... Several times, I dropped
back until he was out of sight, only to catch up with him again a few
corners later. I knew he was going faster than me in the straights, so
this meant I was cornering a lot faster (and a lot more comfortably!)
when he wasn't there to get my attention. This is something for me to
work on. I thought it would be easy to stay focused on my own riding
in this situation, but it wasn't. I should have pulled into the pits
to put serious space between him and me, but I was too stupid to think
of this then. Next time, I'll know.

    I. The Final Track Session
The track session right after lunch went badly enough that I decided
to trim back the set of things I was working on to just the basics,
try to make the important things more consistent, and add the frills
back later. In the track session that followed (which would also be
our last, so "later" never came), I stopped hanging off, opting for
lots more scraping instead. I stopped trying to push my braking later
and later, and I stopped making myself work so hard at everything. I
let myself just relax and have fun, and things really got a lot more
consistent. In particular, my lean angles and cornering speeds became
much more accurate, with the pegs scraping moderately in most corners,
never scraping too hard, and occasionally not scraping at all.
Although I was fatigued, the last session was really fun because I
didn't put any pressure on myself. I still tried to shift smoothly,
corner consistently, brake accurately, and so forth, but I was somehow
more easy-going about it than I had been. It paid off in enjoyment.

    J. The other riders
I was really pleasantly surprised at the standard of riding I saw at
CLASS. I saw very few outright fuck-ups. A fast guy ran off the track
a few corners after he passed me, so I got to watch him raise quite a
cloud of dust. He saved it and kept on riding. Another rider either
had a brake system failure or simply had his lever adjusted so close
to the bar that he couldn't brake hard, and as a result he ran off the
track heading into the corkscrew and crashed (he was OK). But mistakes
like these numbered very few, and the ambulance crew was decidedly
bored the whole day. There was one truly amazing rider among the
students; he obviously had lots of experience racing, lots of skill,
and the bike to match. It seemed like he could put himself wherever he
chose, whenever he wanted. He passed me and others in places no one
else seemed willing to go, and he made it look easy. Most of the
riders who passed me did so either in straights or coming out of
corners. A few outbraked me, and many more could have, I'm sure, since
my braking skills aren't that good. But this guy could pass me (or
anyone, it seemed) wherever he wanted. Anywhere in any corner. Wow.

    K. Shifting
As for my multi-gear downshifts, I can say without a doubt that I
still need more practice. A couple of times, downshifting smoothly and
braking hard were just too much to think about together, and I ended
up braking with the throttle partly open and the clutch engaged. More
often, the engine speed just wasn't right in the in-between gear. Next
time I go to the track, I think I'll try separating the components of
the task, and getting more practice at each one separately: First just
braking hard coming into a corner, then downshifting slow and easy as
I coast down to corner speed, then downshifting with increasing
amounts of brake. I was too caught up in the excitement of the
situation to think of breaking things down this way at the time. I'm
also going to practice this on the street coming up to stops.

    L. Weather
The weather couldn't have been better. It was perfect. Nothing else to
say about it.

    M. Learning the Track
As time passed, I found I was able to successfully choose and use some
reference points, and my mental images of each corner developed very
quickly. Even so, I feel like I've just begun to learn the track. Just
remembering exactly where I turned in for a particular corner from one
lap to the next was hard.

    N. Consistency
This is what it's all about. I need much, much more of it. I feel I
have all the basic skills, but I need practice putting them together
smoothly at speed. I have several tasks in mind to practice in my
street riding, but I'm looking forward to getting back to the track,
too, so I can keep working on lots of stuff. I wish track time were
cheap!

III. In retrospect
In the classroom sessions, I got lots of advice from Reg and Jason,
and I found some of it was directly contrary to advice given by other
very successful racers. Keith Code and others recommend putting
pressure on the outside footpeg in a turn, and I find this works well
for me. Reg recommends weighting the inside peg. I've found lots of
other examples, mostly related to cornering. Everyone seems to agree
about braking, shifting, and accelerating. The conclusion I draw from
my observation that competent people give conflicting advice is that
beyond certain basic skills, there's not just one way to ride well. It
seems wise to learn to use as many techniques as possible, and then
pick your favorite at each instant. For example, body-steering and
countersteering are both comfortable for me. I tend to use more
countersteering under good conditions, but if I have any doubts about
traction, I use body-steering much more heavily because it isn't so
traction-greedy. Reg says he never countersteers and I find it hard to
believe, but I guess it's possible to win races that way, even in the
dry.

There is a rule at CLASS that says "No Lap Timing." I didn't time my
laps, but Lois was able to help me estimate times for a few laps, and
the estimates were pretty consistently in the 2:07 range. This made me
feel pretty good; I'm sure it's possible to do much better on my bike,
mainly by getting on the gas earlier, but I was happy just to be
fairly consistent time-wise even when my riding didn't feel so
consistent.

The class is very well run. The instructors are uniformly personable,
helpful, and available. Lois felt really welcomed and I think she got
a lot of benefit from being there. She had taken a book in case she
got bored, but it never occurred to her to get it out. She spent time
talking with other guests, other students, and watching the goings-on.
She stood at a couple of places near the track and tried to help me
get a feel for what and how I was doing. In all, she got a bit out of
it herself and was incredibly supportive of my doing CLASS. Her being
there, having fun, and enjoying my having fun made it all the better
for me. What a great time!