So, what is the Advanced Cornering Clinic all about? It’s really just a track day with real-time coaching. Quantico has two of these Clinics per month, with the first one set aside for sport bikes. That being said, we did have a few touring bikes and some KTM enduros. If you’re curious about my bike, it’s a 2012 Ducati Monster 696 ABS, and it was in good company with several other Ducs.
As a relatively new rider (I got my license at the end of April and my bike in mid-May), I was a bit intimidated by a motorcycle riding experience with the word “Advanced” in it. I was pleasantly surprised, though, to find that I wasn’t the only noob there. The instructors divide the riders into three groups (slow, medium, fast) before hitting the track, based largely on a self-selection process. Their advice was to underestimate your riding abilities initially and graduate to a higher-skilled group later in the day if warranted.
The Clinic agenda for each group includes two 15-minute riding sessions around the track, lunch break, and then two more 15-minute sessions in the opposite direction. You have about a half-hour of downtime while the other two groups ride. The track is configured with a number of different types of curves, and riders who get a bit squirrely can suffer the indignity of displacing some cones. Riders who get too aggressive or endanger themselves or other riders can be red-flagged and sent home.
We had two riders who pushed beyond their limits and wrecked. Fortunately, both riders walked away okay, and their bikes weren’t severely damaged. In the first incident, a rider with a touring bike leaned too much in a curve, and his frame slider caught on the pavement. This caused the bike to spin out from under him and snapped off one foot peg. In the other incident, a rider locked-up his rear brake in a tight turn, and he lost control into a low-side spill. He ended up with a bruised elbow due to a lack of armor in his jacket.
I began to enjoy myself by the second session and found a good comfort zone for speed and lean. I tried to not get rattled when the faster “slow” riders wanted to pass me (which happened a lot), and I focused on immediately applying the coaching I received on the track. I think my speed topped out at a whopping 37mph in the straight-away, but it felt much faster going through the challenging twisties.
On the ride home, back in the real world, I had to remind myself of the instructors’ admonitions about the consequences of mishaps on the road versus the track. I highly recommend trying a track day, either at Quantico if you’re eligible, or one of many other venues around the country. Even if you have no desire to be a motorcycle racer—I certainly don’t—you’ll ride away from a track day with better cornering skills that will serve you well in your daily riding, however sedate it might be.
