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With a couple caveats, I would describe the track day business model as heavily commoditized. That is to say, there is little to differentiate the track day of one organization from the next, which leaves most riders buying track time based on location, schedule, and price.

If you don’t give it too much thought, this concept shouldn’t be too surprising. After all, what riders are really buying is time on the race track, the conditions of which are relatively outside the purview of the organization hosting the event. This makes a brutal business landscape, and it is not surprising to see the space making a race to the bottom.

Now to be fair, some organizations run a tighter ship than others; some track day groups offer more instruction than others (especially for novice riders); and there are track days that offer more perks (lunch, photos, celebrity riders, etc) than others, but all-in-all the product is the same: a few hours of cumulative time on a race track.

In my 15 years of track riding, the biggest differentiation I have found between track day groups is the culture (or lack thereof) an organization has been able to infuse into its program. But, this only moves the needle a minuscule amount, and it shows in the ever-increasingly competitive marketplace that is motorcycle track riding.

Asphalt & Rubber readers should be familiar with how attempts have been made to use the Digital Millennium Right Act (DMCA) as means of limiting how you can work on your vehicles, including your motorcycle.

These attempts first started in 2015, and were pushed heavily by John Deere and the automobile lobby. Thankfully, last year the the Librarian of Congress allowed exemptions for vehicles to be applied to the DMCA, which will be in effect for the next two years.

Now, the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC) – a group that represents the interests of motorcycle manufacturers in the United States – is putting pressure on state legislatures and encouraging them to block “Right to Repair” bills that would codify the exemptions made to the DMCA. 

J.D. Power and Associates has just released a report that details some of the major reasons why motorcycle buyers purchase one bike over another. After talking to over 3000 customers in September and October, the report outlines four major factors for purchasing desiions, namely: why a buyer bought from one brand rather than another. The short answer is: The Dealer, the long answer is after the jump.