Ryan Dungey spoke to Jason Weigandt about the importance of corner speed and the multi-time US champ spoke of how Ricky Carmichael helped him as well as an influential riding coach when he was young who got him to practice his cornering over and over again. Dungey emphasised a lot of of practice went into it is a young rider – and it was that corner speed that ultimately caught Roger Decoster’s attention that got him signed up with team Suzuki!
“Along with working on the technique we would do these ovals,” explained Dungey. “It was awesome because you would learn how to carry corner speed. He would till this oval track, the ruts would get deeper and deeper and you would have to flow through them and we did that non-stop. Then we would turn around and go the other way, at the time I didn’t realise how beneficial that would be but it really payed off down the road, especially when I went into my pro career. It taught me how to give up a little bit to make more, and just carry momentum, it’s all about momentum and setting up the corner.”
See the full interview with some rare but very insightful detail on the key to corners and how much Dungey worked on what is a key skill in the sport:
Image: Cudby