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LEAN AND MEAN IT; With proper training, even novices can learn to drive a sportbike fast.
Byline: GEORGE P. BLUMBERG
Sportbikes are the performance bargains of the planet. Even an $8,500, 600-cc model screams to 60 mph in three seconds, nails the quarter-mile at more than 128 mph in less than 11 seconds, and approaches a 160-mph top end. Spend even more and get more displacement and more speed.
Perhaps because of the confidence-inspiring power, brakes and razor-sharp handling, it's easy to get in over your head fast here. Adding traffic to the mix can be deadly. But short of wreaking havoc on public roads, where can riders safely exercise a sportbike's potential?
"A track day is a supervised opportunity on a racetrack with no cars, pedestrians or distractions,'' explains Monte Lutz, who started Sportbike Track Time in 2001. Lutz and his wife/business partner Bonnie Strawser, both 41, sportbike junkies and former corporate types, will run 100 track days this year at 27 venues, putting 10,000 riders on the track. "This isn't a race school,'' cautions Lutz, "and we're not open practice for racers. Here you hone your skills, with highly qualified instructors.''
Exploring a sportbike's potential differs from street riding. Everything happens so quickly. Incomprehensible to many is the mystery of getting your knee down in a turn, scraping the Kevlar knee puck. It seems a rite of passage. But how does the bike get so far over and yet stick on its tiny contact patch?
To test this out we headed to Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama, for a two-day track weekend, run by Sportbike Track Time and co-sponsored by motorcycle-maker Aprilia, which had several demonstrators on hand. The 2.38-mile track has 16 turns of every conceivable type.
Bring your motorcycle and gear, and pay $195 for the day or $375 for the weekend.
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Source: HighBeam Research, LEAN AND MEAN IT; With proper training, even novices can learn to...