As always, a13x gives good advice.
BUT! (You knew this was comin, bro
) one thing I personally think he should add is a disclaimer
Something along the lines of "If you suck at track days or find that you have no natural racing talent, just keep doin track days till you're competent enough to go racing".
The ones that do very few track days or skip em all together & do well are the ones that have a lot of natural talent on a bike.... like Alex, his buddy Matt Stone, Seth, etc etc etc. For those that aren't/weren't as fortunate, track days should help a lot. I'll occationally see people out in the Novice class that really have no business being there & are in the midst of finding that out the hard way... but it's not really a widespread issue. It's not like the Novice class is THAT much faster than an intermediate or advanced track day group.
To use me as an example of an "in-betweener", I didn't need to do as many track days as I did before I made the leap, but I also didn't think I WAS gonna make the leap till I found out about the Production Twins class & a PTwins EX500 practically fell in my lap. But once I did, that extensive TD experience (2.5 years worth) helped tremedously & I did quite well my rookie year.
Cliff's Notes: It's good to have a plan like you do and set goals like I'm sure you have, but don't be afraid to adjust (as I'm sure you will). Don't assume you NEED to do track days, but also don't assume you don't have to. Do one or two TD's, then do a bit of a self-evaluation to see where you stand amongst your peers.