A lot of squaring off goes on in the MotoAmerica series, and I’m not just talking about the riders competing against one another. Yes, that’s one type of “squaring off.”
In yesterday’s “Racing Line” story, I specifically covered what a racing line is and why riders try to follow it. However, there is another line that the riders take through the corners that can often be faster.
This line is known as “squaring off.” As the name implies, the rider chooses a later apex and quite literally squares off the corner. As you can see from the diagram, rather than a long, curved racing line, the squaring-off line enables the rider to go deeper into the corner and turn the bike more quickly.
This is beneficial for a number of reasons. By turning the bike more quickly and deeper into the corner, the rider can start picking the bike up much earlier in the turn, and they also don’t have to lean the bike over as much. This means they are not at as high of a lean angle as they are if they turn earlier and more slowly. This reduction in lean angle helps keep the bike more stable, provides better tire grip, and also enables the rider to open the throttle earlier.
A deeper and quicker turn-in gets the bike pointed much further up the track than it is with the traditional racing line, and because the bike is pointing further up the track, the rider can get on the gas much harder and much earlier without running wide on the exit.
If you put two riders on the same bikes with identical performance and have one of them take the classic racing line while the other rider takes the squaring-off line, the rider who squares off the corner will be ahead of the other rider by the time they reach the next corner. That is, if the corner they just left has a long-enough straightaway after it.
But, what If one corner is followed quickly by a second corner? If there isn’t much straight track on which to accelerate out of the first corner, squaring off the first corner isn’t the best method to choose. The rider needs to compromise between squaring off the corner and taking a traditional racing line. They need to always be thinking about the exit drive out of the second corner so they can position themselves to get the best possible drive from it, which is where it matters the most.
The majority of the lap time that road racers make up on the track is done at the exit of the corners. So, understanding how much harder and earlier they can get on the throttle by squaring off the corners can make a big difference.
Squaring off is not the be-all and end-all of cornering, and it provides different benefits depending on the characteristics of each particular bike, but if it allows a rider to go more quickly even in only half of the turns on the racetrack, it can be the difference between winning…and not.
Next week, I’ll talk about “The Pivot Point.”
For the full 2025 MotoAmerica schedule and to purchase tickets for MotoAmerica events, click HERE
For information on how to watch the MotoAmerica series, click HERE
