TEAM Arizona Riding Tip: Training with Motorcycling’s Elite
Last Updated: December 1st, 2020
This June, TEAM Arizona owner Ron Arieli, his son, and two of his Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic Instructors headed to Ft. Collins, Colorado, to attend Danny Walker’s American Supercamp. Collectively, the riders represented more than 100 years of riding experience and nearly fifty years of rider coaching experience. What did they have to gain by attending the camp? Everything.
YOU CAN’T BE YOUR BEST IF WE’RE NOT AT OUR BEST
When participants attend a TEAM Arizona training course, we make it known that riding a motorcycle well requires a life-long dedication to maintaining and increasing skill level. Practice is important, but how do you know if you’re doing it properly? That’s where coaches come into play. Even the best athletes in the world acknowledge the importance of a good coach. That is exactly why we invested time, money, and risked bodily harm to attend the American Supercamp. We knew their coaches would help us improve our riding and be the best we can be. Simply: You can’t be your best if we’re not our best.
Every RiderCoach and Instructor at TEAM Arizona understands the importance of checking our egos at the door and occasionally placing ourselves in the role of student. It helps us empathize with our course participants. It helps us identify areas where we as coaches can improve. The bi-product of this additional training also means we’re better motorcyclists with more tools in our tool box. With so many advantages, why wouldn’t we seek training?
At this stage, not just any training course or coach will do, so who do we look to when we want to improve our riding skills?
MOTORCYCLE RIDER TRAINING ELITE
Funny enough, when RiderCoaches seek training, they start right here at home. TEAM Arizona offers more than just the Basic RiderCourse. In our coaching stable we have plenty of experienced folks who can raise the level of most, if not all, motorcyclists. We encourage our coaches to learn from each other and use our training facilities for their self improvement.
Externally, we have a few gurus who have upped the game for all of us. We seek out these particular rider training specialists because we know we’ll learn a thing or three about riding AND coaching. If you want to improve your riding skills, we encourage you to check out these individuals.
LEE PARKS
Lee is the creator of the Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic curriculum. Lee has been racing for more than 25 years, and won the 2001 G.M.D. Computrack National Endurance Series Championship in the Lightweight class. He also finished 2nd in the 1994 AMA 125GP national championship in its exhibition year. He spent five years as the editor and chief test rider of Motorcycle Consumer News where he road tested every new street motorcycle available in the U.S. and became one of the top performance-testing journalists in the world. Lee wrote the Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic book. TEAM Arizona is the sole provider in Arizona of Lee’s Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic. It is the highest level of training offered at TEAM Arizona.
NICK IENATSCH
Nick is a former American Motorcyclist Association race competitor. Ienatsch was the lead instructor for twelve years at Freddie Spencer Riding School. He later created and is lead instructor at Yamaha Champions Riding School. Nick wrote Sport Riding Techniques: How To Develop Real World Skills for Speed, Safety, and Confidence on the Street and Track. This book is the foundation for the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s Advanced Riding Techniques course. The course is a superb introduction to more advanced riding techniques for the street and an excellent primer for taking the Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic.
DANNY WALKER
American Supercamp is the brainchild of former AMA racer Danny Walker. Danny is the master of teaching motorcyclists how to push the limits on a motorcycle. Danny and his crew can help you learn how to master the art of the motorcycle slide and take your riding to the next level. His training started with putting road racers on lower displacement dirt bikes and letting them learn the limits on dirt (American Supercamp) and now he has expanded his offering to include a similar concept on road courses (Road Race Factory). When he is not teaching racers and riders he is managing the RoadRace Factory Red Bull race team.
KEITH CODE
Quite possibly there is no other motorcycle rider instructor who has left his mark on rider training than Keith. In 1961 he started racing. In 1976 he started a rider training improvement program. Code founded the California Superbike School in 1980. The school taught numerous championship winning riders such as Wayne Rainey. His California Superbike Schools have operated at over 90 tracks worldwide in 15 countries and have trained 150,000 riders. In 1982, he wrote the instant best seller, A Twist of the Wrist book. If you have a subscription to Motorcyclist magazine then you already know about his thought provoking articles under the “Code Break” heading.
This is the short list folks. There are many other individuals who write books and offer forms of training, but if we had to tick a “Most Wanted” box, these four guys get their boxes ticked first. Fortunately for you, training curriculum developed by half of these guys can be found right here at TEAM Arizona. When will you take advantage of such a great opportunity?
