Alright... Finally some time.
I am so glad I have the week off, because after this weekend I don't think I could have worked tomorrow... and the next day! :BLAA:
As usual, it started with the excitement of signing up for a track day (at "Big" Willow Springs, no less), and then followed the exciting pre-prep (couple weeks in advance) of the bike and the whole logistics of doing this 18hour round trip to paradise...
So far so good, it's all excitement... then arrive the last 3 days before the
Day, when I usually get anxious and try to focus my attention on what I will have to do to ride well... the long awaited morning starts with a 4:15am alarm disaster, which frankly does not help with the anxiousness
....
It usually starts getting better as I sip on my hot homemade double espresso... my usual morning cold shower kicks me into gear, but it's only 30min later, talking to John in the car during the 2h trip, that eases the process of finally having to man up and jump on the "speed machine"...
It's an unreal feeling to jump on a bike (a tool to go FAST!), and strive to master it around a racetrack trying to go as fast as you can. It's unreal and very very real at the same time... I feel really alive when I ride on a track, especially a track like Willow Springs, where a time of 1:40 means 90mph
average speed around the 2.5mile course... Taking a big sweeper at 130mph all tucked in will make anyone VERY alive, and I recommend it to everyone
Anyway.......... felt like sharing tonight :Flip:
Props to Nimzotech for making it on the track and Rob for making it to the track, it was great to have some support and to hang out :thumbup:
John, you're the man.
Some of the pics (video doesn't do some of them justice):
The evening before, setting up the trailer and loading the car:
We arrived there at around 7:30am, and we FROZE our butts off... the wind was blowing HARD, and temps were probably around the high 50's (or at least it felt that way).
We went to sign up and get the bikes through tech, and sat in the rider's meeting... the dude from Motoyard wasn't very well rehearsed, but the overall msg was understood. They did insist on taking it easy for the first 2 sessions (not laps, sessions), due to the cold track temp and the # of crashed from the wkd before...
John's kawi integrated lap timer was a blessing since we rented the beacons but they didn't work. We learnt that news at the end of the day and kinda pissed me off... So thanks to the
Ninja, we know we did something like 50+ laps and went from around 1:50min/lap in the morning to around 1:40min/lap by the last couple of sessions of the day (it had warmed up, even though the wind stayed pretty consistent throughout the day). BTW, wind sucks!!! I had a couple of scary moments in turn 2 and 8/9....
Few crashed throughout the day, but the main show stopper was a dude in group C who lost his oil filter between turn 6 and through turn 7... it put us on hold for about an hour, which was a bummer but also pretty cool as it allowed us to participate in the easter egg hunt that Motoyard had setup (props!) in the midfield of Big Willow!!! So while we couldn't care less about the eggs, we were stoked to be able to walk on the track... (the oil ended up being way on the outside of the track and was a non-issue).
