1). Joining a club and getting a motorcycle race licence.
(Racing club membership, eye test, ACU race licence )

There are different levels of ACU licence - Novice, Intermediate Novice, Clubman, National. For your first year of racing, most will apply for an Intermediate Novice for which you must have a full motorcycle road licence and enables you to race any capacity machine. A Novice licence requires no road licence but restricts you to 600cc. As a Novice (or Intermediate Novice) licence holder, you must race wearing an orange bib. These are available for an extra 5 when you apply for your licence. You may drop the orange bib after you have completed at least 1 race at 10 seperate meetings at 3 or more different circuits. At this point you can upgrade your licence to Clubman status.

The club you join is down to preference and where you want to race. The three main short circuit racing clubs are the British MotorCycle Racing Club (BMCRC or BEMSEE), New Era & NGRRC (North Gloucester Road Racing Club). BEMSEE & NG are the biggest (and lots would say best), offer the most meetings and race at circuits mainly in the North & South of the Country (Pembrey, Brands Hatch, Snetterton, Thruxton, Donington etc). New Era race mainly just in the North (Cadwell Park, Mallory Park etc). The cost of joining a club is usually around £25 per year. You then pay for each meeting you choose to enter - usually a few weeks before the meeting.

strongly recommend you take lessons from a qualified instructors (who can be found at race schools and track days).

2). Get some good protective gear.
.....(If you race you will crash. Be prepared.)

Before you start spend money on a bike, get yourself some high-quality protective wear (proper race leathers, helmet, back protector, boots...) see our buying race wear feature.

Never scrimp on protective wear and as a general rule before you buy an item think about whether or not it would protect you in a bad accident. One thing is certain, if you race you will crash!

3). Get A Race bike or Prepare one
Ready using our guide HERE!
(Choose which class, find a used race bike and contact the bank manager)

First you have to decide which class you want to compete in. Details of the different classes that the NGRRC race can be seen here. The 600cc classes are very popular. The racing is always very competitive. There is usually a very large choice of second hand race bikes for sale over winter. The downside of the class being so popular is that the races are usually over subscribed in the popular clubs so getting a space on the grid is not always guaranteed. A good club will usually give priority to riders who are competeing in all (or most) of the meetings over the season and are therefore contesting the championship.

BEMSEE, NGRRC and New Era run 600 classes for riders in their first year of racing. Similarly, the 400cc classes are competitve and a good place to start your racing. There is often less demand for grid positions compared to 600's so getting entries might be easier. The 2 stroke GP classes are thought by many to be the pure racing classes. The GP spec machines are very light and powerful and are probably the most difficult machines to ride near the limits. A challenging choice.Almost certainly the most cost effective way to getting a race ready bike is to buy one that has already been raced. It will already have had the engine tuned, suspension upgraded, race fairing fitted, all relevent safety modifications done (lockwiring & catchtanks) a spare set of wheels, stands and other spares. Converting a road bike is an expensive route to take. Places to look for a used race bike are: Motorcycle News BikeMart (Road Racing section), Bikesport News, NGRRC or BEMSEE website (For Sale sections), Clubracing website (For Sale section).

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Choose
your bike/class: Do some research (i.e. go to some club races) and find out which sort of bike you want to race. Some categories are more competitive than others, and most require huge bank balances while the others require simply gigantic bank balances.

When visiting the pits ask the racers questions about the class they race in, their bike, the consumables (i.e. tyres, fuel, engines), running costs, injuries and time-off work, or whatever.

If you really want to get 'into racing' it's a good idea to improve your mechanicing skills and to do as much work on your bike as you feel confident with.