Auto

Most activities — especially difficult ones — follow a pattern that you might call “the law of plateaus.”

It’s like kissing — at first, two inexperienced teens meet in an awkward, perhaps even sloppy collision, hopefully somewhere in the vicinity of the lips. With lots of practice — really focused, dedicated, late-night study — kissing can become an art form.

Racing is like that. Really.

The first-time racer is really just a track-day rider with visions of glory. Sometimes, as with kissing, natural ability, uncanny composure and physical grace mask inexperience.

Even then, the progress from beginner to novice to journeyman to expert is marked by plateaus.

You get to a certain level of competence, then must achieve a breakthrough. That leads to another period of gradual improvement, until the next skill breakthrough. And so on.

The plateaus, like ever-thickening glass ceilings, become progressively harder to break through. Most of us give up and settle for a modicum of competence.

For those who don’t, the breakthroughs become progressively more rewarding.

I’ve preached this time and again — to my kids, to athletes, to racers. But there’s nothing like experiencing it first-hand.

Which brings me to Sunday at Nelson Ledges Roadrace Course.

This was the fifth outing for the 2007 Buell XB9R. Each previous race weekend had brought progress — uncovering problems, weaknesses, limitations — for both the bike and the rider. After all, it had been two years since I really got much good track time. Like the rider, the bike remains in mostly showroom stock condition — a little flabby, but with some highly targeted improvements.

Sunday at Nelson, absolutely nothing went wrong with the bike. That was incredibly, wildly liberating.

The lessons at Grattan the previous weekend — a small change in gear ratio, minor tweaks to the front and rear suspension settings — hit the Buell’s sweet spot.

Consider this — at Grattan I was able to improve my personal best lap time by less than a second, compared with my longtime race bike, which has comparable power. That experience was similar to my previous trip to Nelson, where I was only marginally faster on the Buell than in years past.

This weekend, I took more than 2 full seconds off my personal best at Nelson — an eternity in racing terms.

The bike was fast right out of the gate. Even “loafing” at what felt like track day, non-competition speeds, lap times were close to what I had considered race-worthy.

When the first green flag dropped and adrenaline kicked in, the lap timer started showing really wild numbers — fast and getting faster, lap after lap.

Of course this was in the context of what you might call “medium-fast” bikes, but the key was that for the first time, I was able to stay with the leaders. Heck, I was even able to pass the leaders now and then.

The glass ceiling shattered, trumpets sounded, the heavens opened — and here was the Buell leading a race. Not just a class, but with the overall lead.

That’s not to say it was a runaway — not by any stretch. What happened was great racing, with really talented riders like Eric Boettcher and Tim Batten. All of us took turns at the front, battling tooth-and-nail even though we often were in different classes and not officially competing against each other.

The end result was three class wins and a very close second-place finish. In the final race of the day, the Buell took the checkered flag first overall — adding the cherry to a particularly tasty Sunday.

So now what?

If the law of plateaus holds true, this wasn’t a finale, it was a beginning. The next rung in the ladder, the next step up the unending staircase — and not just at Nelson. With luck and perseverance, the glass has been broken at all tracks.

But the law of plateaus isn’t immutable — sometimes taking that next step can be so scary that you back away, returning to the level of safety and comfort that comes with accepting limits.

Lap times will tell stay tuned.