Close Call Collation Living And Learning In An Almost World
CLOSE CALL COLLATION LIVING AND LEARNING IN AN ALMOST WORLD
IGNITION
RIDE CRAFT
Painless lessons are available if you know where to look
Nick Ienatsch
Chris Pens and Ben Walters won the last two WERA Heavyweight Endurance National Championships on the Army of Darkness BMW S1000RR. In those two years, they never crashed the black Beemer. They won every race they entered, except one in which they took second place, and were consistently the fastest riders at every endurance race.
Their bike makes just over 200 hp.
The races last between four and eight hours. They ride for more than one hour per stint, and you can imagine the state of their tires toward the end of each stint.
“Yeah, the grip is gone,” Peris says with a laugh. Walters adds, “We’re almost crashing two or three times a lap, but you can’t slow down because the competition is right there.”
Peris, Walters, and racers running at the front live in an “almost world,” and it’s a fascinating world for all riders to discover. Peris and Walters almost crash a few times a lap, and we all need to examine not only how the “almost world” works but the lessons it can teach us if we’re paying attention.
Peris and Walters learn something from each near miss. They learn the state of their tires and instantly document the amount of throttle, brakes, and lean angle that caused the near crash. They apply that information in the next corner and lap, pushing up to the limits of grip and slightly beyond. But only slightly.
The almost crashes they experience in racing are almost always due to exceeding grip limits, but on the street you will have near misses with deer, buses, gravel, and any number of other obstacles the real world will throw at you. In near misses like these, an additional few mph of bike speed can often be the difference between hitting and missing the object due to less time to react and the added difficulty in slowing and turning a faster-moving motorcycle. Near misses remind us of the dangers the street brings to a rider’s world. And we need to learn from them, to adjust.
An almost crash and a crash are on opposite sides of the goodness scale, yet many riders berate themselves for almost crashing. Let’s change that thinking by celebrating almost crashes—celebrating them for the health we still have and the lessons we can learn. Know that an almost crash must be dissected and taken seriously because it holds secrets that many riders fail to examine.
I guarantee you that the best racers in the world look at these near misses very closely, knowing that another i percent of throttle, lean angle, or brakes would have them down. They live in the almost world and we should too.
