what kinda racer? mx? flat track? drag??.. practice practice practice.. and be semi fear less.. the harder you can push your self and ride with out hurting your self the better of a rider you will become
and when you race set your bike up for what kind of racing you will be doing....if you race MX set it up for MX...if your doing flat track set it up for that...so on and so fourth.
most of us on here just ride trails with some hills and some "MX" style stuff so we set our bikes up to handle all of it.
waay too general, what part of the race are we talking about? my best advice is to practice, lean hard into teh corners, and its better to overshoot a jump than case it, so keep er pinned