By Keith Culver, YCRSE
verything riders do entering
a corner (braking, down-
shifting, setting body posi-
tion, scanning with eyes, hitting
the apex) are done for one reason:
To get the bike pointed in the right
direction to accelerate as soon
and as hard as possible.
Track day clubs often place
cones to help guide their riders
around the track on the proper
“line,” which should be the safest
and fastest way around.
Many clubs use an entry
cone showing riders where to turn
in. Then they use an apex cone
to highlight the apex of the turn
(where the rider is closest to the
inside of the corner). Some will
also use a third cone to guide rid-
ers out to the corner exit.
While the exit cone can be
helpful, it can often be hard to see
and/or out of sight due to eleva-
tion change—a perfect example
being Turn Two on the Thunder-
bolt course at New Jersey Motor-
sports Park. It also requires more
dexterity with your eyes, an im-
portant skill that takes a while to
really master.
The entry cone is a different
story because not everyone has
the same turn-in point or turn-in
rate. A rider on a Yamaha YZF-R1
traveling at 165 mph down the
front straight at Thunderbolt will
need to turn in earlier than a rider
on a YZF-R3 traveling 102 mph, to
turn an optimal lap. So, depend-
ing on who set up the track, their
skill and experience level, and
what bike they ride, the turn-in
cone won’t be accurate for all rid-
ers and bikes. Which is why we at
YCRS do not use turn-in cones.
A dual-apex cone set-up
helps address this problem and
has been a staple of the Yama-
ha Champions Riding School for
many years; it’s been adopted by
a number of track days acrossthe country with positive results.
Clubs like N2, TrackDaz, Evolve,
Track Time, and Xcel, to name
a few, utilize YCRS’s dual apex
cones and report having fewer
problems when they do so.
As long as the cones are
placed in the right spots, about
seven-to-eight feet apart, they can
help any rider on any bike put
themselves not just on apex, but
also pointed in the right direction.
The idea is to get the bike paral-
lel with the two cones. If you are
down at—and parallel with—the
cones, you are on apex and point-
ed in the right direction. With only
one cone, you can be “on apex”
but if you’re not pointed in the
right direction, you have an in-
creased chance for drama.
So if you have a track day
club, give our dual apex cones a
try. If you’re a customer of a club,
maybe tell them about it and see if
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Getting
On Line
DUAL APEX CONE THEORY:
(Above) This rider is at the apex but
pointed the wrong way (red arrow)
for a quick exit, vs. the right way
(green arrow). (Below and Bottom)
Green is the correct line to exit on
the gas. A bike parallel to the dual
cones at the apex is on the right line.
RW
_APEX CONE
_DUAL APEX
CONES
Roadracing World, Trackday Directory 2019—59