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Back to Class at the Mystery School
I have a friend who is an avid motorcyclist to the point of being obsessed. He’s constantly working on his weekends to promote the sport, provide education and awareness to the public at large and to simply ride. I receive email from him pretty much weekly with dates for riding clinics, suspension clinics and other motorcycle related activities. His name is Doc Wong and it’s because of him that I went back to school. Mystery School that is!
In case you’ve been absent from the road racing scene this past decade you may have missed the fact that Rich Oliver has pretty much owned the 250 GP road racing class. In fact he is a five time national champion and owns track records at pretty much any track you can name that’s on the AMA circuit. Yeah, the guy is pretty talented.
So what’s this have to do with the Mystery School? Well, Rich is the sole proprietor of this business. It’s an extension of his personal training program for racing and is designed to help both seasoned riders as well as newbies. He offers a variety of classes including the Motorcycle Safety Foundation dirt bike course, the Fun Camp for new and seasoned riders and the Pro Camp for those wanting even more. Each one deals with learning new skills and applying them immediately on one of the ten different tracks available at Rich’s place outside of Fresno, California.
So the email from Doc was an invitation to join him at one of Rich’s Fun Camp’s for a full weekend of riding and training. What the hell?! I could do with a bit of instruction; after all, no one really knows everything this is about riding right? Besides, I’ve always wanted to improve my ability to slide in the dirt (on the bike that is!).
So on a Friday morning I loaded up my trusty Tiger with camping gear and dirt bike gear and hit the road. To my surprise Paula came out to join me on the pretense that she wanted to go camping in the hills this weekend. What I found out later in the morning is that she took my advice and signed up for the school way back in the winter when I first got the invite. Her excuse for not telling me was so she wouldn’t have to listen to my teasing her about kicking her butt in the dirt. Little did she know…well, we’ll get to that part later.
So after a leisurely day riding across the Central Valley and then up into the foothills we arrived at Rich’s place outside of Auberry. He had just finished instruction for the day of an MSF dirt course. To my surprise a couple of the folks in attendance are fellow members of AYU. Very cool! Turns out both gentlemen would be joining us for the Fun Camp over the rest of the weekend. Whoo hoo, fresh meat! He, he, he...
Rich being the gentleman that he is offered up a perfect patch of wildflowers for Paula and me to pitch the tent. We were nestled up in the crook of what we later found out to be the first section of the motocross track. I’m not kidding about the wildflowers either! We had a really cool patch of small, purple flowers to enjoy just outside the tent flap. Nice touch.
In the morning, after a quick jaunt into town for breakfast (Paula and her lattes…!) we gathered up for our introduction to the course. Rich had us relax out on the deck while he gave us some background on the school and what we should expect. Then he zoomed right on in to the physical fitness part of things. Yikes! Now I’m not a total slouch when it comes to fitness but I must admit it’s been quite some time since I took sit-ups seriously. When Rich started tossing a medicine ball at me while I was prone on the ground it became a serious wakeup call! Still, I rather enjoyed it!
After a nice warm-up we donned our riding gear and started the serious fun! Rich worked us through a number of drills that morning including some basics like braking, sliding and cornering. His fleet of Yamaha TTR125Ls is perfect for the task and by the end of the morning I was coveting one of these little beasts. Of course it doesn’t hurt that they are tweaked a bit with Lindeman Engineering suspension mods. Man they are fun!
A nice touch to our drills was the fact that Rich had his helper Ryan do some digital photo work of our efforts. He was all over the place shooting pictures of us riding in circles, sliding into the corners and jumping over boards. We were able to review these shots at lunch much to our amusement!
My favorite drill of the morning was when we rode Rich’s crazy course. This consisted of a small TT-style course that we rode while Rich and Ryan tossed obstacles out to force us into using our new found dirt skills. One lap you’d enter a corner and work the perfect slide. Next lap you’d come into the same corner only to find a couple of chairs in your way forcing you to alter your line and use your head to change your braking and turn-in points. It was great fun!
Lunch was a hearty pasta meal prepared by Ryan. (This kid is gonna make some gal really happy some day!) After chowing down we retreated to the office to check out some of the photos shot that morning. It was cool to see the action as captured by the camera. You feel a little silly riding around on what feels like a kids bike and yet you can really see what you’re doing in the pictures and learn in the process.
After lunch as a bit of a break from our lessons we retreated to the shooting range for a little competitive target practice with Rich’s .22 caliber rifle. Our target was a set of ten water bottles placed on a sawhorse arrangement about 30 yards away. We each got a chance to fire ten rounds at the ten bottles to see who could pick off the most. I got lucky and nailed 7 out of 10; turned out to be the best for the day so I took home a little prize from Yamaha and Shoei. Cool!
