REVIEW: Rich Oliver Mystery School Ultra Pro Camp

It’s like Survivor, Rich Oliver style. It’s 8:12 am on a brisk, clear Saturday in the southern Sierra foothills east of Fresno and you’re jogging around a mile long dirt track in five time AMA 250 Grand Prix champion Rich Oliver‘s backyard. You can’t bend your arm, your right knee is rapidly developing a nasty hematoma, and you think about how warm your bed was that morning, and how much more pain you might or might not be in at the end of the day.  You imagine regular people sleeping in, standing in line at Starbucks, or, heck, maybe even taking the kids out to chop down a Christmas tree.  What you are about to do, in terms of difficulty, physical distress, and mental challenge, will fall somewhere between your college tennis team’s spring training camp and, maybe, military training (only with this you’re paying for the privilege). All you can hope for is that you’ll survive another day; the four day Rich Oliver Mystery School Ultra Pro Camp is not for the faint of heart.

My friend Robert’s perspective might have been different that cold morning.  Robert Tinagero is eighteen, brawny, and aggressive, and was always the first camper on his bike at the start of our exercises.  He and Shane McGoey were like twin broken records: “let’s ride again!”   A former BMX racer and current roadracer with ambitions of going pro, Robert’s either not afraid of the pain, doesn’t recognize its potential or plays tough guy like so many others.  Day after day he bravely battled with those more skilled than he, ending up on the ground several times in the process. 

Rich sometimes hosts Ultra Pro Campers with other motorcycle obsessions, like dirt or supermoto, but our group was mainly composed of pavement lovers who happened to have loads more hours throwing elbows and backing it in than I have. Nearly all of us were road racers, or at least had road racing interests or ambitions, and nearly all of us came to the group with previous dirt biking experience.

Nearly all but me. I’m a thirtysomething professional and my experience with extreme sports really only began almost three years ago with an MSF course in Mountain View, California.  Canyon riding turned into track days which turned into racing, and I attended the Ultra Pro Camp last week after completing my novice year racing an SV650 with the AFM and WERA West.  I am a cautious, careful rider, but I continually push myself to expand what Rich calls the “yellow zone.”  The yellow zone is a place where you feel confident riding at your limits, but you are without question hitting those limits and maybe pushing just a bit further every now and again. The “red zone” is a place where you’re riding over your head and crashing your ass off, whereas your “green zone” is like a green run on the ski slopes – mind numbingly boring.

Despite my relative proficiency on the racetrack, I’d had zero experience in the dirt, save for an afternoon on CRF150’s at the Freddie Spencer School last year and a short trail ride a few weeks ago with my boyfriend.  Let’s just say that dirt bikes are definitely not my thing, and remember how I mentioned that the Rich Oliver school is not for the “faint of heart?” Kenny Roberts had a more, ahem, direct way of putting it.  During an exercise titled “Ride with Rich” we were all regaled with stories about a time when Rich was training with Roberts.  Rich does a hilarious impression of the “King,” and told us how they were all dirt tracking with him in a sort of gladiator style race, only it was truly more like boot camp, Full Metal Jacket style, with a drill sergeant shouting expletives and ridiculing everyone who couldn’t keep up with him.  Although I might just as well have laughed, I was glad that Rich Oliver was not shouting at me, calling me a “pussy” as he roosted me through the haybale chicane (a tight turn that often comes after a straight or fast section of track) over and over again. 

So why would a girl like me go to a camp like this, instead of taking a spa day, or getting my nails done?  Well, reason number one was that I wanted to learn how to handle questionable traction as my speed on the hard pavement increases.  Training on the small Yamaha TTR125’s allows riders to experience sliding tires for the purposes of learning how to control the chaos of a slide.  Crashing a little dirt bike, even when done repeatedly over a four day period, is typically less traumatic than highsiding a four hundred pound road racing machine.  I was also looking forward to the sheer physical brutality of the camp.  Not so much the crashing, but the rigorous physical exercise we’d be getting, kind of like my college tennis team’s spring training camp.  Each day we ran, performed core strengthening exercises, and learned new, motorcycle-specific strength training exercises that Rich either designed himself or picked up over the years. 

No matter what sorts of shenanigans we got into, Rich usually found a way to turn all our physical activities into a mental game that would exercise our abilities to think strategically, to compete with others using our noggins, and to compete with ourselves for the sake of improvement. One exercise in particular so humiliated the lot of us, many of us veteran athletes in various disciplines, that I don’t think we’ll ever approach another game or competition without thinking really hard about the rules and how we might be able to find a loophole or two by thinking for ourselves. That exercise began with “the local fast guy” showing us the way around the track, a way that we followed blindly like lemmings, when there was a superior line in front of us that no one was open to seeing.

