SOAR Round#5
Final round of the season for SOAR and my second visit back to Cayuga. This time I had entered in the women’s race. I wanted another shot at the Rookie grid, but with the way the schedule ran this weekend that would have meant 3 races on Sunday, 2 of them back to back which is something I am not in shape to do (willing, yes, but let’s not kid ourselves I’d be pooched after just one race).
Hugging the last corner before the front straight
Practice all day Friday and Sat morning. I wasn’t feeling good on the bike. Couldn’t get a better time then 1:28 which I was very unhappy with. We moved the handle bars closer on Friday which made a world of difference for me. Didn’t feel like I was climbing over an elephant at every turn and made a big difference in how much effort it took on my part to turn the bike.
Look Ma! One wheel!
Qualifying race at the end of the day on Sat landed me in second place behind a seasoned pro rider, Shauna “Gecko” Aaron. I was happy with my start, even though it started off with a wheelie, got tangled some where within the 1st group of riders from a race that was ran together with ours. I knew Shauna was in front of me and the other girls were behind me. A couple laps in I came up on a slower rider and figured I should play it safe. No being a hot head like last time, it’s only qualifying and I’m not racing with this guy. I figured I will hold my spot and finish the qualifying. I kept telling myself it’s only qualifying, and I will be on front row of our group regardless since there were only 4 of us.
The running order in the qualifying race
More practice on Sunday morning, I got a bit more aggressive. A guy on a vintage bike tried to stuff me in the hairpin and I nearly hit him, which really pissed me off and gave me some motivation to try to run some faster laps. After that I felt better about how I was riding. Did not check the times, didn’t want to know.
Race was after lunch and this time, unlike in the qualifying our group got a seperate start on the grid so we had some space between us and the other race in front of us. I had a great start. Got going the second the flag came down and didn’t have that “oh ok we can go now” thought while watching the other riders like I had the last time. Shauna was a little ahead of me but about half way to corner 1 I was right behind her and ready for the first turn. I expected Shauna to fly through turn 1 and continue to move further and further away but instead she seemed to have let off and we went through corner 1 much slower then I expected. At one point I hesitated if I should continue with my pace and pass her, or just fall back knowing I wasn’t much of a competition to her. I could just picture Johnny throwing his hands up over a crashed bike and decided to play safe and just follow her through to corner 2. We came up on corner 2 and at that point cought up to the last rider of the fist race, a rather slower moving Ninja 250. Planing to stay behind Shauna once again I matched her speed and figured regardless of what she was doing I was going to pass that 250 coming out of 3.
Hind sight being 20-20 I should have held my line and speed and made the pass instead of hesitating. We were just coming out of corner 2 and at that point going rather slow, I touched the brakes, just like I have done many times before when coming up on slower traffic through that exact section, although obviously some of the factors were not the same because what resulted was not what had resulted the many times before. The combination of speed, lean angle, and break pressure I applied wasn’t a winning combination. I lost my front end and went sliding and tumbling off to the grass to the outside of the track pretty much half way between corners 2 and 3.
The familiar feeling of the body hitting the ground, short jabs of pain, followed by thoughts of is it over? Ok, I’m stopped, where’s the bike and how is it. I got to the bike, left side looked fine, right side a little banged up. Handle bars still there although the right one bent and pointing down like a floppy ear, key bent, kill switch missing… but looks good to go. I grabbed the handle bars, braced myself on the bike and picked it up. I turned the ignition on, every thing lights up like it should, I get on the bike being careful not to loose my balance and drop the bike. It’s in 3rd gear still, I get it back into neutral and start it. All is good, I look up on to the track and see Sunny ride by, I only lost one lap.
I ride back onto the track carefully, all seems good other then the weird feeling downward pointing right handle bar. I continue on my way testing the brakes before the next corner before getting back on the gas. I ride by the wall and see people cheering me on and I get on the gas harder. I test the brakes a little early coming into the fast corner 1, but all seems good other then the fact the brake leaver is in a really weird downward position. I come around 2, 3, and something makes me think of the brakes again.. they feel mushy. Left and right follow and lead into a short straight before the tight 6… I’m not on the gas hard still thinking about my brakes, I slow down a tad and feel my rear tire squiggle, I think to myself that’s not right and look down for a closer look at my brake lever. That’s when I notice brake fluid dripping down from the cylinder and down the side of the bike. I brake some more and prepare for a gingerly easy turn into 6 and the moment I start to tip the bike in towards the left I feel my rear tire come around and off I go sliding again.
