Thread: Review - Kevin Schwantz Suzuki School May '07

Part 2 –

The principles and the method.

The riders who attend KSSS are pretty serious about their riding. Most are racers or very experienced track day riders. A large percentage of these people have read every available book and article on the subject of high performance riding. Many have invested the majority of their discretionary expenditures on bikes, gear, and riding schools.

If you’re a former world champ who lives to conquer challenges, what can you do for these people?
Can you bring forth secrets known only to the top racing gods and just gift them to these mortals? Remember what happened to Prometheus when he stole fire from Olympus and gave it to mankind – that went all pear-shaped in a hurry. But that lesson doesn’t apply in this case. Kevin says there are no arcane pro secrets. “The top racers aren’t doing anything differently; they’re just executing the basics flawlessly and consistently.”

The fundamentals according to Schwantz are… well, pretty fundamental. Among other things, we discussed
·Visual awareness,looking ahead, not fixating

·Relaxing and avoiding panic
·Body position, hanging off, steering techniques
·Gear selection and shifting techniques,
·Braking techniques,
·Evaluating corners, getting reference points, and choosing lines - all stuff we’ve heard before.
·
These basics are embedded in lessons that are sprinkled with examples from Kevin’s career, anecdotes, demonstrations of body position on a bike in the classroom, and video from past riding sessions. Questions are answered fully, to the satisfaction of the student asking.

The effectiveness of the system lies in
·Building the program using logical, incremental steps,
·Setting limited but well defined goals (no more than three things per session)
·Having very skilled, analytical, and communicative instructors giving input each time out.
·Setting the attitude – Fun and supportive.
·Controlling the pace. This is extremely important.

No more than four riders are assigned to follow an instructor, who checks the progress through his mirrors, and occasionally by following a rider. They start at a moderate pace, and build speed through the two days.

There are three staging lanes for the 'street' and 'advanced' groups. This means that each of the groups had three pace levels available to ensure the comfort/challenge level matched the rider’s expectations.

They constantly ask each student and the class in general if the speed was appropriate and encourage the students to ride with people who are running at the speed they desire. The fastest guys were running quickly enough to lap some of the other groups in the session.

In my case, the speed was much less than I would have been going at a track day, but I don’t necessarily learn much at a track day. At KSSS, I really committed myself to getting the benefit of their training. I concentrated on running the correct lines each time as precisely as possible, regardless of speed. Similarly, I practiced braking and shifting at the same points, regardless of speed. That way, when the pace wicked up to more rapid levels, I had a plan. I was much less likely to tense up or lose the plot, and my confidence in the bikes, the tires, and the approach was high.

They never said anything about lap times, but we must have improved much more than 10 seconds a lap from the first day to the second.

The way they went about imparting these lessons not only reduced my anxiety and allowed me to run at a good pace, it made me think about the track as a whole, rather than just as sections. In fact, I now find myself thinking differently about more familiar tracks like Grattan and Putnam.

We’ve all heard the maxim, “you have to go slow to go faster.” In my case, I am going to try to apply the discipline of riding slower to my early sessions at track days until I can develop more precise references, and hit my lines, gears, braking and shift points exactly and repeatedly. Thanks to the Schwantz School, I may have actually matured enough to buy a lap timer!

Part 3
Track-walk notes and anecdotes.

After both groups had finished their riding and evaluation sessions on the first day, we were tired, hot, and looking forward to the dinner to be provided at a local Mexican restaurant with Kevin and the KSSS staff. He had other plans for us first, though. We dressed in our street clothes and piled into the vans for a track walk. Thankfully we didn't do that much actual walking..


As unusual as that schedule may seem, it turned out to be the ideal time to see the track up close. I wouldn’t have been able to properly contextualize the information if it had been given at the beginning of the day, since I had no riding experience at Road Atlanta. Worse, I might have felt as if I knew the course. As it turned out, the track teaching experience was like having someone explain a mystery I had struggled with all day.

Starting with turn one, Kevin comprehensively pointed out the method he uses to obtain reference points, how far he looks up the track and what he looks for, his braking and shifting points, and the points on the track that still provide “Oh, shit” moments for him.

