Denver, CO April 8, 2014
The MRA started its official season on April 3-4 with the annual New Racers’ School. A total of 44 enthusiastic motorcyclists were treated to a wealth of information at during the Friday evening classroom session at Fay Myers Motorcycle World followed by an all-day track session at High Plains Raceway on Saturday. The new racers consisted of wide range of ages and genders with 7 new women racers in the mix.
Friday evening, MRA New Rider Director Jeff Brown covered topics including motorcycle preparation, mental and physical conditioning, track etiquette, and race registration processes. Over the past few years, Jeff has honed the presentation to touch on a wide range of topics for the new racers without overwhelming them with too much information. The MRA board members were also in attendance to mingle with the new students, help with any school registration problems they might be having, and answer any questions that may crop up.
Saturday morning at High Plains Raceway saw the outside temperatures below freezing but there was an air of excitement at the 7:30am riders’ meeting. The students were paired up with their instructors and went through a quick tech inspection done by MRA VP of Rules and Tech Carl Sorenson. Race school sessions are interleaved with open track time for racers, so the students took to the track at 9:30. Thanks to Colorado’s high altitude, low humidity, and plenty of racer adrenalin, everything came up to temperature quickly so no need for cold weather gear by the second session.
The morning lessons consisted of some basic race line instruction, some launch and braking drills and some body position practice all set up at different points around the track. After lunch, the temperatures and speeds continued to climb as each instructor traded leading and following with students individually. The culmination of the race school day was the 5 lap students’ race. This is a true race were everyone is gridded up and given the same start & flag sequence they’ll see in a real race. Although there were a couple of incidents during the race, no red flags came out and there were many personal best lap times set.
After the race, students & instructors met back together for a completion certification and race licensing ceremony which was followed by a well-attended bench racing session! In all, 43 completion certificates were issued and 15 students decided to get their licenses right on the spot.
All the instructors, MRA staff, and safety crew volunteered their time and expenses to support the program and teach an enthusiastic group of future road racers. The large turnout is attributed to a road racing club that has worked hard to bring in new talented riders by getting the doors open early and keeping them open late, in order to fulfill the needs of its members and customers.
The Motorcycle Roadracing Association is 501(c)(7) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting safe and competitive motorcycle road racing events for enthusiasts in Colorado and the surrounding area. For more information, go to http://www.mra-racing.org. Like us at http://www.facebook.com/MotorcycleRoadracingAssociation and follow us at https://twitter.com/MRA_Racing.