From a near-miss at Eastern Creek in the 1990s to a Dunlop tyre launch on SMSP’s south circuit, Nige reflects on how ride days have grown from loose gatherings into safe experiences.
Nigel Paterson heads back to Sydney Motorsport Park for a ride day and finds plenty has changed since the early, chaotic years. With better organisation, coaching and sticky modern tyres, track time now offers speed, skill and fun without the risks of road riding.
Recently I had a chance to ride on a track… now, some of you may be a little unkind when I say it was the southern section of Sydney Motorsport Park, a tight, twisty and low-speed track – but it’s great fun on smaller bikes.
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I paid for that fun in numerous ways, including getting up a stupid o’clock to be there in time for the rider’s briefing (which happened an hour late, but I’m not bitter) and some tightness in the thighs the next day, a result of moving from side-to-side on the bike around ten times a minute, because of how twisty the track is.
It was great to catch up with folks from the industry and media I hadn’t seen in a while, it’s always awesome to be able to ride without a speed limit and it was cool to get my knee down while riding, and not follow it with hip, shoulder, elbow, helmet…
Jeff getting his knee down on the road on Suzuki’s GSX250R!
Back in the day I had to go racing to experience a track, for the ride day hadn’t been invented – race tracks were for racing, not for just going fast. That was 1988 (yeah, I’m old), and it was around 1990 that I remember reading a magazine article about a bunch of guys who got together and hired Oran Park Raceway in Sydney’s South-West for their own pleasure – and the ride-day was born.
The late great Glenn Willing at Oran Park on a V3 Honda MVX250 prepared by Dudley Lister.
Numerous people thought this was a good idea and Dave Stone made a business of it with Motorcycle Concepts, while rider trainer Steve Brouggy eventually shifted from running schools to being the man behind Mega Ride Days, which has hosted hundreds of thousands of Aussies getting a taste of motorcycle sport without flaunting speed limits and taking unnecessary risks.
Mega Ride Days has hosted hundreds of thousands of Aussies getting a taste of motorcycle sport without flaunting speed limits and taking unnecessary risks.
The early days of ride days were sometimes a bit chaotic. Now, the older I get the faster I was, and one particular day back in the 1990s I was riding something fast at what was then know as Eastern Creek Raceway, and I was really enjoying turn eight, the left-hander around what was known as Corporate Hill (it’s now known as Turn Seven, because they took out the right-left almost-a-chicane ages ago).
Steve Brouggy with the S 1000 RR and Ducati Panigale V4 S at SMSP.
It’s a slight uphill as you approach, with a blind, late entry – you can’t really see what’s ahead, and tipping the bike over much later than you’d expect (if you’re a road rider) is par for the course, but I was getting familiar with leaving the tip-in until as late as my bravery allowed, which meant I’d enter the corner faster, because there was plenty of track width on the exit to run out wide before braking hard and moving left for the entry to the downhill hairpin which was Turn Nine.
You can wear out a knee scraper and wonder why no-one has offered you a Superbike contract.
What I love about this turn is how satisfying it feels when you get it right – a fast sweeper without much braking beforehand, where you can wear out a knee scraper and wonder why no-one has offered you a Superbike contract. On this particular day I was using all my C-grade racing skills to look good for whatever snapper Two Wheels was using that day… but then as I exited the turn I realised there were four or five big bikes ponderously rolling toward the hairpin… and I was going way too fast to slow down enough to follow them around.
Nigel on the cover of Two Wheels in 1997 on the new GSX-R600.
Luckily I was able to thread the needle between one rider running too wide, putting the bulk of the group on my left, then I braked hard for the hairpin and dove up the inside line. And if it was exciting for me, it may have been terrifying for those I overtook, but vastly preferable to skittling through the pack like a bowling ball.
Different experience levels means a lot of unpredictability at track days – as Nige found out.
Ride days have evolved from those early days of chaos on the track to efficiently run events with groups organised by skill (they certainly weren’t that day, and I still won’t go near a session full of first-timers). There are now rules in place regarding overtaking and behaviour on the track (experiences like mine above shouldn’t happen today), skills development (coaching) is available and the advice around preparing your bike and being ready for the track so much better than in the bad old days. Mega also offers sporty Ducatis you can hire, so if you don’t have a suitable machine this is a great way to experience sports riding without spending a fortune.
There are now rules in place regarding overtaking and behaviour on the track, skills development is available and the advice around preparing your bike is so much better.
My recent ride was organised by Dunlop for the launch of its new track tyres, the Q5 range, sports tyres which include track focussed (Q5), track and street use (Q5S) and sports road riding (Q5A). Dunlop emphasised at the launch the track-focussed Q5 was built to warm up quickly and provide good grip straight from the pit box, making tyre warmers unnecessary. While I’ve always thought tyre warmers were overkill for ride days, a friend who uses them pointed out: “I get to go hard from the first lap – so that’s an extra six laps a day of having fun, plus they give me a little extra confidence, so I think it’s worth the cost and hassle”.
Nige’s most recent SMSP experience came during a Dunlop tyre launch.
Fair enough I suppose, but if I’m ever that serious about going that hard I’ll go racing again. In the meantime, having a bike with a set of sticky tyres, good suspension and rear-set footpegs for use at ride days would be awesome… oh wait, I do have one at the back of the garage… and even though it’s 20 years old it would still be great fun around SMSP. I should get that out.
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