Prior to the recent repaving of Road Atlanta, there were all kinds of cracks, paint marks, scars and spots on the track surface. Now, of course, there are very few. The school puts out cones for braking, turn in, apex and exit references, but the topography of RA is such that in many instances these reference points are not visible when you'd like them to be because they’re on the other side of a hill.

In one case, he explained how he initiates a turn using an internal count. I looked at him strangely as he explained this.
“OK, what would you look for?” he challenged.
“How about that tree over there?” I pointed at the top of a distant pine protruding over the rise.
“Well, I don’t know about you,” he said, “But to me that tree looks pretty much the same from here,” he stomped on the apex, “or here.” he concluded, moving four feet off line. Uh, yeah.. I guess so.



He continued in a very detailed manner, illustrating how being off line in the early, technical part of the track would screw up the whole lap and give a racing opponent a big advantage, since the entrance, exit and drive from turn seven leading onto the back straight was affected all the way from turn one. Looking ahead for a racer involves far more than I suspected.

To further illustrate his points, Kevin moved us to a close but safe vantage inside the apexes, got on his radio headset and called in a demonstration at speed from three instructors who would strafe the sections of track he had been explaining.


At Kevin’s radioed command, the echoing GSXR engines burst into life somewhere out of sight, instantly spooling up through the gears, touching every wailing redline note, the howling harmonics rising as the bikes leaned onto the smallest radius of the tire, consuming unseen curves on their approach. The riders appeared with startling, rushing immediacy, avenging mechanized creatures bent on attack. With ultimate sureness and incomprehensible speed they seized the apex, shocking the air mere feet from their stunned witnesses and shrieked into the distance, perfectly on line; precise, intense, kinetic, beautiful.
Stock bikes with slip ons.
Expert riders at 80% pace.
Thirty-six people with one thought: Damn, I want to ride like that.



A couple of stories I won’t soon forget
–
Britt Turkington describing the downside of privateer engineering.

“I was at Texas World Speedway, we had just finished making these triple clamps out of magnesium, but we didn’t have time to set it up or fit a steering damper. Sure enough, I get on the banking and that thing winds up and throws me off. I got into my little protective ball (demonstrates) and go bouncing down the road at about 120 mph. After a while the bouncing stops and I open up out of the ball and look around. I’m about ten feet in the air, coming down fast and BAM ! Broke my arm and my leg just like that. I thought that crash was over... it was just halftime!”

Michael Martin, teaching braking technique in class, demonstrating on the class bike the manner in which a famous WSBK rider used to enter the turns with the rear wheel oscillating back and forth, replete with sound effects, of course.

“I’ll tell you what; the idea that you can time that backing-in stuff just right every lap is bullshit. If I was the team owner, You know what I would have done? I would have fired that #$(*)&^%$#@! That’s right, I would have fired his ass.”

Kevin: “Yeah, that was just about the time he was breaking the record for consecutive wins in that series, wasn’t it?”

Mike, laughing: “I don’t care, I would have fired that @#$%^&*. I would have fired him and put myself in his place! Wouldn’t that have been something! Well, that’s why I’m not a team owner, I guess.”



Kevin on ‘backing it in.’:
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. When I ride the supermotos, I love to get the back end way out, but it's not the fastest way around the track. "

Student: “Well, when you did that when you were racing, were you doing it intentionally or were you riding over your head?”


Kevin: “I was always riding over my head! Sometimes, you might do that when you pass somebody so they think twice about re-passing, but it's pretty easy to get into a, um, traction deficit doing that.”

Kevin on braking and set up:
“When I first got on a factory team, I came in from practice and said that I was getting some chatter in the rear. The mechanic said, ‘Fine, I’ll fix it.’ So I went off, thinking how different things were being on a factory team.. I'm thinking, 'This is great! I just tell the guy I’ve got a problem and he fixes it.. not arguing over what it is or isn’t and chasing a problem all day like on a small team.'



So I get back on the bike, and sure enough the chatter is gone, and I go real well. A while after that, much later, I was talking to someone about rear chatter, and I asked that same mechanic if he remembered that time... he says he does, and I asked him how he fixed the problem. He says, “I greased the back rotor!”