Some of the best fun we had was on the second day, when we had a real race, complete with heats, qualifying and starts. Friday had already seen me on the ground in a pileup leading up to a chicane, more angry than wounded, but I picked myself up and continued getting a feel for “backing it in.” Drive up to the corner, get on the rear brake pretty hard while engaging the front brake a split second after and oh so gently, keeping my outside elbow high and my inside elbow and the bike low and underneath me, then with all the aggressive precision of a perfect fast ball, get on the throttle and drive it out of the corner. I’m still not sure that I know how to “flat track” per se, but this was really more of a roadracing school that just happened to take place in the dirt. The important lessons seemed to be learned in our group chit chats with the legend, using dirt biking as metaphor for real world competition. I could have asked for more talk of the finer points of flat tracking, but felt that I was getting everything I needed.

During my race with the slower half of the group, I felt confident and optimistic that I would best Carl, an earnest new trackday addict with 30 days on track in the last month and a half but with zero dirt experience, and that I also might be able to keep up with Misque Boswell, the mysterious, beautiful-yet-ornery roadracer with legs up to her ears. Rich waved the green flag, and I felt myself get a decent start. In the periphery I noticed to my left that Karin Oliver, Rich’s wife, had also gotten a good start, and to my right, Carl, bless his heart, had popped an impressive wheelie but then set it down crooked and came rocketing into me. Carl, Karin and myself collapsed in a pile-up with my left arm tangled up between two objects, probably my bike and Karin’s. I was stuck until I was was freed, all while the faster half of the class looked on in abject horror.

It was then that I gained experience with anger management; I stomped away to go sulk on a hillside without everyone in my face asking if I was alright. Once I was convinced that my arm wasn’t broken and that I could talk to people and maintain my composure (I haven’t yet learned how to express anger without being a girl and just crying) I rejoined the group. It was the end of the day and we all headed down to Rich’s garage to change and pack up. I’ve been lucky and have only crashed three times on a street or race bike, but the dirt just seems to pummel me into oblivion. Thank you sir, may I have another! Time and time again I’ve hit the ground on those nasty, dirty little machines. They were fun, but were they worth the pain?

Although I couldn’t bend my left arm more than ninety degrees, that night in bed I closed my eyes and could still feel myself sitting astride a cheerfully wiggling dirt bike, wagging and skittering through the dirt as I fought mightily to control it. Like the blind leading the blind, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, my elbow throbbing.

So as promised on the school’s website, we also spent some time riding through the woods, motocrossing on a two stroke eighty (it sounds small, but it’s like a little bucking bull without engine braking) and enjoying delicious home-cooked lunches. Rich and his wife are fascinating people and I really enjoyed talking with them. Unbeknownst to me, Rich is also an artist, and his creations were beautifully displayed around his self-designed ranch home. It was great just talking with Rich between exercises and at lunch; his perspectives on race day preparation and execution and the mental game will benefit any racer, aspiring or otherwise. As an aside, I also enjoyed hearing their experiences with having your significant other around on race weekends. Better yet, I was also able to commiserate with Melissa Paris, the adorable, talented superwife of superbike racer Josh Hayes, and talk about my novice year sharing a pit with the man of my dreams, a former AMA national winner and current AFM superstar. Speaking of superstars, Melissa had an unbelievably awesome 2008 and won a CCS national championship and I was so stoked to ride with her!

So given what I’ve learned from Rich Oliver, how’s it going to be when I get on my Twin Works Factory-machined SV650 on January 3rd at Fontana, the one year anniversary of my first highside? Well, it’ll be a whole new world, as I’ll have a freshly rebuilt motor, revalved and sprung suspension, and a host of other upgrades, but I’ll feel much more confident in my ability to handle all sorts of bikes and the different challenges found with each. I think it might even feel easier to ride, like I’ll have this newfound mastery over shifting, blipping, looking, starting, and barreling into the first few corners eight-wide in those gnarly, sixty bike AFM grids. And despite the pain and annoyance I felt at finding myself on the ground or stuffed between someone’s wheel and a bale of hay, I can’t wait to go back knowing what I know now. Who knows, maybe I’ll even find myself elbowing a youngster like Robert out of my way next time, and what fun that would be!

Roadracers Melissa Paris, Christie Cooley and Misque Boswell enjoying some downtime at the Rich Oliver Mystery School Pro Camp