Event Reports » 2011 » Actrix Victoria Motorcycle Club 2011 Round 1
Opening a new chapter in the Moto Academy NZ story, we officially launched our new rider coaching programme for 2011. In this programme we will focus instead of providing a complete infrastructure to riders, rather on the riders themselves and developing their skills via a more traditional programme. Our partnership with the Vic Club will see us providing the programme to the clubs junior supported riders and also to other junior or senior riders who have decided to join the programme to improve their skills.
The junior riders in our programme(to date) this year are:
Oliver Croft (15) from Paraparaumu
Simon Vollmer (19) from Auckland
Tyler Lincoln (13) from Havelock North
Mihi Banks (Ngati Porou, 14) from Porirua
and the senior riders are:
Johan Aberg (30 mumble) from Wellington
Mark Brehaut (40 mumble) from Porirua
Luke Millar (20 something) from Wellington (from Round 2).
Given that this was the round of racing most likely to offer a warmish and dryish day, I decided that I would take the Moto Academy NZ Honda RS250 out in the Post-Classic Junior class. This proved, as I knew it would do, to make the day pretty hectic with running the bike, coaching, doing on-track coaching and everything else. For the remainder of the rounds I will not be riding but will focus soley on coaching. Nevertheless, my own racing went really well with the bike running well and myself getting back up to speed. I ran 5th in Race 1 (after running out of gas while in 2nd, which I thought would happen after having insufficient time to buy some that morning), 2nd in Race 2 and another 2nd in Race 3. My own laptimes were OK, but not as good as I had thought and hoped.
The rider coaching programme went really really well. All of the riders felt that they improved their situations, felt that they learned something and none fell off, except Oliver who had an off track excursion and just tipped over in the gravel. All of the riders were introduced to the group and provided with notes and instruction on some safety aspects, we will cover more of these at the next round. We ran a skills drill at lunchtime providing a small insight into how counter-steering works and how it makes the motorcycle turn corners.
During the day I attempted to follow the junior riders and Mark on-track in order to guage their abilities and performance. I was not tempted to follow Johan as him and his 998 Ducati are somewhat faster than me and my old RS250, so I observed him from track-side vantage points. I was able to determine aspects on which to work for all of the riders, including Johan. After providing this feedback the riders all attempted to put it into practice, as much as they were able given that some of them are still learning to ride their bikes let alone learning how to go around the racetrack quickly.
Very fulfillingly, if there is such a word, all of the riders improved on either their personal best laptimes, or their laptimes during the day, and all felt that they were more comfortable on track and understood a bit more about what they were doing. Mark did personal best laptimes, Johan improved over the day by 1.5s per lap, Tyler improved by a massive 3.5s per lap, but the champ, albeit from a slow start, was Mihi, improving by over 10 sec per lap!!
Tyler Lincoln, Kawasaki KR150, Manfeild, June 2011.
Everyone, myself included, went home with bikes intact and smiles on their faces!
Roll on Round 2 and we can all hope that the weather will be just as kind to us.
Thanks to Actrix, Victoria Motorcycle Club, Tyrewarmers.co.nz and Moto Academy NZ.
We invite further expressions of interest from riders who might wish to join the programme to contact us.