Part 4 –

Conclusion

I’m a 54 year-old guy who has no plans to race, loves riding on the track, and wants to ride quickly, smoothly, safely, and, for lack of a better word, respectably. In other words, I don’t want to fight, but I want the black belt, OK?

I’ve been dancing around the idea of taking a real track-oriented school for years. My track education has consisted of taking the street-oriented Reg Pridmore CLASS a few times, reading everything I can get my hands on, and getting some informal instruction from proficient riders at various track-day events. While I’ve become a pretty solid ‘intermediate’ level rider, the path toward becoming an ‘advanced’ rider has been ill defined and difficult… and at my age, hardly inevitable.

So what’s been the problem? Track schools are expensive; and thoughtful, real-world-real-people reviews on them are not readily available. This is why Brian’s reviews of the Freddie Spencer School for motorcycleaddicts.org have been so valuable, and actually provided me with the inspiration and impetus to sign up for a serious track class.

I chose the Kevin Schwantz School because a few friends that I respect have said good things about it, it’s closer to my home and is a fair bit less costly than the Freddie School, though far from inexpensive. The two-day class costs $1600.00. You can deduct $400.00 from that if you bring your own Suzuki motorcycle, and your current AMA membership saves you an additional 10%, (up to 4 times its cost)

Here’s the bottom line as far as I’m concerned:

I believe the Schwantz school has given me the perspective I have lacked to evaluate my riding, and the tools to change it.

As I’ve said above, the material isn’t revolutionary, but the method of teaching successfully revealed what has been missing from my riding – focus, precision, planning, and discipline.

I can now review my laps (not my lap times, but my basic approach) at my home track and see that I have just been riding around, with the pieces of information that I possess blowing around in my brain like playing cards in the wind. I’d recognize something I should do better, but I would not address the issue consistently or solve it permanently. I was picking up a little speed, staying out of trouble, and supposing that the reason I wasn’t faster was because I lacked the courage.

I can tell you that approach is about to change. I am going to re-evaluate the best lines according to what I’ve learned and try to use those consistently, precisely, and exactly every lap. Same with braking points, gear changes, body positioning and peg weighting.

The best educational experiences never end. I can still recall most of the MSF course I took, and use it every time I ride on the street. I can tell that this is going to be one of those experiences.

KSSS offers a discount for returning students. The fact that I’m thinking seriously about returning next year should tell you something about how valuable I think the class was.

Is the concrete wall still staring at you at the bottom of the hill after the bridge? Never really got comfortable with that and just used "looking ahead to the next corner" to keep it in perspective. When I was there, no less than 3 AMA Superbike regulars had kissed that wall during tire testing the day before .

Clarification:
She IS a wonderful nice lady and very interesting to talk to, however she was from Florida and heading to TN

Turn 12 (they number things VERY strangely) is a rush and might be how CBRVFR put a lock on most improved (he started out very poorly and was hitting it nicely on day 2) Being to thick to have a strong sense of self preservation I was over it fairly soon and loving it on day two

Personally I loved the 10a-b complex. Though there was one time the rider behind the control rider hit 1st gear and I had to test the brakes on the 600GSXR as I was closing up a bit at full tilt when he came to a screeching halt real late We laughed about it later as I mentioned having the back real light and he said "oh yeah that was probably when I hit first and figured you guys were coming up my pipe" (I was the second bike back from him)

The best part of the school was Mike Martins sound effects!!

Originally Posted by abtech

Is the concrete wall still staring at you at the bottom of the hill after the bridge? Never really got comfortable with that and just used "looking ahead to the next corner" to keep it in perspective. When I was there, no less than 3 AMA Superbike regulars had kissed that wall during tire testing the day before .

I think they moved it a bit but I am not positive. I kind of ignore walls (probably not a good thing) as I got LOTS of practice at Auto City in Mt Morris coming out of turn four and standing it up next to the wall down the front straight.

