 Hi, my name is Ken Condon. I'm the host of a new show, Riding in the Zone. We're going to take you on a journey into the world of motorcycles, everything from flat track and road racing to riding the open road. We'll introduce you to people and happenings in the motorcycling community. We'll also give you insights on how to be the best rider you can be. Whether you love the speed and grace of the racetrack or the freedom of open spaces, riding in the zone will be a window into the wide world of motorcycling. Hey, we're here with Tony of TonysTrackDays.com. So Tony and I have been together for, we figured out, 23 years. And what do we do? We offer the opportunity for street motorcycle riders to take their bikes with minimal preparation and come on to a racetrack. Now, you might ask, well, I don't want to race a motorcycle. Well, that's not what this is about. This is really about learning how to ride your motorcycle better. And when you have the distractions of the road that are out on the road, like the sand and the sort of corners that are blind and texting teens and things like that, that sort of hinders your ability to, you know, really focus on your riding. So anyhow, Tony and I sort of got this going quite a while ago and now it's turned into something pretty good, right Tony? So tell us your recollection of when we started out, what were we like and how did we evolve to where we are now? Gotta test the memory here. Started out we were not necessarily more racer oriented, but it was a racetrack. A lot of the people that first came was, or they were, possibly wanting to go on a race. So that's where, so we said, you got to take the coolant out of your bike, you got to wire the bike, you got to do this, that it was a pretty big process at that point. But as time went on, we realized that the person wanting to go racing is not our focus. The person that just wants to learn to handle their bike better is really the focus. So, you know, when you ride around on the street, you don't see motorcycles dropping oil everywhere or coolant everywhere, that kind of thing. So we lessen the requirements. Basically, you remove the mirrors, tape up the brake light and you're good to go with any street bike that's in good shape, good tires, that kind of thing. And because of that, we end up with motorcycles that aren't just like the R6 GSX-Rs. You know, the sporty bikes. We end up with bikes, if you look around the paddock, that are really street bikes. They're just people, motorcycles that people commute to work on or they'll take a weekend trip on. So it's very minimal preparation. The other thing we have gotten going was a non-sport bike day. So that was a thing, right? Why did we go there? Yeah, it seemed like enough people were hearing about track days in general and they said, yeah, but I have a Harley-Davidson with big bags on it. Or I have a gold wing or I have some huge BMW with bags on it. At first, we're like, you know, well, you can come to our regular day and kind of roll around. And then enough people said it, that we said, let's try a day for just them, just the big bikes. Or the non-sport bikes, I should say. And the first day was okay. It wasn't, I don't think we sold out by any means, but there was enough. But what happened after that is those 30 or 35 people loved it so much and it just spread out to everybody else. They started telling everybody, and I think since then we've been sold out everyone's sense. That's right. So now we do two a year. We're actually, if we keep going, we might end up being able to fill three, but we'll see how things go. The beauty is that these people show up at these track days and they thought they knew how to ride. I've been riding for 30 years and well, you know what, you've been getting by for 30 years. I'll agree with you there. But when you come here, you start to really understand the complexities and the depth of where motorcycling is. So we have classroom. We could have called this a school. There was a time when we even had that discussion. But the school thing was just another level of what we wanted. We just wanted to really offer this opportunity at a lower pay grade, you know, right? So it's not so expensive and not such a big commitment. So it's a nice hybrid. But what are our future plans, Tony? Are they changing? How's that for us? I don't think they're changing. I hope not. So we're going to keep doing what we're doing. That's for sure. And as time goes on, we're always looking for new staff. We've got some of the best staff that I know of that we've had for over the course of time. We hire usually from our customer base and there are people that are just demonstrated that they understand our philosophy and that they're competent riders and that they can communicate and they're friendly, you know? Because this is all about having fun. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right, you know? I will say at this point, we have three genres or three types of riders. We have the first time we've never been to a track day. So when they show up, it's, oh my God, the nervous, we just got to kind of bring them along. Then you have that middle group that had been somewhere in that three to 15 track days. They're starting to get the hang of it. They know how to unload their bikes. They know how to do this. And now they're just fine tuning the riding. And then we have the people, after 23 years, we have people that have been with us 23 years. They don't want instruction. They don't need instruction. They know as much as we do, they may be faster than we are. And they just want a good place to go as fast as they safely can go. No speed limits, that kind of stuff. It's not racing. It's non-competitive. And they just want that. They just want track time. And that's fine with us too. Yeah, we like accommodating all types. That's why we run four groups. That's right, four groups. And that's what we do here at all our track days, is four groups. We have a fast expert, kind of a fast intermediate and intermediate and the beginner. So there's a place for everybody. My brother's here. He hasn't been on a race track. He was once at the non-sport bike day. I mean, he's just a street rider. And he's out here learning and having a great time. So that's cool. Thanks, Tony. We're going to kind of check things out, get a little action and show the folks what it's all about. You all right the rest of your day? Okay, man. Thank you. Can I ask a quick question? Oh, yeah. But you asked it. I was just curious if you could talk about how the conversation began. It led to, you know, when you guys back 23 years ago. Yeah, let's do that. Yeah. So 23 years ago, right, we started this thing. It was about four of us, if you remember. And why did we even consider doing this back then? So back when the internet was new, we had a group that was called Sport Riders of New England, is what it was called back then, SRNE. So we would ride on the street. We'd have kind of organized rides. At that same time, I was actually involved in racing up in New Hampshire. So I was at the track all the time. I was a tech inspector at the track. So I had some connections with the track. So on the street rides, people would talk about, oh, and they'd come and watch me race sometimes too. And then they would say, oh, I'd love to ride on the racetrack, but I don't want to race on the racetrack. I just want to ride. So I went to the track and just asked, can we rent the track for the day? And they're like, sure. They came up with a number, talked to Ken. We're like, all right, how many people do you think we can get? And we're like, all right, I think we can get 30. So we took the number, we divided by 30, and we said, all right, this is how much it costs for the day. And sure enough, we sold all 30 spots. The next year, we're like, maybe we can do two. So we did two and we sold 60 spots at each day. And then just kept going. And we evolved to having two days back to back. And we were innovators essentially because back then actually really, around here, nobody was doing track days, right? It was either racing if you wanted to get on the track or nothing. And then we started evolving it more toward what we were saying before about, you know, toward the street rider. A few dealerships had their, like boutique days, their customers or whatever, they'd rent the track for a day and just kind of do that. But I don't think anybody was really doing organized. Just track days, not teaching how to race, just track days. Now we are, I'll say it, the premier track day provider, certainly in New England. And we do know people that attend other track days and they come to us and say, you guys do it better. You do it right. So we're doing something right, Tony. Right? Still man, thanks a lot.