Byers, CO – The MRA hosted a phenomenal 62 new race students at its annual New Racers’ School over the weekend of April 14-15 with Friday night classroom discussion and all day Saturday track instruction at High Plains Raceway.
New Rider Director Jeff Brown instructed during the classroom session Friday night at Fay Myers Motorcycle World in Greenwood Village, CO to a room packed full of prospective motorcycle road racers. Brown covered a broad spectrum of race topics including motorcycle preparation, mental and physical conditioning, race track procedures and flags, and registration logistics.
Saturday’s track session started sharply at 7:30am. MRA VP of Rules & Tech Brett Leveque and a small team of volunteer instructors performed tech inspection of the students’ bikes based on the MRA SuperStreet tech rules. Due to the overwhelming number of students this year, the field of 62 students and 32 instructors was broken up into two sessions. Students were also paired up with instructors roughly based on bike displacement and student track experience. The MRA has a philosophy of keeping the student to instructor ratio at 2:1 to provide the best learning experience possible. This requires a lot of coordination by Brown plus volunteer time (and expense) from a sizable group of MRA returning expert racers. Fortunately, the MRA organization has garnered a strong sense of member camaraderie, so getting this large number of instructors wasn’t a huge problem.
The morning rotations consisted of follow-the-instructor race line education, launch drills, and some 2-on-1 sessions. After lunch and socializing, the instructors were able to tailor the next three remaining track sessions to fit the individual riders’ needs. Some continued the 2-on-1 methods while others opted to demonstrate race craft techniques specific to HPR.
The day then finished up with four student races, two for each group. As in the past, the MRA instructors are there to cheer their students on during the races and answer any questions they might have afterwards. This interaction with senior members not only helps the students do better in the second race, but also starts a mentoring process that keeps racers coming back to the MRA year after year.
At the end of the day, the students were awarded certificates of completion and several decided to get their novice licenses right there. Since the weekend, social media has been ablaze with excitement about racing from a number of the students and even more have decided to sign up for their MRA license!
The official MRA season will open at Pueblo Motorsports Park on April 29-30.
The Motorcycle Roadracing Association is dedicated to promoting safe and competitive motorcycle road racing events for enthusiasts in Colorado and the surrounding area. For more information, surf around on the MRA website – http://www.mra-racing.org/ .