Ever wonder what it would be like to be trained by a group of legends of the sport?
Wonder no more because I am going to tell you: Epic, in every way! It ranked near the top of all time fun days on a motorcycle in my 41 years of riding.
This last weekend (August 16-18) was the annual NW Challenge vintage motocross race at Washougal. As part of that my friend Chris who is the promoter for this race brought in 4 huge names from back in the day (Broc Glover, David Baily, Warren Reid, Scott Burnworth) along with the track owner/operator and former factory pro Ryan Huffman and local fast guy, National pro and regular instructor Tommy Weeck.
The class was limited to 50 riders and included all skill levels and all age ranges. We were broken up into 3 groups based on our own assessment of our skill levels and the 6 instructors paired off to handle specific skills and sections of the track.
I have said for many years now that if I could afford to rent out Washougal for a day I would spend most of my time just riding up Horsepower hill and jumping off the Ski Jump. I got my wish on Friday! My group rode that section of the track for about an hour straight. Up the hill, jump down the hill, go through the switchbacks at the bottom where Tommy Weeck and Ryan Huffman were watching, evaluating and correcting everyone's cornering technique, then exit the track ride back around to the base of Horsepower hill and go again!
Tommy was able to correct my riding position in the corners which I have apparently had completely wrong for the last 40+ years because my ability to make the bike go where I want it to was improved by an order of magnitude with just a few minutes of help.
If that had been the end of the day I would have felt like I got every penny of the $150 this class cost in value and left with a huge smile on my face.
But instead we rotated to the next section on the lower portion of the track, where THE David Bailey and Broc Glover further refined my cornering technique and body position! David Bailey even told me I had "Good Skills", I am thinking about having that printed on the back of my jersey!
After a short break to get some water and eat a little bit the final section for me was starts with Scott Burnworth and Warren Reid. My starting technique is reasonably solid but I still gained some valuable refinements from them nonetheless.
We also got to ride a bunch of free laps before and after the instruction. That really helped my confidence on that track.
The next two days were a full schedule of races. I raced one class on both days and for the first time ever on that track I actually felt like I rode to my potential.
Now I just need some more practice time to fully cement what they taught me.
It was an all time epic weekend.
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