Getting your ACU licence on an MSV trackday

I'd been talking about getting my ACU licence for years but, for whatever reason, up until two weeks ago, I never did it.

The thought of kitting up and riding to the ACU headquarters in Rugby to sit in a classroom and have various flags waved at me and then sitting through a test - something I hate doing - never filled me with much enthusiasm.

However, now there's another way. This year Motorsport Vision have teamed up with the ACU, so you can take your ACU licence as part of a trackday, or just turn up to one of their trackdays and slot in to the ACU licence test session.

The ACU licence test with MSV is a two-parter: a classroom session with a test at the end and an on-track assessment.

The day runs like a normal trackday, so you can arrive in the morning, head out on track and then prepare yourself for the ACU part. When the track closes at lunch, the ACU training begins.

Having been at Cartagena the day before, and arriving back in the UK in the small hours, I opted for just the ACU test, so I only had to be at Bedford for 1pm.

Once I arrived, myself and three other wannabe racers all headed to a room just off the Bedford Autodrome garages. In there we perched on our chairs and stared at a blank projector screen. With enough heat lamps on the wall to turn the place into a sauna, the hour long briefing could have been a very dry affair. However, thanks to Stuart Stevenson, our ACU coach, the session was light hearted and easy to understand. No nodding off in the corner from me.

There's a lot to take in, but it's important to filter out the stuff that's common sense and work on remembering the rules and regs; those are the things that'll catch you out in the test. We covered everything from how to register with a local club, to the all-important flag system, preparing your bike and yourself for race day and pretty much everything in between. If you've done your fair share of trackdays, nothing should come as a surprise.

After the briefing we were given a multiple choice with 18 questions. It'll take you 10 minutes to fill it out. Even though it's fairly straight forward, it's good to know that everyone you're lining up on the grid with has been through the same. You can't say that about trackdays.

After the written assessment it was time to face the inevitable and head out onto Bedford Autodrome in the soaking rain. On a brand new 2011 ZX-10R, with just over 200 miles on the clock.

Stuart stressed that you're not there to set a lap record and that he's there to observe your normal riding. Our group of four headed out onto the track, our mix of bikes would have looked out of place in even the loosest of Open Class races: a Monster 900, ex-British Daytona 675, a race-tuned GSX-R1000 on wets and me on a all-too-shiney stock ZX-10R.

I was last to be assessed, so for the first handful of laps I sat at the back, while Stuart sat one behind the lead rider. The track had a good centimetre of standing water in places, so the main mission for everyone was to stay on. The threat of an instructor sitting a couple of feet from your rear wheel was probably the last thing on everyone's mind. Every cloud and all that...

We came up against traffic from the trackday and either dealt with it or let it get on. I don't know the exact points you can fail your ACU assessed riding test on, but I'd imagine skittling someone else off the track would be quite high up the list of don'ts. So, Stuart's mantra of 'ride how you normally would' bounced around in my head as the rain streamed off my visor.

When it was my turn to be assessed, I got up to speed and got on with the job, riding as if I was making my way home after a long day: self preservation was on my mind, followed by avoiding huge patches of water and white lines. After that, any spare brain capacity got me braking, turning and accelerating in roughly the right places. While I didn't want to fall off from trying too hard, I didn't want to end up sliding across the grass due to cold tyres, so I was braking as hard as I could at the end of the back straight to try and build up some warmth in the front Bridgestone. I saw 172mph on the clocks passing a CBF1000 on the back straight before getting on the brakes just after the 200 metre board. At all times Stuart wasn't far behind, proving we weren't wobbling 'round like 125s in a CBT car park. I felt confident in the bike and the tyres and after a lap of being assessed, Stuart hauled everyone in.

Except me. I didn't see his signal, carried on and the next time I looked in my mirrors he wasn't there. Nor was anyone else. For a brief moment I thought I'd flunked the test by not seeing his signal to go into the pits. That last lap felt like it took forever. I pulled into the pits and went and found Stuart with an apology from my folorn face. "I thought you were enjoyijng yourself and you wanted to stay out there!" said a cheery Stuart. It seems I got away with it.

After the riding assessment, we went through our riding and written tests on a one-to-one basis with Stuart. I got 18/18 in the written test and sevens As and one C (for body position) in the riding assessment. If only my Physics A-Levels went so smoothly.

Stuart then ran us all through the ACU licence form and gave us some rough prices for eye tests (mine was £20 from Boots). With all the neccessary paperwork, all that was left was for me to fill in my payment details, select the type of licence I needed and fire the bundle of paperwork off to the ACU.

The range of emotions I went through are strangely addictive. I've only ever felt them a few times before in my life. Once was riding the automatic VFR1200 FA, where I started the day feeling like I had been hypnotised to be unable to remember how to ride and the second was, more obviously, when I did my bike test proper.

I started the day at Bedford questioning my ability. I ride bikes for a living but was I good enough? I finished the day with a huge sense of satisfaction and the proof that I'm ready to race. If only I'd done it all those years ago.