Originally Posted by abtech

Is the concrete wall still staring at you at the bottom of the hill after the bridge? Never really got comfortable with that and just used "looking ahead to the next corner" to keep it in perspective. When I was there, no less than 3 AMA Superbike regulars had kissed that wall during tire testing the day before .

Oh yeah, it's there. I just stopped looking at it. I thought the view coming over that hill was even scarier than my wildest imagination during the seconds that I couldn't see anything at all while coming over the rise.

I split my vision between the bike ahead of me and the painted pit-out line under the bridge. I tried to to position my front wheel just to the right of those, then I followed the middle of the AMA tire marks, forced my hand to keep the throttle on, grabbed 4th gear, stayed out wide to within a foot of the cone on the left edge of the track defining the turn-in point, and then put it on the apex of that blessed cone on the inside of 12.

I had my teeth gritted every lap so my heart wouldn't jump out of my mouth. My testicles wanted to know when it was safe to come back out.

Early on the first day, Judy was pulling 30 yards on me there. Put it this way - I was highly motivated to keep up. The most helpful thing was their instruction to keep our bodies positioned to set up for a right turn all the way from 10B to 12. It made it easier to get close to the edge and gave me something to think about other than impending mayhem.

Just being honest..

Ah, Turn 12. Even though I was there last year, it was still intimidating all over again. From the top of the hill under the bridge to the bottom at turn 12, I think I recalled an instructor last year saying it's about a 2 story drop. Maybe more. On the first day, I'm in second gear through the 10a-10b flip-flop. I'm off to the right of the bike, and stay there all the way to the front straight, as I don't have "happy ass syndrome". Exiting 10b, I'd get on the gas gingerly. The instructor in front of me crests the hill under the bridge and disappears over the hill. Just disappears. It's like he fell off the Earth. I ease off the gas at the crest under the bridge, find the track again, and the marker cone outside of 12, get back on the gas a bit, shift to third, and keep it bent over through 12 onto the front straight, where my stomach finally catches up to me. By day 2, my confidence had increased and I was able to execute it more properly: Exit 10b in second, get on the gas, snick it into third up the hill approaching the bridge, stay on the gas, still accelerating over the crest under the bridge, up into fourth as I start down the steep drop to 12, and stay on the gas through the turn to the front straight. You're in turn 12 for a long time! Feels good!

Poetry in Motion.

When Dave and I bumped into the instructors at the Chinese restaurant on Wednesday evening, the first person I recognize is Michael Martin, but it takes me a second. He comments on my sweatshirt, which depicts a sportbike rider on his knee, with "poetry in motion" across the front. Then recognition crosses his face and he says "Weren't you in one of our schools last year?" "Yes, and I'll see you tomorrow, can't wait!"

Poetry in Motion. That is perhaps the best phrase to describe the instructors as we watch them blister through the turns at speed during the trackwalk. Vans take us to each turn. Kevin talks about the turn, then we watch 3 instructors come through from the best seats in the house; about 2-3 yards from the inside of the turn. The speed, the smoothness, the sound is absolutely intoxicating. And then you realize that they are still no where near 10/10ths. Amazing. How do you describe the sensation of watching that to a non-rider? I don't think words can.

Thisis some great stuff, guys (and Gal!)! Sounds like this was worth every cent. At some point soon, I hope to take in some schools, and this sounds like one that should be at the top of my list.

From HG2"Kevin talks about the turn, then we watch 3 instructors come through from the best seats in the house; about 2-3 yards from the inside of the turn. The speed, the smoothness, the sound is absolutely intoxicating."
"How do you describe the sensation of watching that to a non-rider? I don't think words can."

Let's all go to grattan and get drunk, so to speak.

Great reviews everyone.

In case others have not looked at the whole book:
On the KSSS Invites you to participate... page. you can get a complimentary first entry into a WERA race (check page for exact details)

Part 2 added in second post...

Nice let's see your knowledge in action on the 27th.



