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I went to attend a two day riding school by STAR motorcycle school. The Advertisement claims STAR means: Skills and Techniques for Advanced Riding Motorcycle School. But the big claim to fame is the lead instructor Jason Pridmore who was in 8th place in the AMA Superbike series at the time of this writing.

I decided to attend the STAR school at Miller Motorsports Park outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. This trip was quite the investment and planning, including a tortuous 1.5 days (17 hours of actually driving) on the road in a motorhome from Phoenix to the track in Utah. I took 5 months off of local riding to get the funds to attend this school. So lets just say this was a very dedicated and planned birthday present for me.

Ok, back to the STAR school.

The school started off at 7am, and since I was staying at the track, I was one of the first in line. The weather was a warm 40F and I was a bit cold. We waited around till 8:30am before the first classroom session. In that time I got my bike and gear though tech inspection and talked to a few people who were attending the class.

The first session had Jason talk to the group and introduce all the instructors. There was about 50 people in attendance for the class, with about 20 in the “Racer” group and 30 in the “Street” group. I decided to put myself in the Racer group, as my ego was to big to be in the street group. There was 10 instructors in attendance and I felt the mix of instructors to riders to be ok. The first thing that was explained was that we would not be using the advertised full 4.5mile 22 corner track at Miller Motorsports Park. Jason felt that the 4.5miles would allow to few laps per session and be to much to learn at one time. I was a bit disappointed, but I could understand the reasoning. So Jason said we would run the 3mile AMA course with 14 turns, and that was ok by me in the end. As I placed myself in the “Racer” group, we were the first out to a few instructors around the course and get a feeling for the track.

Our classroom sessions were not very “Structured” and seemed to flow depending on how the group was doing in general. This open structure really required the students to ask questions, instead of being given a plan to follow. For myself, I came into the school knowing that you get what you put into it, so I asked a lot of questions and I received many suggestions and ideas. Some of the drills that we did were:

- Entering the corner at mid track and finding the apex.

- Keeping a tight line out of the corners and only going wider when the “Power” of the bike pushed you to the outside.

- Getting all your down shifts done at the start of brake application.

- Running the motorcycle in a higher rev than normal

- Avoiding trying to make up time in slow corners

The first open session I try to follow the request of running in 2nd or 3rd gear and enter from mid track to the apex. I found the drill to be very helpful, but a bit frustrating at the same time. Since there was no “Control” on the other riders, a few just ignored this request and started doing hot laps. While it did not effect my learning, it’s not fun to be buzzed and see others just going for it while you are doing your drills.

The second session I got followed by Mark Gallardo who noticed the biggest problem in my riding style. At the end of the session Mark, tried to get me to change how I was holding on to the bikes going into the corners. My style has been to brace myself with my arms and lift myself to move over on the seat. Mark, tried (with not 100% success at the time) to get me to use my Abs to hold myself up under the brakes without putting weight on my arms. Mark also wanted me to keep my elbows down and in when I was leaning off the bike.

I continued though the day riding sessions, but I was in a lot of pain in my knees. Trying to follow Mark’s advice and get my feet up higher on the pegs and use my abs just was not making my stiff joints feel good. The day ended up with me getting better on the exits, but my entrance to the corners was not getting any better. If anything the fear of getting the bike slowed down and turned it was getting WORSE.

The final thing for the day was a discussion on body position The discussion and demo focused on the fact that leaning off to far and relying on your arms to hold yourself up is a bad thing. The idea is the arms need to be loose so that you can “Feel” what is going on with the front end. After a demo with one of the riders and how he could not hold himself up without the bars, a different position using your legs to hold on to the bike was demonstrated. Mark offered after the class session to stay to work with anyone who wanted help on their body position The sad part was, out of 20 advanced students, only 3 actually stayed after the class to work on their body position I was the last one to get instruction and Mark focused on keeping my elbows low holding on to the bike with my lower body.

This first day of the school was very good. I got a lot out of my time and I was showing improvement in my riding, especially exiting corners and working on body position in the turns. I have a ton more improvement to go, and you will read about what more I learned and improvements I made in the 2^nd day of my school.