On the Wrong Track

by Mark Williams

The track day, that increasingly pervasive justification for owning a balls-out sportbike, is not of course a new phenomenon. In earlier, happier times they were called "practice sessions" and most racing circuits had one or two of them a month. But only rarely did those of us lucky enough to own state-of-the-art superbikes feel compelled to indulge in them in order to brag to our mates... sorry, I meant "appreciate the full measure of our machines and explore the parameters of our personal abilities."

The latter phrase is typical of the hogwash that is routinely written about track days which, as you may already suspect, I don't much approve of. My reasons for this are part nostalgic wistfulness, part commercial cynicism and part, well actually rather a large part, miserable envy. As far as the latter is concerned, because as I trundle irritably into middle age I've now discovered fear, I can't ride as madly (and possibly as badly) as I could 30 years ago, and my reactions just aren't as sharp as they once were. But shaving split seconds a lap as I circled a racetrack in my roadtesting days was always an exercise in the hypothetical that bore little or no relevance to the Real World. Fun perhaps, but largely beside the point. And okay, I wasn't as fast as some of my peers.

The key to the former was my reference to happier times, because even five and certainly 10 years ago you could get your high speed jollies on the Queen's Highway with relatively little chance of triggering a Gatso or t-boning a badly driven Yaris on the school run. It used to be cool to the point of being commonplace to ride at three-figure-speeds up and down this sceptic isle of ours and even those of us who tested testosterone fuelled mega bikes for a crust felt it was perfectly in order, if not actually safe, to go about our business in such a manner. In much of today's media there's a creeping, if not creepy disavowal of such behaviour, as if it's become positively naughty to exceed the speed limit by anything over 10 per cent, and an equally scrofulous admission that the only way to properly evaluate Big, Fast Bikes is on a racetrack. The logical extension of this is that the only justification for owning say, a Hayabusa or an R1, is because you can afford the money and time off from your tiresome little day job to attend regular track days. And so the tall stories you read about in the bike press now increasingly involve casual references to giving it large at this or that track day, rather than tear-arsing down the A49 with the girlfriend behind you in a pair of damp knickers.

Yes, it is frustrating and dangerous to ride fast on roads ever more congested with stressed out twerps in MPVs and road rage perpetrators in white vans, but there are still stretches of public tarmac where it can be done. And frankly I'd rather make the effort to find and use them in my own time, and without paying for it. I mean what the hell else do we pay our road taxes and exorbitant insurance premiums for? And if I wanted to avoid danger, I'd take the train... but there again Mr Byers, perhaps I wouldn't.

Of course from an aftermarket point of view, track days are a top idea. Chummy who wants to show off and possibly scare himself witless on his pride'n'joy will have to buy a race can (or two), a racing stand and an extra set of tyres and/or wheels. For the true exhibitionist, there's now even a fashion, which is all it can possibly be, for dragging along a set of tyre warmers. What next, rent-a-brolly dollies in spangly tights to pout furiously alongside your hired transit?

This may be terrific for hard-put retailers and specialist tuners, and especially for the manic gentlemen with mobile phones pressed to one ear and walkie-talkies pressed to the other who run these events, largely from the back of their 5-series estates as far as I can tell, but all this mutual aggrandisement betwixt the media and the promoters, with the better-off riders as willing shills, has a rather mucky downside. Last year's sales figures showed a serious descent down the toilet for big ticket sportbikes and whatever the reasons for that (and you've perhaps yawned over my own whining pronouncements on the subject in this eminent organ), things aren't going to be improved by narrowing the market for such machinery to the well-heeled few who can afford to thrash their little darlings around a race track once a month. Certainly the manufacturers bear some responsibility for continuingly citing performance ultimates as virtually the only reason for buying this or that hyper bike. It's also true that the quest for horsepower, and usable horsepower at that, has always been what most of we bikists lust after.

But if the roads really are too clogged with dozy drivers, the ambiguously christened "traffic calming" devices and anti-speeding technology that is a not-very-thinly veiled exercise in keeping the police pension funds topped up, well then the industry had better get smart. Limiting the top-speed of their more extreme machines, as indeed car manufacturers are increasingly obliged (?) to do should become the norm rather than the exception. But of course that won't happen as long as people like us roadtest bikes for a living, and advertising agencies lack imagination.

"Fastest" may well be sexy, but if most mortals can't prove it, and probably not even on most racetracks, then what the hell's the point?

However a simpler solution might be for our wise and noble government to ban track days, or limit them to ACU licence holders, and torpedo the whole sleazy circus of institutionalised one-upmanship that they foster. Either that, or the manufacturers should abandon mass production of anything capable of 150+ mph and just build a beautifully-crafted handful of such bikes for the really rich, brave, or stupid... with suitably massive price tags (That's what car makers like Mclaren, Pagani and even Lamborghini are all about, aren't they?). Then they could get on with the business of developing innovative and stylish bikes that the rest of us can ride.





Taken from Inside Line Magazine.

http://www.inside-line.co.uk

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