All Girls Track Day
By: Frances Sayre, Co-Owner of OCD Custom Cycles & Auto Repair
Every year or so Roger Heemsbergen, owner of the ASMA race track near Deming New Mexico, puts on an all women’s track day he calls All Girls Track Day. As soon as I saw this event posted, I notified two very special and talented women riders – and track enthusiasts – Adah Burke with her Suzuki GSXR 750 and Abigail Schmidt with her very new KTM RC390. They were immediately on board. I have a new to me 2015 KTM RC390 track bike that I was anxious to put on more seat time. We bought the tickets, got our track bikes ready and planned the weekend.
It is a rare occurrence that I know (and call my close friends) these two women in Santa Fe, NM and for the three of us to attend ASMA’s track day in Deming New Mexico unaccompanied by men. Why? First only 20% of motorcyclists are women. There are very few of those women who want to ride on the track. (Just go down to a race or track day anywhere and count the number of women riders.) There are even fewer who would go out of town for an event with other women.
It takes some extra organization and team work for women to load and unload the bikes. Physiology is the component that makes it challenging and that nearly everything about motorcycles and their related equipment have been designed around a typical man’s height and upper body strength.
For example when I come in from the track and there is no one in my pit I cannot get off my track bike, that has no kick stand, and hold the bike while putting on the rear stand. I have seen many men do this. My RC390 is very tall for me so I am already tenuously balanced. I have a jack stand that I position so when I ride in I can lean the bike on the stand and get off and get the rear stand on.
I reassured Abigail that it would exhilarating and well worth it. I have attended several of these so I knew we could do it. Adah had been a previous year so this track was not new to her. Abigail has been to three previous trackdays at Suika Cicuit in Albuquerque put on by SMRI but had never been to an out of town track.
After spending the night in Deming’s luxury Holiday Inn Express, we drove to the track around 6:30am. We were unloaded, tire warmers on and hot, suited up, and ready to roll by 7:30. We were on the track warming up by 8:00am. ASMA’s track is wonderful with a bit of everything including a long quarter mile drag strip that turns into a carousel if one is riding counter clock-wise. There are technicle parts to the track including a series of esses after a tight hairpin. The track is in decent condition and leaves ones tires not too bad for wear.
This track day was continuous with no official breaks. So… ride until tired, come in and repeat! Roger did some coaching and since I was on a new to me bike I truly appreciated this. His method is to follow the rider, then the rider follows him. He then gives comments and suggestions off the track. He circled back around at the end of the day to see how we progressed. The comments he gave me were: 1. to be in a higher gear in the turns so I could exit out with more speed and 2. to use a different line around the track with my small-displacement single-cylinder track bike compared to the Suzuki SV650S that I had been riding before.
The end of the day is at 2pm due to the heat. We packed up and headed back to Santa Fe. What a great time!!
