We ran into motocross trainer Derin Stockton and racer Nick Wey repeating sections of a track on a practice day, Nick on the bike, Derin on the stopwatch, to try to find some hidden speed. Stockton told us some of the advantages of narrowing a rider's focus and putting one section at a time under a microscope.
"Pick a section and try a corner three or four different ways. Try the inside, try a sweeping line, try squaring it up, try an inside-out passing line. And have the pit board and the stopwatch right there to tell you what's fast and what's slow."
"Riders tend to drive in too fast and too hard into the corners. They're trying to go as fast as they can in, but then they have to hit the brakes really hard. That upsets the attitude of the bike, and you end up slowing down and hesitating in the middle of the corner."
"Time sections, not just corners. If you're losing momentum coming out of a turn before a long straightaway, you're losing speed all the way down that straightaway." "It's always good timing different competitors. If somebody's killing it in one section, you might go out and watch what they're doing."
"Take a 5- to 15-second section. If you can make what may seem like a minor improvement, that starts adding up over one lap."
"Usually there will be one fast line. But you always want to think what are your race lines and what are your passing lines. You need to have your Plan B if you don't get a good start."
"I see people at all levels go out to the track without any real plan. If you're just going out there and riding for 30 minutes and doing your corners bad, you're reinforcing bad habits all the way around the track. You want to be figuring out how to take time off."