Track Day Five: 8/15/2005 Autobahn Full
Course
Well, three days later and I'm still sore... calves, thighs, and
especially my left knee, but I'm getting ahead of my self. Well,
this was definitely the most challenging track day yet. With the
North and South tracks run together that comes out to about 23 turns
and 3.5 miles of track. Talk about a workout.
The things that stand out to me the most were the transition from the
South track to the North and the transition back from North to
South. Going South to North you're on an up hill straight and as
you crest you come up off your seat, and then the bike settles down
just in time to apply some brake and sweep into North Turn 2.
Most of the time I was only doing about 100 as I came over that, but
another 10 or 15 mph and I'm sure the bike would come off the ground.
Going North to South you basically have a double apex fairly quick
corner that feeds into the South front straight, that transition seems
to be off camber and very bumpy. That along with South turn 5,
also rather bumpy, and the suspension definitely gets a
workout. But I was very impressed by how stable the bike
was, even while leaned way over with the suspension working
heavily.
I was trucking along pretty good all day. Basically every Control
Rider I rode with allowed me to just go ahead. I got a lot of
thumbs up and positive feedback. I made a few small mistakes over
the day, but mostly nothing major. I was definitely pushing
harder than ever before. The first moment of "Oh crud!" was when
passing down the North straight. I picked up quite a bit of speed
and ran short on braking room. I was braking hard and past my
normal turning point. Then when I turned in, the front slid just
a bit and then immediately after that the rear, but that was the end of
the excitement.
My other excitement was a bit more attention getting. During the
last session of the day I caught up to and had been following three
guys that were hanging pretty close together. On several corners
I felt like I could go faster so I decided to get past them. I
got past two of them on the straight between South 3 and 4. On
the next straight I got past the the remaining guy just before entering
into turn 5, the bumpy one. I didn't feel like I was going that
fast, but shortly after I turned in... I hear a chip (rear tire) and
the bike straightened up violently, the bars shook once, I flew up out
of the seat with just my hands still on the bars, my helmet shield hits
the wind screen, and all I see is instrument cluster... I remember
thinking something like, "Oh, crap, I'm going to spill..."
As I drop back down in the seat and I look forward I'm heading for the
rumble strip on the outside of the track. I just stay straight
and go over the entire rumble strip. The suspension soaks up the
ripples and I'm in the grass, still on two wheels. I look behind
me, see that the track is clear and I get back on.... Whew! I put
my hand up to let the guy behind me know I'm slowing down. I
needed to compose myself after that. At that point I actually
though, "OK, this is the last session of the day, maybe it's time to
just pull into the pits and call it a day. " I let the other two
guys pass me up, and decided, what the heck. So, I stayed behind
them for the rest of the session, but the first guys was looking back
occasionally. I think he was surprised to find me back on their
tails, so he picked up the pace a bit. Probably because he didn't
want me pulling another move like that in front of him. Can't
blame him, I wouldn't either. I'm not quite sure what
happened, by I think I must have hit one of those bumps and my rear
wheel lost traction for a split second, then when it hit pavement
again, it skidded, and then caught. Basically a highside. I
don't need any of those any more. The reason my left knee, the
inside of my knee, hurts is because either on the way up from my seat
or on the way down, I hit it on the gas tank.
Anyway, I had my share of over-exicitement. Yes, I was pushing
hard at times, but I came out if it with a new sense of where the
limits on the bike may be. It felt good, despite the near spill.
This track day I had some visitors. My wife came with three of
the kids, but of course, they were a pain in the butt like kids can be
and my wife took them home after a short time. The other visitor
was BMW Dave as I call him. He's the guy that I sold my BMW to,
and he's interested in maybe coming out for a NESBA session. He
came by on his Goldwing, which hadn't been getting much mileage since
he got the BMW so he stretched it legs a bit. It's been a long
time since I've been next to a Goldwing. I forgot just how huge
they were.
Another thing that stood out about the day was that there was a new
girl at the track. Well, sure you notice cause there's only a
handful of them. This had to be her first track day or pretty
close to it. Cause she was definitely going slow. I think I
passed her on ever session, but she was definitely getting faster and
leaning more as the day went on. The control riders lead her around the
whole time. That's great. That's what NESBA is all
about. Letting people come out at one level of skill and leave at
a higher level.
Unfortunately there were no pictures of the event, except for the North
track on Saturday. The full track, when I was there, was on
Monday, and since NESBA is an all volunteer organization, some people
just couldn't be there... Sliderphoto reps being one of them.
Time to sign up for the next session... probably a couple more and the
season is over...