The autograph session was so funny because I think it happened about 20 seconds after we got the bike picked back up right after I dumped it after the ULSB race. It was hot, I was amped up, and my bald head looked like a cherry about to burst signing those kids' helmets with trembling hands. It was probably my single favorite moment of the weekend but nobody needs to see that picture besides us hahaha. Thanks again for all your help and support both on this weekend and the entire year. I can't friggen wait to get back out there with you!

I try to hook the viewer with a show of incompetence of operating a simple paddock stand, hah. I appreciate the insight and encouragement. I love watching other people make this type of video, and they're also fun to make because you get to relive the event. Looking forward to next year. Teens are the target for sure.

My main motivation for making these videos is to provoke you into signing up again, hah. Joking aside, I think you nailed it. "Trackday mindset" is probably the best phrase for one of the things I'm struggling with. I haven't figured out how to break it yet. So if you can figure it out, let me know. I'm hoping that with seat time I'll hit a comfort level where I *know* I can stick a bike in a spot and make it stick. The other side of that is that I also need to *know* how that pass will affect the other rider. I'm aborting some opportunities because I'm unsure. Which I guess is better than the alternative--it can get frustrating though.

Thanks Dylon! It's a lot of fun--you're going to love it. I'm already antsy for next year... not sure how I'm going to get through the winter. There's definitely a lot of high-mounts, though it isn't all of them. I'm not sure if there's a specific reason (mine came with one when I bought it used as a street bike). If I had to guess, they probably crash slightly better. But I don't really have anything to actually support that theory.

Thanks man--I appreciate it. They're fun to make, and I'm hopeful that they encourage other people to take the plunge and give it a shot if they're considering it. Regarding your question about being "crossed up"--completely valid question. If you had a camera on me, you'd see I was likely crossed up as well many times. Realistically, the picturesque body position is difficult to do during a race--especially for amateurs like me when we're processing about 1000 other things that are all relatively new. Keep in mind, most of the people in this video you're seeing are amateurs since the expert field usually checks out by several seconds per lap. Anyway, getting into racing and watching it made me realize how *unimportant* body position was in relation to several other items on the totem pole. You can have beautiful body position, but if your lines are shit and you're way off apex, it won't count for anything. If your vision sucks, body position doesn't matter. If you're braking too early or not trail braking deep and smooth enough because you're worried about getting your elbow to the ground, you're going to be going backwards. The guy who is at full throttle the longest is likely going to win the race. That's not to say it's not important. It just gets overly discussed and focused on by people on track days because it's a still-shot image that can subjectively make you look like a hero or a noob--with no bearing at all on how fast or competitive you actually are. I spend a lot of my track time walking to different corners and watching the experts practice. Some of the absolute fastest people there do not have the beautiful body positioning you'd imagine. It's going to be a focal point for me to get better at it though. With better body position you can increase your corner speed--that's objectively true. It's why all the motogp and wsbk and professionals look so similar now. And truly bad body position can be dangerous since it can set you up to break tire grip. But at the club level--especially in the amateur level i'm at--putting effort into comfort, lines, corner speed, and racecraft are going to far outweigh the benefits of expelling extra energy into body position during a race. Next year I'll be hopefully dedicating many sessions to working on my body position though because I'm finally getting to a spot where I'm "comfortable" on the bike. Sessions where I don't care about anything else--so I can focus on that one thing.

Another thing that's really interesting (and awesome) is just how much faster your race pace is than track day or even qualifying sessions. Just being around other fast people pushing makes you faster--because you see what the bike is actually capable of. And you figure if they're doing it... so can you. Some guys *really* change their pace based on who is around them. I generally know that if I'm putting in practice/qual times and pushing, I'll be 1.5-2s quicker in the race. I'm assuming this starts to taper off with experience. But it's very real at my current level. I talked to the guy that won these races after, and he had raced in a few other races as well. He mentioned he was running about 4s slower per lap because he didn't have someone out there to match or push him. Now unfortunately for me... he took a *massive* step in the final weekend of the year. So I've got my work cut out for me if I'm going to be able to keep up with how quickly he and some other guys are progressing.

@@matttriestodothingsthanks Matt, that all makes perfect sense to me. As someone who has never raced I can understand how many things you must have to process during a race. Thanks for tanking the time to explain it.

This is what I was thinking--I just couldn't figure out how to do it. I know that what I *was* doing wasn't working though which was trying to run the same turns wide to try to keep speed higher. A better rider could have been able to do it--not me though. Well, not yet at least.

@@matttriestodothings brake later (or trailbrake deeper), turn in later, apex later. roll speed around the outside means you dont get to gas as hard. or dive inside on the brakes and take away the apex. the intermediate group passing does not work unless you have a lot of vehicle or technique advantage (neither will be true in a real race) one thing i did that helped racecraft a lot (other than minis) was doing a bunch of gocarts and sim racing. but that's a big time investment.

@@Mad8vCycles "roll speed around the outside means you don't get to gas as hard"

So I've been looking more into this, and if the right situation shows up I'd sell my KE100 to partially fund it. There are open track days and races for minis at the motorplex at Road America (the kart course there) for bikes under 600cc. There's also several race weekends. If the vibe is anything like when I got into racing karts, I probably want nothing to do with it. A lot of parent's trying to raise their kids to be the next Jeff Gordon and it just sucked being at the track. If there are a fair amount of road racers trying to get cheap track time in on a mini... it would definitely help to lengthen the riding season.

@@matttriestodothingsmini parents are the opposite of carting parents. everyone pitches in to get everyone out there. then theyll punt you in a turn :P

I want another stab at Pittsburgh for this reason. I think I was braking 100ft or more too early for a bunch of those turns. Especially T1 and T7. It'll be interesting if the rumors of ASRA getting Road America back onto the schedule turn out to be true for 2024. Obviously I've never raced there, but at track days you'll get people braking wayyyyyyy early going into T1 and T5 because the straightaways are so long and you're often maxing out the speed of the bike. T5 is likely to get rather interesting for a bunch of amateurs jockeying for position with different ideas on which brake marker to use.

@@matttriestodothingspitt boards for me were 2.5 for t1, 2.5 for t3, 1.5 for t7 and 1.5 for t17

Unfortunately that one had just enough pace not to bottle us up and possibly give me an opportunity.