Bike didn’t do so well this time around and wasn’t ridable so I ended up watching the rest of the race from the infield waiting for the truck of shame to come and pick me up. With the events from the past few minutes playing in my head over and over again, the wait felt like for ever. To say I was disappointed and pissed off with myself would be an enormous understatement. The Gecko took first place, followed by Sunny Park and Nikole Ann Pilkington.
On a more positive note, Johnny ended up coming first in his Rookie race and with the points earned up to date, looks like he also won the Rookie cup championship. 
SOAR Round#4
My first race weekend! I did the practice day on Friday since I did not know the track. Technically, it wasn’t my first time at Cayuga. I did ride it once on my CBR125R pretty much exactly 2 years ago, but I had no recollection of the track layout plus riding it on the 125 and now the GSX-R 750 were two completely different games.
Final corner before the front straight
SOAR was using a cool timing system by Zoomius, so with an RFI sticker on my windshield I was able to get my lap times without having to have a lap timer on the bike. I spent the first session of the morning going quite slowly just trying to figure out which way the track turned, trying to memorize the turn sequence, and get a feel for all the bumps and cracks and bumps. The track has 2 consecutive straights with a fairly tight and challenging but fun infield. The layout wasn’t that hard to learn and by second session I felt comfortable to start adding some speed. Granted I’m sure I was fairly choppy still and my lines weren’t ideal, but I managed to get around at a time of around 1:30 and I knew I could tweak that a bit more. By the end of the day I was consistently doing 1:24′s and I was very happy with that.
Saturday came around and we got a bit more practice time in the morning, followed by qualifying heat races through the remainder of the day. I had entered the Gecko Forwarding Rookie Challenge, a class for beginner racers with less then 5 races experience.
Coming out of corner 1
Doug Beattie supermoto school at Batavia
Yesterday I was another day at Batavia. This time Johnny came with me, his first time there.
Made a trip out to Batavia, NY
Yesterday I got to try out my new bike and ride a new track
This track is so cool! I had a great time. Elevation changes, banked turns… dirt.. ok I left my balls back on the pavement when I went on the dirt and I didn’t go back to it, but it looked like a fun place from far away.
I’m definetly going back.
An arial view of Batavia Motorsports Park
First track day with the KTM
Golo track day at Shannonville running the Pro configuration. I did about 2 sessions on the track. Didn’t really feel all that comfortable going out on the bike. Need to figure out how to deal with this ride height. Every time I have to stop the bike, I can’t touch the ground and me and the bike just fall over… the bike stalls, I can’t start it.. not very fun.
In the afternoon I took the bike out just riding around the paddock slowly to get used to the throttle. I was feeling comfortable with turning and modulating the throttle enough that I ventured off into the big grassy field. I was doing figure 8′s and big circles, it was fun until during one of my turns the bike spit me off. I was making my turn and the started slipping towards the inside as if to lowside, I saved it and next thing I know I’m getting spit off in the opposite direction. I landed on the ground thinking what the hell just happened! I look over at the bike lying on the ground a few feet away.. all I could think was get the clutch! get the clutch! and as I went to reach for it, the bike stalled, dammit!
I don’t want to push this monstrocity all the way back to our trailer unless I really I have to so I figure I’ll try starting it, maybe I’ll get it this time? I pushed the bike over to the chain link fence not too far away, and lean the bike against the fence. By this time the sun and the heat is getting to me and this black leather suit isn’t exactly the most heat friendly outfit. I take off my helmet, gloves, unzip the leathers, get on the bike and start kicking…
Weekend at Cayuga with Turn2
A full weekend at the track, Aug 25 and 26.
I know why I keep crashing!
Shannonville Fabi with Rider’s Choice
The little 125 returns to Shannonville.
Made the trip with Marlon and Claire. We hauled their trailer with my truck. We camped out Friday night on the Nelson side then Saturday morning moved camp to the Fabi side of the track.
I had one dramatic detour through through the grass, although after a little off roading off corner 2 I made back on to the track for corner 3. Things didn’t end so well next time I went off roading and ended up head first in the tire wall past corner 4. Over all it was a good day of learning and some great feedback from other track riders.
