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Red Dirt TrackcraftNotes from the fence line
Late afternoon sun raking across an empty hardpack motocross track, long shadows sitting in the ruts, a red course marker leaning at the edge of the berm

A private motocross track, read from the fence

Reading a private motocross track, from the fence

A private track tells you what it will do before you ride it. The braking marks, the color of the dirt, the shape of a rut and the hour of the last water pass are all readable from outside the fence. This desk writes down how to read them.

Sixteen dated notes, four series · Read the surface, groom it, ride it, write it down

PROGRAMEvery story, dated

The whole site in one register, newest first, all four series mixed.

  1. A person crouching low on red clay, both hands flat on the ground between deep tire tracks, a dirt berm and a thin orange marker stake behind them in raking evening light

    · Reading the Track

    How to read a track before you ride it

    A track walk is fifteen minutes of work that changes the first three laps. Here is a repeatable route around a private track, what each stop is for, and how to write it down.

  2. A steep bank of dry pale dirt filling the frame from close range, a tire track running diagonally up its face, loose stones on the surface and an out of focus escarpment behind

    · Jumps and Ruts

    Jump faces: speed, gear and a clean takeoff

    Everything that happens in the air was decided in the last twenty feet of dirt. Here is how to read a face, and what plain projectile arithmetic does and does not settle.

  3. A water truck laying a fine sheet of water across a straight at dusk, the surface dark in stripes where the spray has already passed

    · Track Care

    Watering a track: how much, and when

    Watering is the job most often done by volume when it should be done by timing. A federal dust document explains why, and the arithmetic is small enough to do on a napkin.

  4. Riders and a pickup with coffee cups on the tailgate at the edge of a wide dirt track, everyone facing a large sheet of standing water lying in the middle of the loop

    · Reading the Track

    Reading the conditions from the parking lot

    Half of what you need to know about the surface is visible from where you park. Here is the order to read it in, and the mistakes that reading makes people repeat.

  5. Gear laid out flat on a garage floor in rows: boots, knee guards, a chest protector, gloves and goggles, a notebook with a pencil lying in the corner

    · Gear and the Weekend

    A gear checklist for a day on the track

    A private track has no rulebook, so the list is yours to write. The sanctioning body's own equipment section is the best starting draft there is, because it already separates mandatory from recommended. Here it is item by item, with what the DOT label on a helmet does and does not certify.

  6. A worn steel blade at close range beside the low ridge of clods it has just pushed up, a shallow furrow running away toward a flat worked field and a distant treeline

    · Jumps and Ruts

    Berms: carrying speed through the turn

    A berm is a wall of dirt asked to do the job of banking. Write out the banking relation and you can see exactly how much of that job the dirt refuses, and who pays for the rest.

  7. A compact tractor dragging a chain harrow across a flat corner, the loosened surface behind it lighter and freshly scored, a rake leaning on the bucket

    · Track Care

    Grooming a track with a small tractor and a rake

    Grooming is three different jobs done in an order, not one job done with whatever implement is already hitched. Here is the order, the depths and the tell for each.

  8. Three parallel worn tracks running away across a green field toward the horizon, the middle one cut deepest into the bare soil and the outer two shallower

    · Reading the Track

    Riding lines: where the clock is actually won

    Two miles per hour more at the corner exit is worth more than a braking point moved four meters later. Here is the arithmetic, and what it deliberately ignores.

  9. A dirt bike on a blue stand in the shade of a canopy, a chain tool and a rag on a crate, the rear wheel off the ground and still turning

    · Gear and the Weekend

    Between motos: the maintenance stand routine

    Twenty to thirty minutes on the stand is enough to check everything and not enough to fix everything. This note gives the order, the three verbs applied to every part, a procedure in thirds that includes the rider, and a table that says where each finding gets fixed.

  10. A brown leather work boot standing between parallel ruts cut into damp brown dirt, tire tread marks pressed along each rut and loose clods pushed up between them

    · Jumps and Ruts

    Rut corners: picking a line and holding it

    A rut is a corner that steers for you, right up to the moment it does not. Reading one is mostly a matter of knowing which part of it is load bearing and which part is spoil.

