Weekend at the track.

My weekend at the track was not enough.  Saturday went rather well, but Sunday was a blowout.  When I arrived Sunday the track was wet from early morning rain and it was cold, in the low 50's.  (This track is much farther north than St Petersburg, just a few miles from the Georgia border.)  I hung around hoping the track would dry.  I'd been looking forward to riding the track in its usual direction again.  Late last fall I spent a weekend there.  I got to know the track that way and got down to respectable lap times.  I wanted to ride it again.  But I saw no value in going out on a wet track, tiptoeing around, risking the bike while going slowly.  I waited around watching others who did go out, and I could see it was a slow track - wet and cold.  After a couple of sessions it seemed like the track was finally drying.  The pace was slightly faster.  I began to think I might go out and try it.  But then, as predicted, it started to rain again.  I left and drove home early to salvage part of Sunday at home with Cathy.

 

Saturday was like a trackday at a new track.  We were riding the track in the "backwards",  or clockwise direction that day and I had to figure it out.  But before I could do that I had to sort out some issues on the bike.  I had new Pirelli tires on.  I hadn't ridden Pirellis in a couple of years, so I had to play with tire pressures and check tire temperatures.  I also had new front brake pads that needed bedding.  Plus, I'd bled the old brake fluid and put in fresh, so I had to get confident that the brakes were okay.  I spent the first two sessions focused entirely on sorting the bike.  The next two sessions I was able to begin figuring out the track – the lines and corner speeds, braking and gearing.  It wasn't until the fifth session that I felt like I was getting up to speed. 

 

(In a typical track day there are three groups of riders: novice, expert and intermediate.  Each group gets a15 to 20 minute session in each hour, so in a day there are seven sessions for each group.)

 

Pitted next to me was a young 30 something guy, also riding expert, on a Honda 600RR.  We had been chatting occasionally through the day and he'd said he was struggling to figure out parts of the track.  His bike had WERA Amateur race numbers on.  He told me he still raced WERA and he'd raced here before, more than once, but always in the usual counter clockwise direction.  He asked about the race numbers on my bike.  I explained that I raced back in Oregon, Washington and California, but here in Florida was using the bike just for track days.  In the afternoon he saw I had a lap timer on my bike and asked what times I was doing.  I told him, and then he said in the next session he would follow me to try to help figure out what he was dong wrong.  When our session was called I made sure he was running and ready before I rolled to the hot pit lane.  When I got on the track I made a point of starting out moderately, getting heat in the tires and gradually building speed.  After a couple laps this other guy I'd seen in earlier sessions came by me, as he had before.  In those sessions I wasn't able to keep up with him.  I figured him to be one of the local fast guys.  After he passed me in this session he came up on another rider.  Before he found a way around that guy, I was able to catch back up to him.  I quickly got around the slower guy and locked on to the fast guy.  These would be the most fun and fastest laps of my day.  I was able to stay with him.  (I love riding close to another fast rider.  It's the closest I'll ever get to a Top Gun-like experience.)  A couple of times I was in striking distance for a pass.  But I was content to follow him and focus on riding smoothly. 

 

When I rolled back to the pits my neighbor was already off his parked bike.  He came over to see what my lap times had been.  I showed him and explained about chasing after the local fast guy.  He told me that I had simply disappeared on him. 

 

The next session out I was riding mostly on my own, which isn't as fun, but I did notice how easy riding the bike had become.  This is typical of riding a new track.  I'll get out on the track and my first sensation will be to again realize how fast the bike is.  How hard it can accelerate - lofting the front wheel with each shift if I'm not smooth.  Learning again how hard and deep into a corner it can brake - lofting the rear wheel if I want when I'm vertical, but trailing off as I turn in.  And as I figure out the track my corner speed increases and my knee puck goes down on the pavement easily.  I'll pick it up just enough so keep from wearing it out too quickly.  But in the first sessions I'm not consistent and not smooth.  I get tired quickly.  I'm fighting the bike.  My body position isn't right.  I'll finish a session not liking what I'm doing.  I'll wonder, what am I doing out here?  It would be so easy to crash.  It takes a couple sessions before I begin to feel better.  As the day goes on I figure out little things, sometimes on my own.  Sometimes from observing what another rider does.  As I get faster I'm also getting smoother.  And eventually I get to a point where I realize, as I did late Saturday, that I'm not longer wrestling the bike.  Now it's easy to ride.  I can do lap after lap and the only struggle is to keep my mind focused.  Control your speed.  Hit those marks.  Carve that line.  Get on the throttle.  That's when the payoff happens. I'm in the zone.  The second payoff comes when, at the end of a session that I've ridden well, I take my helmet off and some rider who saw me out there realizes I'm like 25 years older than him.  Call me Viper. 

 

Don't get me wrong.  There are always young faster riders than me around and there are faster bikes.  (Mines getting old - '03 R6 Yamaha.)  But at this stage of life, to be able to get out there at all is rather remarkable.  To put in respectable lap times and earn acknowledgment from younger fast guys is very gratifying.