“Do you know how long Blackie has been riding? (AT ALL, not talking just track days)? Answer: 6 weeks!! I think she’s doing fine, and getting better every day. Darn good of Blackie to get right back on the horse that kicked her off, too.”
Thanks Brian
“I can attest to Blackies skills! I would have guessed she had been riding alot longer than that! I saw her hangin off her 125 pretty good, I was in the same group she was in! Great riding…and how hard core is it that as soon as she goes down I see her and her friends gettin the bike back in order to get back out there! Good for you, keep at it!”
Thanks Mogwai and indeed my spectacular crew!
..and Bernard, you bloody paparatzi!
Mosport RDT with Turn2 and Motoress
Met many fantastic people. Learned a lot. With the help of an impromptu mechanics team, we put my crashed bike back on the truck with the use of a screw from a wooden bench.
Met Johnny
Vintage racing on the big track. A few people came over to the small track to say hi.
Got LOTS of wonderful help and tips from the Motoress crew. The leading lady Vicki was very supportive and enthusiastic, it was such a fun and welcoming atmosphere. Vicki told me she thinks I plain and simple out-grew my bike already, and should look into getting something bigger and more track friendly. Already??
My first track day
Saturday July 7th was my first ever track day on my bike. My thoughts? …must.. have.. more track time…
This day was so much fun! The baby CBR did beautifully on the track. Every one with Turn 2 was great and very helpful and the day ran smoothly.
I started off pretty nervous.. excited, but nervous. Sharing the track with bigger and faster bikes/riders was a bit intimidating, although every one was very good about passing me safely. A couple guys led me around the track and offered great pointers and instructions, thank you Phil and Mark! (and every one else who contributed advice). I essentially had the bike in 3rd all the way around the track all day long and focused on lines, turning, and some breaking. The bike would hit the rev limiter on both “streights” and would bog a little comming out of turn 7 (uphill hairpin) but staying in 3rd was sufficient.
Towards the end of the day I was the only bike left on the track (yayyy private track!!). My footpegs and stand were scraping and caused a couple hairy moments, but all was good… untill pretty much the LAST lap of the LAST session just before I was gonna get flagged to come in. Footpeg cought turn 1 and this time around lowsided the bike.
I basically need a new shift lever and the handle bar took a little beating. The frame sliders and the fugly turn signals (which survived, those things are increadible) kept the rest of the bike pretty much untouched.
Here’s a vid from the begining of the day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_juVfyZWks
And a vid from some time after the lunch break, the scraping begins:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKP07i9MAhU
I need to get the shifter fixed and the bike is good to go.
I also need to do something about those footpegs and kickstand. We tried trackside (before the slide ofcourse) swapping the footpegs for the passenger footpegs as they’re a little shorter and have angled ends, but they’re not swapable. They’re held in by different sized pins. So I’m looking at getting rearsets.
I was told that I should take the kickstand off next time and get a rear stand for the bike.
Oh yeah.. and tires. These ones did just fine (I think). The only problems I have experienced were caused by the foot pegs dragging and making the rear wheel skip on occation. I will look into picking up a set of Pirelis although I’m still not sure if that’s necessary. Once the foot peg issue is resolved I’m not sure just how much more the oem tires could give.
Over all however this has been a fabulous experience. I have to highly recommend coming out to the track with your bike to any one, just get over how intimidating it all seems at first, it really isn’t once you dip your feet in. Some people have said they want to ride on the street for a year or two before coming to the track, but I think they’re completely missing out a great learning experience. I learned so much about how my bike handles and what and how I should do on the bike to make it go how I want it to. It is so much easier to concentrate on learning to ride your bike well without having to always thing about any cars, or pedestrians, making sure I don’t go past they yellow line, the curb, intersections, traffic lights… and putting around in a parking lot sure doesn’t compare either since that parking lot ends eventually, has gravel, pot holes, parked cars, and lamp posts to watch out for. I will be highly recommending this to all of my riding friends.
Arriving at the track
Turn 1 of the RDT track
Turn 1 again
Left footpeg and kickstand took the most beating from the scraping and eventually the low side... bent shifter
Right footpeg got a little scrape action