Texas Mini GP ( http://www.tmgps.8k.com ) races at Katy 4 races a season and Denton two races a season. Katy is a .33 mile, 7 turn kart track ( http://www.racekarts.com ). I have raced 250s, I have raced 125s, let me tell ya, if you wanna learn corner speed, buy a mini and race the kart tracks! BTW, I'm 6 foot and 210 lbs and regularly fold up on an NSR50 Honda for 1 hour stints at Katy, Denton, and CMRA mini endurance events. Don't tell me my RS125 was cramped!!!!!!!!!!! [img]/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif[/img]
TMGP races a different class structure to CMRA, but if you have a TMGP legal bike, there is a CMRA class for it. TMGP runs YSR production bikes in SS, water cooled 50s or air cooled 100s in lightweight, 125 four strokes and 65cc two strokes in superbike, and 80cc two strokes in unlimited (and a few 150cc cheater four strokes that aren't supposed to be legal, but no one cares). Endurance is Saturday, sprints Sunday. There's lots of age and weight classes and stuff like "big wheel" or "small wheel". The age and weight stuff is all based on lightweight bikes or you can run a YSR in 'em. There's even a backwards race (my favorite) where any legal bike can race, no hot lap, no practice, race the track the reverse direction.
TMGP is quite laid back. Costs are cheap. Entry first class is $30, second class is $10, each additional is $5 for sprint classes. Endurance is $20 an hour and $50 total for the two hour races.
Racing minis allows you to race TMGP and CMRA and never be board during a race season. [img]/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img] With a mini motard, you can even do some mad dawg flat track in the off season!
I've got a LOT of track time on 125s and 250s. My comments about the tuning and maintenance routine are aimed at someone not familiar with the bikes, maybe not that mechanically minded, and trying to learn to RIDE A MOTORCYCLE. Yes, I totally agree that there is no other big bike for me that matches a GP's handling. The things are connections of your body to the track. The brakes are UNREAL. You just think the bike where you want it to go and it goes there. You don't muscle ANYthing on a GP. They lean until it seems you're scraping paint off the fairing and they'll lean some more. Draggin' a knee is a matter of not sticking it out too far or you'll break a patella off. Nope, there is no street bike experience that can ever hope to come close to a GP. If you've never ridden a GP, you owe it to yourself to do it before you quit racing, for sure. But, for a newb who needs to concentrate on RIDING rather than tuning, I think he or she'd be better off with a properly set up SV or Aprilia cup bike just due to the fact that you don't have to worry about air density, plug chops, tape on the radiator, rebuilding the top end every 300 racing miles, putting a crank in it every 1300 miles, checking those friggin' reed pedals routinely cause they tend to fracture, checking clutch plate thickness every weekend on TZs (friggin' dry clutches EAT plates!), etc, etc, etc. If you wanna learn to ride, you want a bike you just climb aboard and thumb the starter IMHO. Yeah, I have no problem with the GP routine, but I've been doing it a while now. You tend to forget what it's like trying to learn to ride AND tune.
All the above said, no SV650 can compare to the NSR50 on a kart track for learning how to ride! If you can't carry corner speed on a mini, you'll KNOW it. There will be no doubt! Even at Oak Hill it will be blatantly obvious. Lots of fast guys learned on minis first. There's two clubs that race minis. Minis are cheaper and if you can afford two weekends a year on a 600, you can run every friggin' race in CMRA and TMGP on a mini and the volume of track time alone is precious for a newb rider.
If you ain't broke like me, you should ADD a mini to your racing fleet! I raced 125GP for several years with a TZ125, then an RS125 while racing my 80cc motard same weekends. I sold the RS and am now a mini only kinda guy. If I ever get a little more income I might buy a 250 cause I have had the urge, but really, at 53 years of age November 1, I think I've grown out of big bikes and the little bikes give me all the thrills I need. Besides, you're closer to the ground and going slower when it spits you off. I don't grow bone mass like I did when I was younger.
