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I'm headed to Carolina Motorsports park this weekend. On Tuesday and Wednesday 9/24 - 9/25 I'll be attending Yamaha Champ School. Some folks have asked me to report back with how it goes, so I'm making a thread here.

Here's what I know so far:

-I had to take online training called ChampU first. it took about 6 hours to complete from what I can remember.
-they have multiple programs, I'm taking Yamaha Champ School which is trackday/racing focused. they have a street based school as well as follow up schools for graduates.
-the base cost is about $2500, and different tracks cost different amounts. CMP was about $500 on top of the base cost. Mid-O was outrageous. Laguna and COTA are the highest price.
-they provide food (breakfast, lunch, and dinner tuesday night only).

I'll follow up with my experience. I'm excited to go and looking forward to my first time with personalized coaching.

Awesome! Let me know what you think.

I'm back from Champ School and here's my thoughts:

I now wish I would have gone to a track I didn't know, I think I would have benefited more from what they were teaching about eyes and spotting entry/apex/exit. Its fine that I knew the track, but I think knowing that track (even thought I've only been there once) caused me to spoil a bit of what they were attempting to teach me. They have a story they tell about Ben Spies when he went somewhere to race some high level of racing and he didn't know the track but set the lap record. Someone asked Spies afterwards how he was able to do that at a track he'd never been to and he responded that he identifies the slowest point of each corner, then he gets there as fast as possible, respects it, then gets away as quickly as he can.

The instructors are all accomplished racers. Cody Wyman (moto america champ, king of the baggers, hooligans), Robertino Pietri (moto2, world superbike, ama pro, motoamerica), Chris Peris (moto america), Ryan Burke (holds lap records at 20 different tracks), etc...

Day one we spent the first two hours in the class (inside and outside), it was a little longer than I was expecting and it did feel a little longer than it should have been but maybe some of the less experienced folks appreciated it. The class goes strait into depth of advanced riding concepts and we had a few people in the class who were very novice riders. I'm not sure how well that sunk in for them, but I also think that maybe they signed up for more than they bargained for. some folks left after day one. Out on track started typical as a skills assessment, it shifted into drills, then finished with a video lap where an instructor chases you. Once that finishes we went back to the classroom to review the video's and the instructors make comments on what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong.

Day two we gathered in the classroom early, did some body position exercises on our bikes. Afterwards we suited up and hit the track. lead follow session followed by a drill session. I liked the pointy end of the cone drill where instructors would run out on the track inbetween bikes going by to set cones on their sides. The riders had to dodge the cone on the pointy side. they'd move the cones (which were placed all over the track) randomly to mess with you. it was fun. They did a 2 up ride with the pro riders, and that wasn't as scary as I thought it'd be. Another video lap that we compared to day 1. finally the champ lap where they do mini drills, each lap you stop at start/finish and they assign a crazy drill to do the next lap ie: rossi leg dangle every corner, ride one handed, rear brake only, put a piece of tape over one eye, etc... and they end the session with yamaha test rides of all the different bikes.

afterwards they had a graduation ceremony where they hand out gift bags and graduation plaques.

weirdly the food was very good. i didn't expect the provided breakfast/lunch/dinner to be anything decent but it was very tasty.

what did I take away? - my key takeaway was their concept on brakes. less pressure for longer duration. they had us run a mini drill where we carried the brakes for 10 feet longer than we thought. we would start braking at the spot we usually did, just carried lighter/longer pressure and trailed in deeper. I hate to admit it, but it works... the bike was pointed way better and i was able to drive out much harder. I can see so much time being found here.

they harped on me for my butt placement, since i would return to center on a lot of the longer straits. I know i was supposed to stay off the side, but honestly the pace wasn't that high and it took more energy to hold my butt over there while going strait than moving from side to center then back to side. so i kept ignoring them until the pace turned up.

I'm happy with the results, and will say if you're curious about it you should try it. Theres something in there everyone either needs to learn or needs to focus on regardless of their skill level. What I really appreciate is no matter how fast you are, their instructors are faster so what they say to do is the right thing to do. And its fun to see what real speed looks like, even if its just on a stock R1 on DOT's.

unrelated to my champ school experience, but my ride down in my truck and trailer sucked. 3 blown trailer tires and stuck on the side of the highway near mile marker 10 in kentucky for 18 hours. I was exhausted and pissed. luckily i left saturday night, and school wasn't until tuesday morning. So i didn't have to rush to school.