Thinking of a track day? Well, ask someone who's been to 50 of them, they'll have better advice! However, after doing something many times, you may forget the things that you wanted to know/were worried about the first time. So, here is is, the noob's view of a track day.
This is going to be a couple of longer posts, a lot to talk about, but, let's start with the elephant in the room and the topic that's likely to be controversial, safety.
First, I think we need to define terms. I think when many hear "safety" they are thinking about dying in a motorcycle accident. If that's your definition, a track day is statistically safer than riding on the street. There are ambulances there (at least 4 that I saw at the event yesterday) standing by, there's nothing to hit if you run off, there's a lot of grass on either side to slide into. Within a few laps, it was obvious to me, you'd have to really "try" to die on a track. Yes, it does happen, but it's newsworthy when it does; people die every day on the street riding, I wouldn't be surprised to hear there were exactly 0 track day (differentiated from racing, that's a different ball of wax) deaths last year.
It's a combination of things, the gear, the runoff areas, the lack of stuff to hit that doesn't move, the lack of traffic/distracted drivers. It's also the lack of time; if you rode every session at the track day I recently attended, you'd have ~2 hours riding. Some of us who tour, 2 hours is "getting warmed up", see you in 6-8 hours. So there's a lot more exposure and a lot more death inducing hazards on the street; coupled with millions of motorcycle riders (vs a MUCH smaller number of track day riders). The data on this is pretty abundant and clear, it is almost certainly safer than street riding for risk of death, likely by a large margin.
A huge focus on dying, of course, does make sense. However, we need to expand the aperture here a bit because, believe it or not, even with the scary (20-40X more dangerous than a car, etc) stats, you're pretty darn unlikely to die on the street on a motorcycle. Yes, it happens, I hear about it (and I believe we recently lost a fellow BMW rider) but, statistically speaking, it's unlikely. A good way to look at the risk is to view it by "million miles traveled". In 2021, there were around 500 injuries per 100 million mile traveled on a motorcycle; death, around 30 deaths per 100 million miles. Those numbers, while not "good" compared to a car, aren't awful either. You'd need to ride 3.3 million miles to get to a 50/50 chance of dying (although I'd argue, if you make it to 1 million, you're probably going to be fine!). And remember gear, a lot of those deaths are no helmet/no gear deaths where you can move the odds significantly in your favor.
So, let's look at my track day. Nobody died. One person was injured and needed a ride in the ambulance (heard from others it was a broken bone, nothing life changing). I saw 3 bikes go down and heard another went down (I didn't see it, so not counting it). Let's say there were 100 riders there (ease of math and, IMHO, a reasonable estimate). That's 3% going down across 2 hours of riding. Again, referring back a few paragraphs, "define safety". Risk of dying is low on a track (but it's also low on the street), risk of going for a tumble is, however, ludicrously higher. Now, one thing, this is almost entirely in your control, I didn't see any riding that I considered "dangerous" (stuffing another rider, pushing them off the track, etc), it's you, your skills (or lack thereof in my case) and your wrist that determine if you go down or not. But I do think the advice "Take it to the track" is thrown around liberally as a way to be "safe" and while I really enjoyed doing it, I think that advice is a bit myopic. You're increasing safety from a catastrophic outcome, no question, but that outcome was already pretty unlikely. In its place, your wildly increasing the likelihood of a bad outcome (damaged bike, broken bones, etc).
Now, a quick counterpoint here, if you're going to ride on the street like you do on the track, yeah, FOR SURE the track is a safer place to do it. It's not even a question honestly. I've never ridden before like I did yesterday, never even in that zipcode on the street.
For those that remember, a big part of the drive to the track was a speeding ticket I got a few months back and one of the reasons I wanted to get to a track was to find out if I was riding close to my limits and didn't realize it. That question has been answered with absolute certainty; no, I was nowhere near my limits. And my limits, are laughably low compared to others on the track, I'm not holding myself up as a "good" rider, I'm not, and that was made abundantly clear when I was let loose on a track with people who really do know how to ride at speed. But even with my very modest level of skill, I'm nowhere near my limits (or the limits of the tire/machine) in any riding I've ever done on the street. I would NEVER ride like I did on the track on street, and I was on the "slow" side of average for the "never been on track" group (and ludicrously slow compared to the beginner group)!
