Track Days

Once upon a time I raced motorcycles.  It was fun!  It was challenging.  It was addictive.  It was expensive!  It was all consuming.  Took time.  Took energy.  Took courage.  Eventually it took too much so I quit.

Now I consider myself an adventure rider.  I enjoy riding to new places.  I challenge myself in a different way by riding oversized adventure bikes up dirt roads, down through streams and rivers, and across foreign countries.  It's fun!  It's challenging.  It's what I enjoy.  But you know what?  Sometimes I miss the speed and action of the racetrack.

I finally broke down last October and attended a track day at Sears Point aka Infineon Raceway.  Decided it was time to revisit my favorite racing venue for a little speed, power and the pursuit of lower lap times.  Since it had been a while and in order to curb any bad habits I may have developed I decided to sign up for a day with the California Superbike School. 

In years past I had worked on my riding skill sets by taking the AFM new rider course and then going racing.  While racing I had the opportunity to work with other racers and try various other track schools.  I attended Reg Pridmore's CLASS and later at a Trackriders track day I hooked up with Nick Ienatch's school.  They were all very informative and each though similar focused on different techniques and different tools.  It was interesting to try out the various techniques and then watch my skills develop and my track times drop.

So for my re-entry into track riding I decided to take up an offer from my buddy Doc Wong and attend a California Superbike School at Sears Point.  The school is focused on the basics of riding and they offer four levels of training based on your experience and time with the school.  Being a newbie to the Superbike School I got to start at level one.  We basically spent the day riding in 20 minute sessions with classroom time in between.  Each session focused on a particular skill that had been discussed in the classroom prior to the track time.  Our requirements went something like this:

Session 1:  Circulate the track in 4th and do not use your brakes.  Try to develop your ability to enter a corner at the appropriate speed.

Session 2:  Circulate the track in 3rd/4th gear and do not use your brakes.  Now try hitting your turn-in mark while maintaining the appropriate corner speed.

Session 3:  Circulate the track in 3rd/4th gear and use some brakes.  Try looking through the corner as you hit the turn-in mark while maintaining the appropriate speed.

Session 4:  All gears and some braking.  Do all of the previous skills and now work on keeping a light touch on the bars.  Turn-in at the corner entrance and then keep your hands light on the bars.  Don't fight yourself or tense up.

Session 5:  All gears, all braking, all skills, have fun!

Also we did a little turning drill out in the parking lot to see how well you were steering the bike.  Basically ensuring you were doing the push-push technique at the proper angle and with a good seating position.

All in all I had fun on the track and by days end I had starting riding like I was supposed to...no more tensing up in the corners, better body positioning and higher comfort level at speed.  What fun!

A couple of months later I got to thinking about it and decided I needed to go back for more fun.  This time rather than be in a classroom environment I just wanted the track time.  Time to go play, sort things out for myself and just enjoy the day.  So I signed up with Zoom Zoom.  I had run into a buddy of mine who works for these guys and he had nothing but good things to say about it.  Well, if it's good for him and the rest of his racer buddies then it must be good for me!

Checking out the website I found that I had minimal work to do to setup the bike.  I mounted a set of Metzler M1s, drained the glycol out of the radiator and water jacket and poured in water wetter mixed with distilled water, and finally I disconnected and removed all lights and turn signals.  Pretty simple no?

At the track it was pretty painless to check-in, pass through tech inspection and attend the rider's meeting.  My only concern was the fact that it was raining ever so slightly.  After 40 days of constant rain I was hoping beyond hope that we would see the sun.  As Greg gave the rider's talk I frowned at the little droplets landing on my head.

The first session on the track were the A riders.  Folks with prior experience and racers.  To my surprise no one partook of this first session.  Strange!  Track time is like gold and must be used at all costs!  When the B-group came up I was right there at the front ready to go.  Despite the wet conditions I shot right out, passed a handful of folks and motored around the track.  The rain had stopped and a dry line began to develop.  I used my rainy weather skills and had fun circulating the track while the rest of the folks tiptoed around.  Yee ha!

The day progressed well with the sun coming out by noon and the track drying out to absolutely perfect conditions.  I rode each session with increasing confidence and as much aggression as I could muster.  I was still a touch on the cautious side as I entered the fast sweepers and technical sections of the track.  There's no trophy for a track day and I do have a job to attend on Monday morning.

For my next to last session I took the opportunity to spend time with a former National Champion road racer, Chuck Sorenson.  Chuck was out working with the school and offered up his expertise at no charge.  What better way to work out the bugs than with a guy who knows the secret to going fast?  It was fun to chase Chuck around and then get chased.  His only comments were focused on my lines in certain corners and on my needing to crawl under the paint on my unfaired SV 650.   Ah well, at times I do miss my GSX-Rs....

By the end of the day I had logged in over 125 miles and had an ear to ear grin on my face.  Will I go back to racing again?  Nope.  Been there, done that, I'm still retired.  It's fun but racing is all about going faster than the next guy and feeling invincible.  Leave that to the young guys.  But I will be heading back for more track days.  It's way too much fun to go fast with no cops, no sand and gravel, no little old ladies in gi-mongous Buicks or soccer moms in Volvo's.  Speed thrills!

Happy riding!

Update:

Check out these photos from Reno/Fernley from October, 2006.

Craig