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Bracket Racing

Anyone over the age of 18 who can ride a motorcycle can enter. If you’re under 18 then you will need your parents’ permission and signatures on the entry form. There is no Junior form of the sport at present, so the minimum age requirement is 16.

You need a competition license. There are a number of different types of competition license available dependant upon your requirements. An open competition license, which can be used at events all the way up to national championship level, is currently $280. Special "One Event" licenses are available for $40 to assist those who would like to have a try, but don’t want to commit to a full year. There is no limit to how many one event licenses a rider buys, so some choose to use these for all their racing. One event licenses cannot be used at open meetings such as state and national championships.

The concept of Bracket Racing is to allow riders to enter their road bike, what ever it may be. So the rule is that any motorcycle that can be registered can be raced. Grand Prix style machinery is excluded. Some riders have dedicated race bikes, but it is not essential. Any bike entered can potentially be a winner.

You need the following, all in good condition:

• A helmet and bearing a standards approval sticker

• Full leathers, one or two piece. Two piece leathers must fasten together with either zips or studs

• Calf length boots

• Gloves long enough to overlap the sleeves of your leathers

• A back protector

The essential thing about the preparation of your motorcycle is safety, both for yourself and other riders. Things which the examiners will check for include:

• Handlebar ends must be plugged

• Clutch and brake levers must have the ball ends intact

• Stands must be removed – check for a cut out switch on the side stand, you may have to tape it up or bypass it to get the bike to run

• Lights should ideally be removed, if not then all glass (and plastic) lenses on the bike should be completely taped

• Pillion pegs should be held in the up position or removed

• Brake pads should have plenty of material

• Tyres must have good tread – they can wear very quickly during a day on the track. Many of the graded riders will have cheap tyres for sale which they have only done a few laps on.

• Bearings should be in good condition (e.g. wheel bearings, steering and swing arm)

• Valve caps should be metal or good quality plastic with seals

• Chain should be properly adjusted and lubricated and sprockets should be in good condition

• Drain plugs and filler caps must be secured in the closed position. These include radiator caps, oil fillers, sump plugs, radiator drain plugs, fork drain plugs and oil filters. With spin on type filters, a hose clamp around the filter tied back to the frame or engine works well. Drains and fillers should ideally be drilled and wired in place. Alternatively they may be wired around, or cleaned and siliconed in place.

• Brake and clutch master cylinder caps also require secondary retention. Some bikes, such as RGV250’s have a clip over the screw on cap. Otherwise taping is normal practice – use caution not to block any breather holes when taping as it can cause the brakes to self apply when the fluid heats up.

• Horn must be disconnected.

• Drain hoses should be captured into a plastic bottle

• You need a solid colour background on both sides, preferably at the rear, and the front of your motorcycle to use as number plates. Numbers are available in black and white for contrast.

Remember, it’s OK to ask questions and both the examiners and other riders will offer advice if you have missed something. We all want you to come out and join us. Alternatively, most motorcycle shops will be able to assist with your race preparation.

You will need to fill out and sign an entry form and the associated indemnity. There is one for the next race meeting that you can download from the Café Racer Club’s website www.caferacerclub.com or ring our competition secretary, Ron on 0417 809 377 to have one mailed to you. You will also need to be a member of one of the participating clubs – their names will be on the entry form. You will find a membership application form for the Café Racer Club on the site, too. Ideally, mail the entry form in a couple of weeks before the race meeting to ensure that your name gets in the program, and that there is room for you on the grid.

The entry form will have details for starting times, remember to keep your part of the form when you send in your entry. At the track you will need to go through the sign in procedure in the pits to obtain a machine examination pass. Riders who do not already have racing numbers will be allocated one at this time, and numbers will be provided for fixing to your machine. Then put on your riding gear and take your machine and helmet to the machine examining area. There, a scrutineer will perform a basic safety check on your machine and your equipment – the onus for your safety is still on you – and place a sticker on your helmet and on your machine to show that they have been checked and approved.

After machine examination there will be a riders’ briefing. All riders must attend. Here the Clerk of Course, the person in charge of the meeting, will run through the basic rules of racing, flag signals, starting procedures and any special conditions which may apply to the day’s racing.

Next there will be a practice session for you to begin learning the circuit. Practice is conducted in groups, listen to the PA announcements in the pits for your session to be called up. You will group together in the form up area, adjacent to the track entry gate and be released from there to practice. After practice, grids are posted in the machine examination area. Look for your number on the grid sheet so that you will know where to line up for your qualifying session.