So, is it "safe"? It really depends what you're trying to avoid. Speeding ticket?
Infinite improvement in safety! Death? Large improvement in safety. Taking a tumble with your motorcycle, wrecking your motorcycle, breaking bones? If that's your definition of "safe" then, no, I'd argue it's a massive increase in risk compared to the street. For that massive increase in risk, you get to experience something that's pretty amazing and unique, and I can see how the track can massively and rapidly increase your skill with a motorcycle which, in turn, increases your safety on the street (because you're a more competent rider). I wouldn't say I got the "bug" instantly, but I'm absolutely going to do more track riding, it was fun, educational, and I'm 100% sure will make me a better rider on the street. But I also feel like going into a track day you should recognize (and attempt to mitigate, as much as possible) that this is an activity that trades one risk (death) for a big increase in other risks (damaged bike/broken bones/etc).
Finally, wrapping this post up, for anyone curious, here's some video I shot. The beginning is when we had the instructor, the 2nd part is when we were "released" to ride with the rest of the novice riders. This is laughably dog slow, but I wanted to get some footage so I can see how I improve but also to help others who might be considering it to see what to expect. I won't go so far as to say "You have to do it!!", it's a commitment, but I will say, speaking for myself, I'm glad others suggested it and I'll be doing it again!
This event was with EvolveGT, and the instructor led portion was their "GT1 class", required for those new to the track. I found it to be a good introduction for a competent and comfortable street rider; it's is NOT a beginner "learn to ride" class, they assume that you're very comfortable operating a motorcycle in street conditions. I'd say anything under 10K street miles, you should probably look for a more beginner focused course. Oh, and the track is CMP (Carolina Motorsports Park). Having nothing to compare it to, seemed great to me, nice people, clean facility, well organized, plenty of places to setup a tent/canopy.. The only downside of CMP, it's a bear to get there; in the middle of nowhere and not really near a highway, be a pain if towing a big trailer or RV because most of the roads are pretty poor around the park.
This is going to be a couple of longer posts, a lot to talk about, but, let's start with the elephant in the room and the topic that's likely to be controversial, safety.
First, I think we need to define terms. I think when many hear "safety" they are thinking about dying in a motorcycle accident. If that's your definition, a track day is statistically safer than riding on the street. There are ambulances there (at least 4 that I saw at the event yesterday) standing by, there's nothing to hit if you run off, there's a lot of grass on either side to slide into. Within a few laps, it was obvious to me, you'd have to really "try" to die on a track. Yes, it does happen, but it's newsworthy when it does; people die every day on the street riding, I wouldn't be surprised to hear there were exactly 0 track day (differentiated from racing, that's a different ball of wax) deaths last year.
It's a combination of things, the gear, the runoff areas, the lack of stuff to hit that doesn't move, the lack of traffic/distracted drivers. It's also the lack of time; if you rode every session at the track day I recently attended, you'd have ~2 hours riding. Some of us who tour, 2 hours is "getting warmed up", see you in 6-8 hours. So there's a lot more exposure and a lot more death inducing hazards on the street; coupled with millions of motorcycle riders (vs a MUCH smaller number of track day riders). The data on this is pretty abundant and clear, it is almost certainly safer than street riding for risk of death, likely by a large margin.
A huge focus on dying, of course, does make sense. However, we need to expand the aperture here a bit because, believe it or not, even with the scary (20-40X more dangerous than a car, etc) stats, you're pretty darn unlikely to die on the street on a motorcycle. Yes, it happens, I hear about it (and I believe we recently lost a fellow BMW rider) but, statistically speaking, it's unlikely. A good way to look at the risk is to view it by "million miles traveled". In 2021, there were around 500 injuries per 100 million mile traveled on a motorcycle; death, around 30 deaths per 100 million miles. Those numbers, while not "good" compared to a car, aren't awful either. You'd need to ride 3.3 million miles to get to a 50/50 chance of dying (although I'd argue, if you make it to 1 million, you're probably going to be fine!). And remember gear, a lot of those deaths are no helmet/no gear deaths where you can move the odds significantly in your favor.
