5 Business Lessons from a Top SuperBike Rider

A management consultant taps into the race strategy of a New Zealand SuperBike rider, Tarbon Walker to see what businesses can take away from the track.

Tarbon Walker posing at his bike off the back of his best Nationals result so far. In the background left is bike set-up man Nick

We weren’t a racing family, but somehow we are all in now. My son, Tarbon, is a strategic and considered rider competing in the F2, 600cc class. Now into his third year of racing, he’s chasing down the front pack.

Tarbon is the next New Zealand SuperBike Champion — Gary Stirling, Motor TT

The F2 class is notorious for crashes; there are a lot of them. The 600 bikes don’t have the electronics and smarts of the 1000 cc SuperBikes; there is no traction control and, no wheelie control. Even so, the bikes achieve top speeds of 240km p/hr (150 miles p/hr) over a short distance and brake hard and late into corners.

Red Bull pitted an F1 bike, a Fighter Jet, a Formula 1 car and four others against each other on the tarmac of the world’s largest airport, Istanbul, Turkey. Spoiler: the bike won — 5+million views on YouTube.

There are a lot of riders in the F2 class; more than double the F1 numbers. F2 riders are hungry and impatient; they want to ride their way to the front of the pack…