  11. A half-built berm seen from the outside, a stacked face of cut sod still visible at one end, a shovel and a tape measure resting on the flat beside it

    · Track Care

    Building a berm that lasts a season

    A berm pushed up in one afternoon is gone in three sessions. A berm built in layers survives a season. The difference is compaction, and it costs time rather than money.

  12. A regular line of small ridges running away from the camera at ground level along a dusty flat, backlit dust hanging in the air and low buildings on the horizon

    · Jumps and Ruts

    Whoops and braking bumps on a beaten straight

    Whoops are not obstacles, they are a frequency. Once you know the spacing and your speed you know what the suspension is being asked to do, and whether it can.

  13. A row of red and white marker boards along the top of a dirt bank, one of them leaning, with a yellow flag tied to a thin pole against an overcast sky

    · Reading the Track

    Course markers, flags and what they tell you

    Markers say where the track is. Flags say what you must do, right now, whatever you were planning. Here is the published list, and the three that change your riding immediately.

  14. A tent and a pickup backed up to each other on grass beside a track at dusk, a lantern on the tailgate, the track lights still on in the distance

    · Gear and the Weekend

    Camping at the track: a weekend base that works

    A camp beside a track is chosen on foot, in four checks, the evening you arrive. Here are the checks in order, what a low strip of grass across a field is telling you, where the dust goes when the first bike starts, and five spots that look right at dusk and fail by morning.

  15. A shallow swale cut along the outside of a corner after heavy rain, water running out of it at one end, the track surface behind it still holding puddles

    · Track Care

    Drainage: keeping a track rideable after rain

    Drainage is the job that decides whether watering, grooming and berm building are worth doing. Two published standards give it numbers, and they are free to read.

  16. A sign-in table at the edge of a track in the morning, a board with group times written in chalk, riders unloading a bike from a ramp in the background

    · Gear and the Weekend

    First time at a track: how a practice day runs

    A practice day has a fixed order, and almost everything that can send a rider home is decided before the engine starts. Here is the day step by step, the sign-in checks tied to the rulebook section that governs them, and the sound test as the rulebook describes it.

01-04The four series

Where the stories sit, and what each series takes on.

Series of Red Dirt Trackcraft
SeriesWhat it coversStories
01 · Reading the TrackThe walk on foot, the marks left by other riders, and what the surface says about grip.4
02 · Jumps and RutsHow faces, berms, ruts and whoops are built by traffic, and what each one asks of a rider.4
03 · Track CareWater, blade and time: what happens to a private track on the days nobody rides it.4
04 · Gear and the WeekendRequired kit, the pit routine between motos, camping at a track and a first practice day.4

Start here

How to read a track before you ride it · A track walk is fifteen minutes of work that changes the first three laps. Here is a repeatable route around a private track, what each stop is for, and how to write it down.

From the desk

This desk keeps a written record of one subject: how a private motocross track behaves, and what a person standing at the fence can read from it. Sixteen dated notes, four series, no track named and no rider named. Where a note states a rule, a threshold or a design figure, it links the public document it came from and gives the date the desk checked it.

DESKWhat the desk keeps current

The pages this desk rewrites most often, reread each time the season or the surface changes.

  1. A person crouching low on red clay, both hands flat on the ground between deep tire tracks, a dirt berm and a thin orange marker stake behind them in raking evening light

    · Reading the Track

    How to read a track before you ride it

    A track walk is fifteen minutes of work that changes the first three laps. Here is a repeatable route around a private track, what each stop is for, and how to write it down.

  2. A person standing at a wire fence at the edge of a red clay motocross track, one hand on the top rail, looking out over rutted dirt toward a low berm and a mown field

    · Series

    Reading a motocross track: line, grip and marks

    How to read a motocross track before you ride it: the walk on foot, the marks that show where riders brake, the conditions and the course markers.

  3. A compact tractor with a box blade smoothing a damp corner of a motocross track, water spray still dark on the surface behind it

    · Series

    Track care: water, grooming and the week between rides

    Watering, grooming, building a berm and moving water off a track: the maintenance side of a private motocross track, with federal design criteria.

  4. A workbench against a garage wall with a stack of notebooks, a tape measure, a camera body and a coil of survey tape laid out on the surface

    · The desk

    About the Red Dirt Trackcraft desk

    Red Dirt Trackcraft is written by a desk rather than by a named rider. This page says what that means in practice, and what it deliberately does not mean.