Well, I did it. I took my race school and passed, but it wasn't as easy as it sounds--at least not for me. I took the Cornerspeed School at VIR on April 13, 2001. And I was nervous as hell. I walked into the class of 18 guys, and the instructor came up to me and said "you must be Laura." I had to laugh as I said "let me guess, I'm the only girl." He confirmed that for me. \par \par The class was a combination of track time and class time, with the class time being minimal. We had 7 sessions on the track of 20 minutes each, and that was the most valuable part of the class. This school was set up so well, I can' t even begin to tell you.

I was nervous because I was riding an FZR400, a bike I had never ridden before, and to top it off, it was raining. Not drizzling, but raining. Roach was kind enough to swap my tires and put rains on while I was in my first class session. The first class session consisted of teaching us VIR's lines by showing us a video, and a huge track map that was painted on the wall. Once we learned that, it was off to the track for our first session.

I ran back to the pits to put my leathers on and Brian assured me the rain tires would be " the same as regular tires." Suuuuuuuuuuuuure! Is what I was thinking to myself. Oh God--now I had to get on that new bike. I was shaking like a leaf as I pulled out of the pits and went to join the rest of the class. Our first session on the track consisted of us following the lines of the instructor and just taking a nice easy pace. I came upon turn one, turned the bike in and Brian was right\--rain tires *are* the same as regular tires. By the time I got through the last turn, I knew I was going to love that bike. It was so much fun!

As the day progressed, we learned all of the stuff we had to learn to get our license, such as what the flags are, the rules of the track, etc. But the majority of class time was spent on the track. Since I wasn' t comfortable with the bike yet, I asked Aaron to put me in the slow group. He gladly obliged. There were six instructors, all top-notch expert racers, and each of the instructors had three people in their group. They paired us into five groups by "speed" level, meaning how fast we felt we could go. The slow group wound up being perfect for me. \

All the groups rode the track at the same time, and each instructor had a different color. If you were in a group you felt was too fast, once you came upon a slower group, you could slip into that group while on the track, but you weren\rquote t allowed to "bump up" to a faster group while on the track. This was great.

My instructor was Brian Kcraget. What we were to do was follow behind Brian, paying close attention to the lines he took, because the school focused on smoothness, not sp eed. If you are smooth, you will get fast is what they drilled into our head repeatedly. I was the first person behind Brian, with two people behind me. Each time we got to the front straight, the person right behind Brian would put their hand up, pull to the right and let the group go by, and scoot in at the end. This gave everyone in our group a chance to be right behind Brian to see his lines. We did this for the entire day, and it was great! I felt like I really got to know the "right" way around the track, even though I was slow.

To keep the pace good for the group, Brian would turn around periodically and ask "faster, slower, or ok?" with hand signals. Each person would signal, and if even one person said slower, that is the pace the gr oup would go. This relieved the pressure of feeling you had to go fast than you wanted to. This was also great!!! The other thing they did for us is each new session, they would pick up the pace a little bit, brake a little later coming into the turns, etc., to "bring us up to speed" casually.

By the end of the day, I dropped about five seconds off my lap time each time we went out. I felt really good about what I had learned. We had a mach race at the end of the day--whoa, that was weird. The race was just the school people, so it really didn't feel like a " real race" because the group naturally separated itself by our pace. I didn't come in last, even though I was on the smallest bike, and I had a great time.

I am not putting down any other racing schools, but I will definitely say I'd highly recommend Cornerspeed school to anyone thinking about racing. If you are taking a racing school, it is obvious that you already know how to ride a motorcycle, so spending a ton of time in the classroom and on a skid pad isn't doing you a heck of a lot of good. Track time is what you need. This school gave me over two hours of individualized instruction on the track, while ensuring we knew all of the rules we needed to know to pass our school.

It was a great class! I passed and earned my racing license, so they next day, it was off to race. Stay tuned for my next article.

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