A major component of feeling comfortable on a motorcycle is confidence in traction?or lack thereof. With a delicate throttle hand and an understanding of how a clutch works, even the bone-n00biest spud can get on a Hayabusa and motor off down the street without crashing the thing. But the bigger the bike, the more dire the consequences of physics. Moto Guzzi V7 isn?t, by today?s standards, seen as an entry-level bike, but it?s worth noting that its heron-head, 744-cc pushrod twin makes the kind of horsepower that would?ve won the Isle of Man TT in the 1950s.
Dirt flat-track racing is an exercise in traction management, one so powerful that in an era when engine tech outstripped chasssis and tire development, American flat trackers practically owned Grand Prix motorcycling. Kenny Roberts was the first through the breach, followed by Freddie Spencer, Eddie Lawson, and Wayne Rainey. Today, both Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi both espouse the benefits of training on dirt, with Marquez going so far as to launch the Superprestigio, sort of a flat-track IROC. Clearly, there?s something to this dirt stuff. To find out just what it was, I signed up for the Calistoga, California round of Danny Walker?s American Supercamp, a traveling circus where mistakes are punished with push-ups, poor form is corrected by a prod with a long pole while underway, and all the lapping sessions are wheel-to-wheel. Th...