Haven't been on a track since this same mid-July weekend last year, also with PTT, and it was a hell of a lot of fun! The weather was really hot, I had an arch nemesis at the event, a close family member in the hospital, and a ton of other crap going on, but thank God I was able to compartmentalize all that and try to enjoy my weekend.
Drove the 2 hours to the track on saturday morning, arrived at the gate right on time and once we were in we unloaded the trucks. The people who we were supposed to meet and split a garage with didn't show, so we found a few other people to chip in for splitting a garage unit. They are big enough to comfortably hold 8 bikes and essentials for each. I'm glad we had a garage because I'm pretty sure it was over 100 F outside by 10am. Anyway, my cohorts and I went to register and pass tech before the 8:20 rider's briefing. I did the first day in B group and my first session at 9:20 was fail. I had a good recollection of the track itself, but no confidence in the bike, and hadn't gotten my head clear yet. I noticed the seat felt weird underneath me so I came off the track and pitted, only to find that I had actually forgotten to put the two bolts in that hold the seat on.
Very unlike me. Fixed that, drank a ton of water, and gave the bike a total check to make sure I hadn't messed anything else up. Next session felt a little better, but I still felt off, so I decided to just make it a total sighting session, working on remembering which corners I could brake really deep into, where bumps are, etc. After I came off the track I went straight to Dave Moss now that I had some heat in the tires and suspension, and could give some feedback on what the bike was doing. He added some more preload and compression damping to the front, and softened to rear shock to accommodate all the stupid bumps and my light weight. I thanked Dave and pushed my bike back to the garage, drank more water, and got ready to go out again.
Progress to the max. In my next couple sessions I found the front end wasn't diving all crazy anymore and I could maintain positive throttle through a lot more of the corners. Now I felt like I just had to trust the bike, the tires, and muscle memory. I was now passing a lot more people, pushing brake markers closer, and feeling a lot smoother, in addition to feeling the benefits of my new 16/45 gearing, which was AWESOME! Thanks again Jason!. Later in the afternoon I decided to work with an instructor named Ross from PTT to see if i could find a better line through Offramp and a better exit from the last sweeper, heading into the Esses. I had a friend time laps that session and I dropped 9 seconds, so I was down to a 2:13! I thanked Ross afterwords and talked to him for a while about why I was there and what I wanted from the weekend, and about if I should move up to A group. The last couple sessions of the day I felt like I was flying; safely passing a lot of people, braking smoother, and getting better at not lifting off through the fast parts. My friend Phil who has an 08 1KRR was telling me to move to A, but I was scared of the A sharks, which, that day, were almost ALL literbikes. I said I would consider it depending on which group my nemesis was in that day, and how crowded it looked.
All in all, the first day ended really well, aside from the incredible heat, which stayed in the 90's almost all night, until 3 or 4 am when it went down to 70 something. No one in my pit had crashed, and we even found more people to chip in for the garage for the second day, replacing the couple of guys who left after saturday. We decided to walk the 3 miles of the track just after sunset, which actually proved useful. Camping at the track was awesome, and free, but we found that at night, precisely 7 trillion bugs move into the garage to creep you out, so we found alternate arrangements close by: Phil slept in a tent just in front of the garage, Scott slept in the bed of his truck, and I on top of a 5 foot square picnic table...Strangely enough, we all got a great 7 hours of sleep.
The second day began much like the first, but much later in the day. Sleeping there let us wake up late, lazily roll over to tech, and get dismissed early from the morning meeting. Tire pressures set and visors cleaned, we headed out for the first session, with the weather already being in the high 80s/low 90s. Rest did me good, and I felt great. Having been able to review video footage taken on saturday was nice and I think it helped me a lot. I passed 11 people before the checkered was waved! I told Phil and he said "What the f&#$ are you doing in B!?" He convinced me to move to A, which had half as many riders as B did, making me, from what I saw, one of the 2 600cc bikes in A, the other of which was ridden by another friend of Phil's named Barry, who was in our garage. What a difference! I was riding at nine tenths, and passed maybe 1 or 2 people total in my first few A sessions, but it felt awesome to run with the fast dudes on my little RR, AKA the sheep in wolfs clothing, haha! Corner exit power wheelies, near threshold braking (which I only played with for one lap, and it scared me), and getting to the point there I was avoiding dragging knee so I could lean further, and clocking a 2:11 lap...I might have gotten a bit cocky....Mid day, I was entering the last corner, Sunset, chasing another rider and hard on the front brakes when I tipped in for the left hander, I had to trailbrake more than I usually do there and I could swear I felt the front end going. I tried to relax my grip a little, and I was blessed. Went a little wide, but didn't go off, just dropped a couple gears and blasted on. After that though, I toned it down a little and decided that for the rest of the day there was no more chasing people, my goal was simply to have fun and not crash.
Then the crashing started. First one of the C group riders in our garage went down and hurt his shoulder, outing him for the day. Then my friend Phil went down at around 120+ while going through the biggest, FAST sweeper, Riverside. Huge dust cloud. I didn't see it happen, but I came in and was told that Philm went down early that session and was done for the day. His gear was toast, helmet busted, and the bike was pretty thrashed, but thankfully he walked away with "only" a sprained ankle, a face full of dirt, and aches all over from tumbling. Next was Matt on a GSX-R 750 trackbike. He lowsided in Offramp, my least favorite corner, and cracked a small gap in his clutch cover that leaked some oil on the outside of the turn. I had skipped a session to rest, but found that the oil was way off the racing line, and had been thoroughly cleaned up with minimal delay. A while after that, another one of the C group guys in the garage went down. He was OK, I didn't hear the details though. I felt like the statistics were out to get me at this point, so I was really focused on not wrecking, being smooth, and just working on body position. Once I host some video, you'll see i have a really hard time staying low in the saddle, and I need to fix it.
Next to last session I got caught up chasing Barry on the other A group 600. He and I are really closely matched at this track apparently, and we would both like to see how we would do with identical gearing (he was running a 47 in the rear). Anyway, we duked it out for a lap or so and he got away, so I just took to having fun with some corners and gradually reducing my pace now that the day was winding down. I came in to the garage to find that I had done a 2:10 while chasing Barry! My best time ever! More water, more checking on garage mates, charging of cameras, and cleaning of visors, somehow 40 minutes went by and I went out for my last session with the camera pointed right at my face so I could see what I looked like. The answer? I'll let you guys answer that! I really need to stay lower and not sit so upright, but it was a really really stable camera mounting job, compared to all the previous locations, so I'm glad it turned out well. Like I said, I'll work on getting that video on the tubes ASAP, but suffice it to say I was STOKED that I went really fast and didn't wreck!
Many thanks goes out to all of you for the knowledge and ongoing support, Lithium Motorsports for so many great deals and excellent service, and my friend Scott for driving my a$$ to and from the track!
