ThinkFast
Live Long
Well this was a blast. Not as hot as I expected it to be, and a slight breeze kept things very bearable. Went up Friday night and headed straight to the track to grab my paddock location, hoping for a covered garage to beat the heat. They were all already full but for the spot at the end of the garages that isn’t really a garage, but is under the garage cover. Perfect.
Carters said they had about 60 people signed up. Not sure how many per group, but seemed to me like there were easily 20 in the middle B group (they run a, b+ and b-).
Overall it was a great day, with surprisingly little crashing. Didn’t see a red flag all day, only one yellow in my sessions, and not many other yellows that I saw for everyone else. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so little crashing at a trackday. Pretty cool.
The R7 ran great. It really is the perfect trackday tool for this track. It gives up a little bit to the point-and-shoot inline 4 and heavyweight twin guys on the front straight and to a lesser extent in the short shoots between some of the corners, but other than that, I can hang with most of the guys in my run group. I spent an entire session chasing a Panigale around. He’d pull away on the front straight, but by turn 2 I was up his clacker heading into the carousel. Tried to get him on the outside there - one of my fave passing zones - but couldn’t quite close the deal. Then he’d pull away down that back straight, and once again I’d be on him for the rest of the turns until we got back to the front straight. Big fun.
Did same with several of the Carters guys, and in some cases was able to get around them. A couple of them them did also blow by me at a stunning rate of knots once in a while, a great reminder that while I may be old, I’m still slow.
Started the day with tires being top of mind. Four trackdays on my Pirelli Super Corsa SC3s without using warmers had me a bit concerned about how much more I could get out of them, so I ordered up a new set from Liz at Pro J Cycles. At the track Jose checked them out and said I might get another couple sessions out of the rear, but probably by lunchtime it would be done. The front still looked pretty good, but because of no warmers, he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to keep going with it, especially given the blue sheen it was wearing on its shoulders. I opted to hold off getting the new shoes mounted up - figured I’d see what they felt like out on track.
First session went well enough. Carefully watched the hot temps on them and adjusted a couple psi down on the rear to get to target. Front cleaned right up, no more blue and also no feeling of vagueness or slippage. All good indications that it still had some life in it, and might even make it to the 2 rears to one front mark. Speaking of which, the rear was working fine, too. Looked a million bucks after the first session, other than the wear bars starting to get close to the center tread area.
So on I went, watching hot pressures and adjusting down a pound on the rear after each session as the ambient climbed up into the 90s. Had some epic sessions, with lots of passing, dicing with instructors, figuring out how to get around instructors and their students, and generally doing my best to behave like a grown up out there while giggling in my helmet like a school kid lap after lap.
I decided that I’d skip the last session of the day so I could get the rear wheel off and over to Liz and Jose to put on the new rear tire. That meant two more sessions after lunch. Oddly, after the last session before lunch I felt something flapping on the bottom of my boot. Felt like I’d stepped on some carboard that had tape on it or something, and attached itself to the bottom of my boot. I looked down, saw nothing there, and picked up my foot to inspect the bottom. At which point I noticed the entire front half of the sole had come away from the boot, leaving the whole thing smiling at me. WTF?? Didn’t even know that was a thing. Guess I shouldn’t have been surprised - these boots were my faithful friends going back at least to the mid 2000s.
If it’s stuck, WD-40. If it’s loose, duct tape! Or in this case, Gorilla Tape - even better. Fortunately my pit buddies hooked me up with a roll - all I had with me was a big roll of yellow masking to use for creating numbers on my bike. Couple of wraps around the whole front of the boot seemed to get the job done. And a good thing, too, since the other boot went during the very next session. Say what you will about them, but their manufacturing and quality control are nothing if not consistent over there at Alpinestars.
Surprisingly to me, this duct tape job held up for two sessions to get me to the end of the day. My initial concern about the tape getting chewed up by the foot peg and getting stuck was not unwarranted, making for some interesting moves to get my left boot unstuck from the peg to make my shifts. Is that what got Rossi started with his foot flapping thing? One can only wonder….
Once the bike was parked for the day, got the rear over to Pro J’s. Def got my money’s worth out of that one. The front was still hanging on like glue, getting tons of lean angle and dragging my pegs around a couple of corners (time for rearsets, I think). The knee thing that @Holeshot suggested I try for cornering is really working, btw. Can’t believe I raced for seven years and never learned how to do that….
During the tire change I went over and picked up my photo package from Dito at Got Blue Milk - he got some great shots. And then I started working the phone to figure out how I was going to get a new pair of boots in time for two days of R/World starting on Monday. Ended up finding some at Cycle Gear in Santa Rosa and worked with them to have them delivered with one of their guys who will be there riding, too. Amazing. Meanwhile, I’m wondering whether I might get the old boots resoled. I’ve heard that this can be done, or at least used to be. (I posted up a thread asking for info on this in the General forum).
