American Supercamp is the brainchild of ex-GP racer Danny Walker and seven-time AMA Grand National Champion Chris Carr. It's a two-day course in which riders learn the basics of riding flat track—first in the classroom and then on a dirt course. Classroom instruction focuses on body positioning and cornering lines, because good technique is the key to making motorcycles slide predictably.

Why the emphasis on sliding? To get through each corner, motorcycle racers must slow down, turn, and accelerate. Sliding, with both wheels still spinning, makes it possible to slow down and turn at the same time, allowing the rider to aim the bike down the next straightaway and accelerate out of the corner. And these skills aren't just for racers. Muscle memory for dealing with an incipient slide can help regular street riders avoid a crash. During a recent two-day Supercamp course, I learned what it feels like to slide a motorcycle around a corner flat track–style. It takes a completely different riding style from what they teach new riders in the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course, and it's addictive.

The Method

Rather than hanging off the inside of the bike, like sportbike riders do, flat-track riders lean the bike way over as they go into the corner but remain upright, sitting on the outside corner of the seat. With the bike leaning sharply and the rider above it, the tires can enter and exit a slide much more gradually, and the risk of a highside—when a sliding tire suddenly grips and flings the rider off the bike—is dramatically reduced.

With the bike leaning so far into the corner, the rider's inside arm has to be nearly straight and the outside arm bent, with the elbow way up. Walker and Carr are masters of this technique—they can corner with both tires sliding sideways and with the inside handlebar grips nearly on the ground.

Supercamp teaches this cornering method as four steps:

1. Drive into the corner. Stay on the gas deeper into the corner.

2. Reduce speed. Squeeze the rear brake and push the bike down into the corner.

3. Change direction: Maximum lean angle, turn the front tire around corner

4. Start straightaway: Roll on the throttle, roll the bike up to the center of the tire.

It was during day two of the training that the new skills we'd been learning finally clicked for many students. For me, the big leap came when we had to practice sliding through one specific corner over and over again.

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I had recently been given a hot shoe—a metal slipper that fits over the left boot and slides smoothly along the dirt—and promoted to the advanced riding group. I looked at how low the instructors were getting, with their handlebar ends below their knees, and deliberately tried to ride they way they were. It felt scary and unnatural to lean the bike so far over, but that's what professional flat trackers do, so I kept trying.

It worked: The tires slid and regained traction much more progressively when leaned over so far. And suddenly I was slowing the bike by scrubbing the still-turning tires sideways rather than just using the rear brake. The hotshoe didn't interfere with my operating the controls, but when it was on the ground it felt like a ski—it was possible to get the bike very low without having to worry about my foot catching on the ground.

When that drill was over, we ran with our groups on the full track, which was shaped like a bubble-letter C. I followed Carr, and did my best to imitate his lines and body position for as long as I could stay with him. I was riding inches from one of the best flat-track racers ever, as fast as I possibly could, with the bars below my knees going into turns, and making small control inputs to point the bike where I wanted it to go.

The majority of the riders at Supercamp aren't planning to race with their new skills. They just wanted to learn how to control a motorcycle once its tires are beyond the limit of grip. The idea is to "put another tool in their toolkit"—at the end of the course, they'll be able to deal with a slide if they encounter one in their normal riding.

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