My problem with all of it is that it seems so backwards.
When I learned to drive a car, I started with a 47HP diesel rabbit, and my father insisted that I be able to handle it very well before I tried any of our faster cars. We would go out to closed areas and business parks on Saturday mornings when nobody was around and practice really driving it to its limits and mine...double clutching, proper steering in high speed turns, proper engine braking (not slipping the clutch but using engine compression), driving in wet/slippery conditions and at the limits of traction...all with 47HP and 13" wheels and an ugly tan paint job. After about 8,000 miles I could drive that diesel pretty well. After 20,000 miles I could push the poor diesel through twisty mountain roads and keep up with everyone except the motorcycles...not excepting most sports cars...some of my "better" memories are of driving California Highway 2 (a twisty mountain road in the LA area) with my father in the passenger seat and my older brother in the back. Rules were "always stay well clear of the lane markings, always drive safely, always let morotcycles pass, don't get a ticket"... that was always fun and educational, and except for the steeper hills I never slowed anyone down. Of course, I wasn't being gentle with the car... it broke from time to time, including having the clutch pedal bracket break as I was entering Los Angeles, forcing me to drive home, partly through what I considered down town LA, without using the clutch (can you say starter abuse?). Another time I got about halfway across the mountains and we heard a sploosh and smelled something nasty as my brother vomited all over the back seat....
He was not prone to motion sickness, but he said that after over an hour of continuous high speed curves he couldn't control it any more.
I've since worked my way through a succession of higher performance cars and now, with well over 650,000 miles and no accidents (well, an asshat rear-ended me while I was parked once), I'm pretty comfortable driving any normal car. I've driven antique vehichles with lousy transmissions, 500+HP custom cars, and so on... AND I DON'T CONSIDER MYSELF AN EXPERT DRIVER. I'm competent and I'm getting better. And the fact that I won a few bucks demonstrating that I could drive that rabbit diesel through a twisty mountain road faster than a friend of mine could drive his RX-7 doesn't mean anything at all.
More to the point, I flat cannot see how any of that would've been fun with a truly high performance car. Not only would it have raised the consequences and reduced the margins, but it would've masked the boundry zones. Which means I wouldn't have learned how to drive. It is scary when a marginal car starts understeering in a business park at 35MPH...maybe even expensive if you lose it (though the car cost $800..can't be that expensive)...but it can be deadly when a good car starts understeering on a mountain road at 80MPH....or even starts sliding on wet leaves in a parking lot if you don't know what to do.
Even more more to the point... I can't see how a motorcycle would be any different. I just can't see how any beginner can push a 150HP high performance motorcycle. And if they don't push it, all they'll learn is to pussyfoot around it.