So, let's look at my track day. Nobody died. One person was injured and needed a ride in the ambulance (heard from others it was a broken bone, nothing life changing). I saw 3 bikes go down and heard another went down (I didn't see it, so not counting it). Let's say there were 100 riders there (ease of math and, IMHO, a reasonable estimate). That's 3% going down across 2 hours of riding. Again, referring back a few paragraphs, "define safety". Risk of dying is low on a track (but it's also low on the street), risk of going for a tumble is, however, ludicrously higher. Now, one thing, this is almost entirely in your control, I didn't see any riding that I considered "dangerous" (stuffing another rider, pushing them off the track, etc), it's you, your skills (or lack thereof in my case) and your wrist that determine if you go down or not. But I do think the advice "Take it to the track" is thrown around liberally as a way to be "safe" and while I really enjoyed doing it, I think that advice is a bit myopic. You're increasing safety from a catastrophic outcome, no question, but that outcome was already pretty unlikely. In its place, your wildly increasing the likelihood of a bad outcome (damaged bike, broken bones, etc).
Now, a quick counterpoint here, if you're going to ride on the street like you do on the track, yeah, FOR SURE the track is a safer place to do it. It's not even a question honestly. I've never ridden before like I did yesterday, never even in that zipcode on the street.
For those that remember, a big part of the drive to the track was a speeding ticket I got a few months back and one of the reasons I wanted to get to a track was to find out if I was riding close to my limits and didn't realize it. That question has been answered with absolute certainty; no, I was nowhere near my limits. And my limits, are laughably low compared to others on the track, I'm not holding myself up as a "good" rider, I'm not, and that was made abundantly clear when I was let loose on a track with people who really do know how to ride at speed. But even with my very modest level of skill, I'm nowhere near my limits (or the limits of the tire/machine) in any riding I've ever done on the street. I would NEVER ride like I did on the track on street, and I was on the "slow" side of average for the "never been on track" group (and ludicrously slow compared to the beginner group)!
So, is it "safe"? It really depends what you're trying to avoid. Speeding ticket?
Infinite improvement in safety! Death? Large improvement in safety. Taking a tumble with your motorcycle, wrecking your motorcycle, breaking bones? If that's your definition of "safe" then, no, I'd argue it's a massive increase in risk compared to the street. For that massive increase in risk, you get to experience something that's pretty amazing and unique, and I can see how the track can massively and rapidly increase your skill with a motorcycle which, in turn, increases your safety on the street (because you're a more competent rider). I wouldn't say I got the "bug" instantly, but I'm absolutely going to do more track riding, it was fun, educational, and I'm 100% sure will make me a better rider on the street. But I also feel like going into a track day you should recognize (and attempt to mitigate, as much as possible) that this is an activity that trades one risk (death) for a big increase in other risks (damaged bike/broken bones/etc). Finally, wrapping this post up, for anyone curious, here's some video I shot. The beginning is when we had the instructor, the 2nd part is when we were "released" to ride with the rest of the novice riders. This is laughably dog slow, but I wanted to get some footage so I can see how I improve but also to help others who might be considering it to see what to expect. I won't go so far as to say "You have to do it!!", it's a commitment, but I will say, speaking for myself, I'm glad others suggested it and I'll be doing it again!
This event was with EvolveGT, and the instructor led portion was their "GT1 class", required for those new to the track. I found it to be a good introduction for a competent and comfortable street rider; it's is NOT a beginner "learn to ride" class, they assume that you're very comfortable operating a motorcycle in street conditions. I'd say anything under 10K street miles, you should probably look for a more beginner focused course. Oh, and the track is CMP (Carolina Motorsports Park). Having nothing to compare it to, seemed great to me, nice people, clean facility, well organized, plenty of places to setup a tent/canopy.. The only downside of CMP, it's a bear to get there; in the middle of nowhere and not really near a highway, be a pain if towing a big trailer or RV because most of the roads are pretty poor around the park.