So there it is - that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Great times. So glad I’m doing this.
Carters said they had about 60 people signed up. Not sure how many per group, but seemed to me like there were easily 20 in the middle B group (they run a, b+ and b-).
Overall it was a great day, with surprisingly little crashing. Didn’t see a red flag all day, only one yellow in my sessions, and not many other yellows that I saw for everyone else. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so little crashing at a trackday. Pretty cool.
The R7 ran great. It really is the perfect trackday tool for this track. It gives up a little bit to the point-and-shoot inline 4 and heavyweight twin guys on the front straight and to a lesser extent in the short shoots between some of the corners, but other than that, I can hang with most of the guys in my run group. I spent an entire session chasing a Panigale around. He’d pull away on the front straight, but by turn 2 I was up his clacker heading into the carousel. Tried to get him on the outside there - one of my fave passing zones - but couldn’t quite close the deal. Then he’d pull away down that back straight, and once again I’d be on him for the rest of the turns until we got back to the front straight. Big fun.
Did same with several of the Carters guys, and in some cases was able to get around them. A couple of them them did also blow by me at a stunning rate of knots once in a while, a great reminder that while I may be old, I’m still slow.
Started the day with tires being top of mind. Four trackdays on my Pirelli Super Corsa SC3s without using warmers had me a bit concerned about how much more I could get out of them, so I ordered up a new set from Liz at Pro J Cycles. At the track Jose checked them out and said I might get another couple sessions out of the rear, but probably by lunchtime it would be done. The front still looked pretty good, but because of no warmers, he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to keep going with it, especially given the blue sheen it was wearing on its shoulders. I opted to hold off getting the new shoes mounted up - figured I’d see what they felt like out on track.
First session went well enough. Carefully watched the hot temps on them and adjusted a couple psi down on the rear to get to target. Front cleaned right up, no more blue and also no feeling of vagueness or slippage. All good indications that it still had some life in it, and might even make it to the 2 rears to one front mark. Speaking of which, the rear was working fine, too. Looked a million bucks after the first session, other than the wear bars starting to get close to the center tread area.
So on I went, watching hot pressures and adjusting down a pound on the rear after each session as the ambient climbed up into the 90s. Had some epic sessions, with lots of passing, dicing with instructors, figuring out how to get around instructors and their students, and generally doing my best to behave like a grown up out there while giggling in my helmet like a school kid lap after lap.
I decided that I’d skip the last session of the day so I could get the rear wheel off and over to Liz and Jose to put on the new rear tire. That meant two more sessions after lunch. Oddly, after the last session before lunch I felt something flapping on the bottom of my boot. Felt like I’d stepped on some carboard that had tape on it or something, and attached itself to the bottom of my boot. I looked down, saw nothing there, and picked up my foot to inspect the bottom. At which point I noticed the entire front half of the sole had come away from the boot, leaving the whole thing smiling at me. WTF?? Didn’t even know that was a thing. Guess I shouldn’t have been surprised - these boots were my faithful friends going back at least to the mid 2000s.
If it’s stuck, WD-40. If it’s loose, duct tape! Or in this case, Gorilla Tape - even better. Fortunately my pit buddies hooked me up with a roll - all I had with me was a big roll of yellow masking to use for creating numbers on my bike. Couple of wraps around the whole front of the boot seemed to get the job done. And a good thing, too, since the other boot went during the very next session. Say what you will about them, but their manufacturing and quality control are nothing if not consistent over there at Alpinestars.
Surprisingly to me, this duct tape job held up for two sessions to get me to the end of the day. My initial concern about the tape getting chewed up by the foot peg and getting stuck was not unwarranted, making for some interesting moves to get my left boot unstuck from the peg to make my shifts. Is that what got Rossi started with his foot flapping thing? One can only wonder….
Once the bike was parked for the day, got the rear over to Pro J’s. Def got my money’s worth out of that one. The front was still hanging on like glue, getting tons of lean angle and dragging my pegs around a couple of corners (time for rearsets, I think). The knee thing that @Holeshot suggested I try for cornering is really working, btw. Can’t believe I raced for seven years and never learned how to do that….
During the tire change I went over and picked up my photo package from Dito at Got Blue Milk - he got some great shots. And then I started working the phone to figure out how I was going to get a new pair of boots in time for two days of R/World starting on Monday. Ended up finding some at Cycle Gear in Santa Rosa and worked with them to have them delivered with one of their guys who will be there riding, too. Amazing. Meanwhile, I’m wondering whether I might get the old boots resoled. I’ve heard that this can be done, or at least used to be. (I posted up a thread asking for info on this in the General forum).
So there it is - that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Great times. So glad I’m doing this.