For qualifying riders again group in the form up area, then when released, ride around to the start line where they are met by the starter, holding a red flag, and take their place on the grid. They are then released, one grid row at a time to do one lap of the track and return to their grid position. This is termed the warm up or sighting lap. When everyone has returned to the grid, where they will again be met by the starter with the red flag, they will then be released, one row at a time at intervals of 6-10 seconds, for the qualifying session. Qualifying is not a race. The objective is to ride a time close to your fastest in the 6 laps normally provided. Use the first couple of laps to get the tyres and brakes warm, and try to create a bit of space around yourself so you can "put in a hot one". Work up to it, getting yourself into a steadily improving rhythm.

Grids will be posted again after qualifying. This time they will show the brackets that riders have placed in, based on the times which they rode in qualifying. Break out times will be shown for each row. When ever possible, time sheets will also be posted detailing all riders lap times during in qualifying. The grids posted will be the grids used for racing for the rest of the meeting. Your races will be called up over the pit PA system, normally just after the start of the race before you. This gives time for riders to have a last minute check and get themselves to the form up area in time for the start of their event. Don’t be late, the race won’t wait for you! When released, riders proceed around to the start line where they will be met by the starter, holding a red flag, and take their place on the grid. They are then released, one grid row at a time to do one lap of the track and return to their grid position. This is termed the warm up or sighting lap. When everyone has returned to the grid, where they will again be met by the starter with the red flag, the starter will point to the starting lights and leave the grid. When the red light goes out, you’re racing!

Competition is preceded by timed practice. Based on the lap times of each rider, they are placed on grid rows with riders of similar lap times. They then ride in a Qualifier, which is started one row at a time, where the fastest lap time ridden is used to set the Bracket in which each rider will compete. The qualifier does not count for points on the day. Its sole purpose is to determine the Brackets for competition.

To minimise the amount of over taking performed by riders, the race length is kept to 6 laps, with the fastest qualifying time to slowest within an event maintained to 1/6 of the fastest lap time wherever possible. Grid rows are double spaced to keep start line rockets from tangling with faster riders in the first bends. There may be a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 riders for a row and a maximum of 5 rows on the grid (i.e. 20 riders). Grids are set to have a span of only 2 to 4 seconds over a grid row. In practice, spans of more than 2 seconds are only seen at the very tail of the field.

The pole sitter on each row is allowed to dip under his qualifying time by 1.5 seconds during competition without "breaking out". A break out means that the rider will be awarded 0 points for the race. The other riders on the row are allowed the same time as the pole sitter before breaking out. This is to prevent "foxing" which is often associated with handicap competition. Variations to the breakouts are necessary with varying weather conditions. In extreme circumstances (e.g. wet practice, drying qualifying, dry competition), it may be practical to declare "no breakout", but to still conduct competition on a per row basis.

A lot of riders worry about this one. First of all, there is no need to ride any harder or faster than you are comfortable with.

Your comprehensive insurance won’t cover you on the race track. The club putting on the race meeting has taken Public Liability insurance to cover injury to other parties. Your competition license has an insurance component which covers you for death or permanent disablement. We recommend that riders also have income protection insurance and ambulance cover.

Now, how likely are you to crash? Many riders seem to think that just because they go onto a race track, they will crash. If we compare the track to the road, the first thing we can see is that everyone is going in the same direction, so there is no oncoming traffic, no intersections and no wrong side of the road. The sides of the track have no curbs, no cliffs, no light poles or trees, just wide run off areas, some with sand traps. So we’re all going in the same direction, plenty of room for errors, no intersections and no obstacles. Why would you crash?

Of course people still do crash while exploring the outer limits of their skill and machine, and racing incidents do happen. Flag marshals will warn following riders to slow, minimizing the danger of a secondary incident. An ambulance and pick up vehicle are both infield, ready to attend and can normally be with a fallen rider in under a minute. So, if you do crash, following riders are warned of the hazard, an ambulance and skilled staff will be with you in very short time, and someone will pick up your bike and return it to the pits.

But it wasn’t you, you were worried about was it? It was your bike. The preparation we ask you to do before racing will help to minimize the damage. Using second hand panels or reproduction bodywork can also help keep those costs down. Ask your local bike shop or speak to riders at the track for where to source them. Most crashed bikes can be straightened (other racers will put you in touch with the people who can help), and it is not unknown for them to come up better than when they left the factory. A January 2003 survey of 48 riders found an average cost of road accidents over $6,000 vs. track accidents at just over $500.

Contact Road Skills:
Po Box 2419, Salisbury Downs, SA 5108
 Steve - Mobile 0418 847 926  AH Ph. (08) 8284 8014

or Kym - Mobile 0412 239 361
Contact