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Using the Whole Track
What’s the best way to get around a race track on a motorcycle? Is there only one “good line” that will be the fastest, safest and most consistent way to run laps? Why think about “apexes” and stuff? Wouldn’t it be fine to just ride around the middle of the track?
If you’ve watched professional motorcycle roadracing on TV, you’ve probably noticed that all the riders follow pretty much the same line around the track, only deviating when they are trying to pass someone. Why do they all like to take that same line, and how do they know where it is, especially if they haven’t been to the track before? Are they just following a bunch of dark tire marks on the track where the heaviest traffic has occurred, or are there reasons behind their choice?
Actually, there is a science to selecting the best lines, and it’s not really that complicated. Once you learn it, you’ll be a much faster, safer, and more confident rider. You’ll find that it’s fun to go to a new track and figure out the best lines in a hurry, even without asking a local expert to show them to you.
The best racers and trackday riders make a point to use the whole track, from edge to edge, curbing to curbing. Why? It really comes down to the concept of lean angle. For maximum speed and safety, you want to minimize the amount of time your bike is at its maximum lean angle. This is especially the case while braking or accelerating, when you are likely to have the least amount of traction.
Using the whole track, from edge to edge, gives you the maximum amount of room to get your braking done prior to maximum lean angle through the turn. Similarly, it gives you the greatest possible amount of room to accelerate out of the turn after your point of maximum lean angle. If you aren’t using the whole track, you’re asking a lot more of your tires, which decreases your safety and limits your ability to go faster.
In a way, you can think of your ideal line around the track as being a series of the straightest possible lines. Riding straight lines keeps the bike upright as much as possible, in order to have the most traction available while on the gas or braking. Those straight lines can be a lot longer if you’re going all the way to the edges of the track.
What’s an Apex, and Why is it Important?
Simply put, the apex is the inside point of the corner that you want to be parallel to as you go from point to point across the turn, from one edge of the track to the other.
 Let’s look at an illustration of using the whole track, and hitting the proper apex point. Here we see a pretty standard 90 degree corner. Assuming that there is a straightaway on either side of this corner, let’s think about some different ways we could get through it. The early apex line, represented in red, would allow us to take lots of speed into the corner, keeping the bike pretty upright. But what happens at exit? We run out of track in a hurry, forcing us to slow down or lean the bike a whole bunch, or both. How about the orange line, showing a late apex? In this scenario, we go in wide, but have to slow down and lean the bike a whole bunch to make the turn, before we can power out after the late apex. But there’s a whole bunch of track we’re not using at the exit, which means we’re giving up free speed.
The blue line shows a more balanced approach for this particular corner. The rider is using the whole track, keeping excessive lean angle to a minimum, giving himself plenty of room for braking at entry, and for getting on the gas hard at the exit.
Of course, not all turns are that simple.
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