Have you ever gone to a race, or even on a ride with friends, and seen someone take part of a track or a trail that scares you and they make it look easy? Some riders are just naturally great on hills, or rocky sections, or mud, or jumps. Pro racers can’t afford to be specialists; they’ve got to be masters of every kind of terrain there is.
Pros do everything right on every obstacle they encounter because they start with above average riding ability and then build on it with practice and determination to ride better. You can benefit from their hard work by using what they’ve learned to weed the mistakes out of your riding techniques. It takes years of riding experience to reach a pro’s level of proficiency, but cutting out commonly made mistakes in your technique can make you a faster, smoother, more confident rider in just one day! Here’s what the Pros have learned to do—and not do.
MIKE PENLAND
As one of the winningest GNCC racers, Penland knows what it takes to make time through the woods. Here’s his advice for improving your speed: "ATVs are built mainly for fun riding as they come from your dealer. If you want the machine to handle at race speeds, you’ll need to change to tires that work for faster riding and set your suspension to handle higher speeds. The best part of making these changes is, they often make your machine better for any sort of sport-type riding you do with it, so you don’t lose anything in the change."
DOUG EICHNER
Eichner has won major ATV races from the stadiums to the deserts of the western U.S. and Mexico, and he believes variety can help you win.
"I find I pick up a lot from riding different kinds of races. Some of the jumping skills from the stadiums really help in off-road races, and the high speeds of desert racing has made riding the new, faster stadium tracks seem more natural for me than for some riders. I think mixing up the kinds of racing you do helps your speed and keeps racing exciting, because you you’re not doing the same thing all the time".
JEREMIAH JONES
Jeremiah Jones looks like ATV racing’s next big name. He’s racking up victories indoors and in the woods. He stresses that you’re closer to a win every time you pull off a perfect start.
Here’s his launch sequence: "Make sure you’ve got your machine in gear, and start in second if your engine will pull it. Get to know the starter’s habits by watching him. Rev the engine to about half throttle and just hold it there a few seconds before the start. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt the engine. When the flag or gate drops, release the clutch and roll the throttle wide open. If you do all that, you should get a good start, even if you don’t have the fastest machine out there."
JOHN NATALIE
Natalie’s win at the San Diego Round of the SFX Formula USA Pro Quad series shows he’s a match for quad racing’s best in stadiums and on cross country courses. This is what he recommends for racers looking to improve their results:
"Having someone to practice with who is faster than you can do a lot to increase your speed, improve your jumping and cornering and just generally motivate you to test your limits. Some people can really push themselves in practice, but most riders don’t have that discipline. A faster rider is carrot in front of a horse. You have a target, something to chase. Faster riders can offer some good advice if they follow you around the track, too. A faster guy can tell you where you are making mistakes, what you do right and where you can be passed".
KORY ELLIS
Ellis’ second-place finish in the SFX Formula USA Pro Quad series shows he knows how to finish up front consistently. Here’s what he learned on his way to the front of the pack:
"One area where I see a lot of good riders holding themselves back is suspension. It seems like inexperienced racers do a lot of engine modifications before they can even use the power of their stock engine. Most stock ATVs can go fast enough to overwork the stock suspension with a good rider. I’d recommend that anybody who plans to race or just get the full performance from their machine talk to a suspension shop and see what good setups are available for it."
GARY DENTON
"If you’re planning to approach racing seriously, you need to get comfortable with a lot of wrenching, or find a mechanic who’ll help you keep your machine ready to race. Some people have lots of riding talent but don’t have much mechanical skill. If you don’t like the mechanical side of racing, you won’t get the results you’re capable of until you get the mechanical side of your racing effort dialed in."
TODD KNIPPENBURG
Knippenburg is new to the Pro ranks, but he made an indelible mark in ATV racing with his amazing second place finish in the ’00 GNCCs in the four-stroke stock class aboard a Kawasaki Mojave 250. It took some serious riding to smoke Honda 400EXs on the little 250.
Knip’s tip, in a nutshell, is to maintain your momentum. The detailed version goes like this. "It’s a lot faster and less tiring to maintain your speed than to charge like a wildman, make mistakes and have to make up time from a crash. Of course, you want to ride aggressively, but just enough within your limits to keep mistakes from costing you time."
BILL BALLANCE
Few riders will ever match GNCC Champion Bill Ballance’s speed, but any racer can improve their results by using a rule he keeps in mind on every lap of every race. Ballance recommends riders "use every opportunity to pass that comes up. Every second you hesitate, hanging behind a slow rider, is a second for the leader to stretch his lead out. You’d never just slow down for no reason during a race, so don’t let slower riders slow you down if you can get by them."
TIM FARR
SFX Formula USA stadium motocross champ Tim Farr tells us he’s surprised by the number of fast riders who forget a vital, basic rule of racing strategy, "You should always be accelerating or braking, not coasting. To put it another way, you should always gas it hard enough so you have to be on the brakes right away to keep from overshooting the next turn."
WILLIAM YOKELY
"Real steep downhills scare a lot of riders, but I think two things keep some guys from getting comfortable with downhills and making good time on them. The main one is over-using the rear brake. As soon as the rear wheels are locked, the rear end tends to step out or even come around. If that happens, you have no way to ride in control or gas it on the downhill to hop over rock steps or other obstacles that might be coming up."
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