TWS 041011 - Locked, Cocked and Ready to Rock!

My photos are not that great. Still very, very proud for my first day. Every goal I had was met!

















Next time out I plan to work on getting down a little lower with my head closer to where the mirrors would be. I really felt like my arms were bent much more but the photos show otherwise.
 
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Man I felt the same way. I thought I had my body over, I thought my arms were bent. and I was loose on the bars the whole time, zero arm pump. Yet my photos and video showed differently. I think its a conspiracy against FZ riders.
 
johnnyontherocks said:
Man I felt the same way. I thought I had my body over, I thought my arms were bent. and I was loose on the bars the whole time, zero arm pump. Yet my photos and video showed differently. I think its a conspiracy against FZ riders.
Click to expand...

Thankfully we have photo and video we can use as learning tools. imagine if all you had was your buddy telling you about something you need to correct. Makes a world of difference to see it yourself.
 
My next track day is going to be completely focused on getting off the seat to make the positioning happen. So much to think about on the first day like... not falling, finding the line, not falling, not hitting the bozo-on-brakes-in-front, not falling... you know.... ;)

I tried a bit on the Hill Country trip this weekend and it felt pretty good - but it does take some getting used to, and preparation BEFORE the turn!
 
Hail said:
My photos are not that great. Still very, very proud for my first day. Every goal I had was met!

















Next time out I plan to work on getting down a little lower with my head closer to where the mirrors would be. I really felt like my arms were bent much more but the photos show otherwise.
Click to expand...

Now i remember why I hate photo bucket.
 
Well, I was :zzz: last night after an awesome day and still have some analysis of my videos to compare to my first track day. I can tell you the instruction and guidance were just awesome. LSTD ROCKS. I learned so much yesterday!

Lighten the grip - get farther off the seat sooner - lean forward more so fore arms are flat - look deeper into the corner - more pressure on your toes - brake later, harder - roll off the brake while twisting the throttle - always be doing some kind of input - never initiate or make a turn without either brakes or positive throttle - breathe! - use the whole track - the bike is still way better than me, trust it - apexes are usually later than I think.

Most important, and still difficult, was lightening the grip in corners. The lighter I held the bars, the easier the turn became to take sharper and the lighter-weight the bike felt. It complied more with going where I was looking. Nearly all of my screw ups were based on fighting the bike in the turns that caused me to go wide and reel in the speed on the exit of a turn to avoid running off.

Track Diagram

Lap time went way down to 2:17 - 2:18 at 75.5 mph avg. (have to verify this, but I think last time I was 66-67 avg.) The super fastest pros get down to the high 1:40's but the regular CMRA fast guys are low/mid 1:50's. I think I could have been a bit faster without traffic. Maybe 2:15?

I used way more fuel (had to reload for the last session.)

By the end of the day, I was taking the entrance to turn 1 at 110/100, downshifting through a later entry towards the deeper turn-in at 75-80 instead of 80-90 entry down to 55-60 turn-in. This turn is a super-broad 1/2-circle-to a straight branching off the front stretch of the oval track - and has a deep turn-in to hit the apex. It is very intimidating, but is much bigger than it looks from high up on the oval where you can see the whole thing at once.

I was hitting 140 actual on the front stretch! Damn thats exhilarating!

The horseshoe is a tight 1/2 circle, barely off-camber, and is tighter than it looks, until you lighten your grip and let it carve around with a very late apex to get ready for the next hard left. Every time I hit this I had traffic, so I'm not sure how fast I can actually take it.

Turn 13/14/15 is complex, and I made a lot of progress getting the flow of the very late apex of 13, to line up the next two chicanes. The hardest part is not following someone else's wrong line! Flipping the FZ left-right-left is not the easiest thing to do.

This was just a awesome day, awesome riding, and I'm still in awe of the FZ's capabilities. There's room to draw more out of it, and that's with stock suspension, engine, wheels and all. It's got a jet-kit and race exhaust, but that's it for significant mods. Lighter wheels, race-tires, inverted fork and Ohlin's would help, but, I'm not sure how much that would really help considering the Old Fart at the helm!

What a freeking awesome day. If you haven't been to a track-day - Do It!
 
Wow, what a fun sounding day. The weather was perfect too. Sounds like you're making lots of progress.

Of the two clubs I like LSTD best. Fewer people and no class, just ride.

Sent from my LG-P925 using Tapatalk
 
It was great. Being new I did enjoy the class time and personal instruction time, and the fewer people in the class. Just two of us who were most comfortable with the track were put with one great instructor and got very focused help. There were also drastically fewer falls and injuries from any class.

What was nice was the class was already full, and Tom got me in anyway. What a great thing, because without it, I would not have improved my techniques!

Can't wait till next time!
 
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