How did you like the GSXR's

a lap timer next you will be saying you want to take the RC out and need maple

Good additions CBRVFR. I have a real hard time describing track schools to people as I remember them in a different manner than most (yet I believe I will get much out of both that I have taken). However your point on pace is interesting. I can think of only one session that speed was so low as to interfere, it was early and while I got in line for the middle group I was combined with people from the slow line. In contrast the last session I grabbed an SV at the prompting of a certain addict, because it is slower and I had not ridden one I decided to jump in the slow line rather than jam folks up in the middle line. I was fighting shift points a bit and the 600's were faster so the slower speed was nice however a more relaxed pace made it easier to pay attention to the mechanics of the ride.

Originally Posted by Hammer

Nice let's see your knowledge in action on the 27th.



How did you like the GSXR's

What a great bike. So light and agile - great brakes and carries tons of corner speed. I don't know how it feels for you big guys, but the riding ergos were nice for me. It took some time to get used to the rpms, though. It steams right along at 10-11,000, and it was hard for my brain to process the fact that it wouldn't blow up if I gave it some more without shifting.

I'll be really curious to see how the CBR compares at MCADXdays@Miller.

Great write-up so far, CBRVFR! I feel like I'm learning from what you're writing. Thanks for sharing with us!

Great write-up. Glad you guys/gals had an awesome time... It's nice to see everyone's experience.

Good write up.

I like the "setting limited but well defined goals". This is a hard thing to actually concentrate on -pick out a couple problem areas and work on them- but it really is key isn't it. Come to think of it, one should probably articulate the problem they are having out loud before a session(s) (even if only to themselves) and go work on it.

Originally Posted by CBRVFR

What a great bike. So light and agile - great brakes and carries tons of corner speed. I don't know how it feels for you big guys, but the riding ergos were nice for me. It took some time to get used to the rpms, though. It steams right along at 10-11,000, and it was hard for my brain to process the fact that it wouldn't blow up if I gave it some more without shifting.

I'll be really curious to see how the CBR compares at MCADXdays@Miller.

You'll be doing 12 0'clocks before you know it. Damn squidzuki riders.

Part 3 in the 3rd post. One more later.

Originally Posted by CBRVFR

...At Kevin’s radioed command, the echoing GSXR engines burst into life somewhere out of sight, instantly spooling up through the gears, touching every wailing redline note, howling harmonics rising as the bikes lean onto the smallest radius of the tire, consuming unseen curves on their approach. The riders appear with startling, rushing immediacy, avenging mechanized creatures bent on attack. With ultimate sureness and incomprehensible speed they seize the apex, shocking the air mere feet from their stunned witnesses and shriek into the distance, perfectly on line; precise, intense, kinetic, beautiful.
Stock bikes with slip ons.
Expert riders at 80% pace.
Thirty-six people with one thought: Damn, I want to ride like that.

Now that's writing, people! Very nice, very inspiring, Dave. What a beautiful way to paint the picture.

Originally Posted by CBRVFR

Part 3
So I get back on the bike, and sure enough the chatter is gone, and I go real well. A while after that, much later, I was talking to someone about rear chatter, and I asked that same mechanic if he remembered that time... he says he does, and I asked him how he fixed the problem. He says, “I greased the back rotor!”

I love this one


Great write ups CBR. I'm definitely turning green with envy. I'm glad you all had a great time.

Originally Posted by gt702

I love this one


Great write ups CBR. I'm definitely turning green with envy. I'm glad you all had a great time.

It was even better in person as Kevin Schwantz was imitating the reluctance of the poor mechanic that had to fess up.

Conclusion added in post #4.

I'll shut up now..

Originally Posted by CBRVFR

KSSS offers a discount for returning students. The fact that I’m thinking seriously about returning next year should tell you something about how valuable I think the class was.

Great review! Made me feel like I was there! Oh, wait...

I'd love to make the KSSS an annual event. I'm also definitely considering going back next year as well. It's informative, and a lot of fun. I much prefer an environment that is structured, and/or has a limited amount of riders. Most trackdays feel like complete cluster-fu(ks after attending a school such as this, or limited rider days, such as the McAdx Grattan days. As such, I don't do a whole lot of days per season anymore, unfortunately. I'm into quality days rather than quantity, and those quality days are much more enjoyable for me.

Very jealous but very happy you guys had a great experience.