After that we jumped back in the saddle for more drills around the small oval, large oval and then the large TT track. We basically practiced tossing the bike into the corners and getting it sideways flat track style. This is what I really came to learn. I know how to brake slide a dirt bike into a corner but always felt a little rough when it came to power sliding all the way through the corner. The technique that Rich taught worked amazingly well and by the end of our practice sessions I was feeling like Springer on the Mile! Yee ha!
We finished up the day with several time trials to establish a baseline for our efforts. Sunday would be a big day with more practice and then a few races including the 50 lap main on the small oval. Yeah baby!
Boy I slept good that night! All that exercise racing around the various tracks really did me in! Fortunately I didn’t have any crashes or other problems to set me back. I woke up in the morning ready and rarin’ to go! Paula on the other hand was moving a little slower. She’d had a couple of minor get-offs the day before and her knee was looking a bit like Rocky Balboa after a major prize fight! Ouch!
We went out in the morning and did our exercise routine before hitting the track for some more laps. It was interesting to see the track surface change as Rich watered things down before we got out there on the bikes. Yeah, it was real interesting. Ouch…
We started doing some more time trials after reviewing some photos from the previous day. I had figured out that I needed to lean the bike more while getting off the seat and straightening out my arm more. It was all working fine for me until I got a little too competitive on a still greasy track. Whups!
Paula and the guys said it was a really loud thump. Me, all I remember was pitching it into the corner and then the ground rose up and smite me! Really hard it smite me! Rung my bell good, realigned my hips, shifted my shoulder and popped my jaw. Man, this sucks!
I shook it off and later went out and reran my time trial, albeit a little less aggressively than before. Nothing like a good crash to take the wind out of your sails. Still, I was having fun. You don’t learn much if you don’t push your limits. I was there to learn and I was there to extend my abilities. I just chose a bad time to push hard. I learned.
Today’s lunch was a photocopy of yesterdays with one exception; Rich came out and gave us a talk on nutrition. Good stuff although I’m not completely sold on supplements and vitamins. I’d like to think that if you ate right and chose from those very same food groups you’ve been taught about from an early age that you’d be just fine. Then again, Rich attributes much of his success on the race track to his nutritional regimen. Might be something to it after all.
In the afternoon we repeated out fun on the range with the .22 but with slightly different results. I won’t say the other guys cheated but I don’t think they were playing fair either! Ha! In the end we all had fun and that’s what counts!
For the next couple of hours we ran a number of fun races on various configurations of the small oval, large oval and TT course. It was interesting to run them both in a “normal” direction (counter clockwise so you can slide with your left foot and brake with the right) and abby-normal direction. Did I mention we got to wear steel shoes? Graduating to the metal plated shoe was fun! Made cornering much more fun and stable to boot! The only funny part being shifting and trying to keep your foot on the peg. I think I need one for home use!
Oh, and that teasing Paula was avoiding? Well, we got into a great race on the small oval and on the last lap I came up on the inside for the pass. I made it nice and clean but Paula being the non-competitive gal that she is didn't want to back off on the throttle. I felt a pretty good thump on my backside as I came out of the corner and across the finish line for the win. When I looked back I noticed Paula sprawled out over an ant's nest. Whups! Sorry hon! :o
She as well as a couple other folks did mention that they were surprised by the competitive nature of us former racers and in some ways it took away from their experience. I suspect this is something that Rich will need to work out by maybe offering a less competitive version of the Fun Camp so folks don't get so caught up in the tight quarters riding.
At the end of the day we gathered up for the final event, the 50 lap main on the small oval. Just to make things fair we chose the reverse direction so the big footed folks who couldn’t wear the steel shoes wouldn’t be at a disadvantage. Also based on our previous time trial numbers we were staged with the fast guy’s way out in back of the slightly slower folks. This meant that there would be some serious passing opportunities and a bit of naked aggression out there! Hey, I’m an ex-roadracer. Can’t help myself!
It was an absolute riot. I was a little frustrated when ten laps in my rear brake faded away but I took that as yet another challenge and did my best to ride around that disadvantage. We were diving into the inside line, the outside line and occasionally into the hay bales chasing each other around the track. Rich was ripping it up in between us all showing everyone why he’s a nationally ranked rider. To tell you the truth I have no idea who one but it really doesn’t matter because we all learned a lot that weekend and had fun while doing so.
I can’t recommend this school enough. It’s well worth the money to have the opportunity to ride the little Yamahas and hang out with Rich Oliver. He’s a great host and an excellent instructor. He’s also a rep for Yamaha, Shoei and a couple of other manufacturer’s that escape me at the moment and will make you a killer deal on both new and used bikes and gear. I’m seriously thinking of picking up a used school bike for my garage gathering. If only my neighbors will let me build a TT course on my front yard…hmmmm!
Here’s some pics that I took of the weekend.
Here’s some that Ryan took!
And finally here’s a couple of videos of us in action.
Craig |