With RideSmart, it was nice having some video to look at, although the only instructor feedback I got from mine was "not bad." It was also nice to have a tire and suspension expert there to get my bike dialed in for me. I also like that they put X's on the track to mark the line, Eurosport didn't. RideSmart is $25 cheaper and includes lunch, but other than that, everything else was better with Eurosport's track day, imo.
Eurosport's deal was basically just customers of the shop and in most cases it was just old men that wanted to cut loose on their street bikes in a safe manner. No one was out there trying to become a racer or to raise their street cred, at least in their Level 1 group. The Level 1 classroom with RideSmart was just an instructor sort of rushing through a slide show that he was uninterested in. The classroom was much more involved with Eurosport and they answered a lot of questions and key points that I feel that RideSmart glossed over. Also, the instructors were much more involved with the riders with Eurosport, both in the classroom and on the track. Probably becasuse there were about half as many riders on the track and the instructor to rider ratio was considerably better with Eurosport.
The pace of the event was another big difference. With RideSmart, you are always late for the next thing and find yourself running to make it to the next class or next track session. Really hectic, no one was quite sure what was going on at any given time. Everyone was asking each other if they heard the last announcement. 20 minute track times/classroom with RideSmart versus 30 minute track times/classroom with Eurosport. WAY more crashes with RideSmart in my limited experience. Almost one an hour. I had two folks crash while I was on track with them. That's just in 6 sessions as well, I left after that. I'm not sure if the later sessions racked up more crashes or not. I was starting to fade and didn't want to become one of them.
By comparison, there was one crash total for the whole 16 session day with Eurosport and that was in the non-classroom bunch. Tony said that was the first one they had had in a while. Lots more unsafe things going on the track with RideSmart. That seemed like a combination of the different types of folks that showed up, the amount of riders versus how safety was addressed by each group.
Had I done RideSmart first before doing Eurosport's, I think I would have had a more negative view of track days in general. There were a number of new, slower riders at Eurosport that were done by lunch. I spoke with a woman during one of the breaks and it was her first track day and she did not seem to be enjoying it. She said something like, I don't know what's going on, I'm just trying to stay alive out there. I heard another rider say, "watch out for that guy on the green Kawi, he's holding up the track." The green Kawi was her and she was in earshot when the other guy said it.
There was a similar rider at Eurosport's track day and instead of getting that treatment, one of the instructor's kind of took him under his wing and watched out for him all day. Even took him for a ride as a passenger on his own bike so he could experience a better way to ride. By the end of the day, with all of that attention, this rider was riding much better and didn't stop at lunch like others did in RideSmart.
My take away was if you like a hectic, competitive pace where the goal is to become a racer and you don't need much feedback, then RideSmart. If you just want to go have fun on your street bike for a day in a laid back environment and gets lots of feedback from instructors, Eurosport. But Eurosport only does two a year and RideSmart has them all season. I do want to do another RideSmart event at COTA at some point. I might try one at Houston as well just to see what it is about.
My next one is going to be a 2 on 1 coaching deal in Decatur. I'm curious how that compares to both. They tout theirs as the best place to do your first track day.
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if that's what you enjoy. Going fast on one does take more work and more skill and sometimes just some extra cajones lol.
