Great track day today

[derf]

Thunderbolt Track, NJMP



http://www.tonystrackdays.com/

Had a great track day today, everything went well, better than well. After Brians little off on saturday we had a bunch of work to do on his bike, came back from the NE rally prepped the two bikes and got out there. Tech wasnt really a problem, the ninjas throttle had been sticking since his off and we thought we had it fixed, but during the drive to the track it unfixed itself, all it took to fix was to reroute the fuel so it didnt interfere with the throttle linkage on the carb. Passed tech then went out for dinner with Tommy and his wife.

Woke up way too early this morning, went out to the track, and sat, and waited, and milled around. They said to show up by 7:30 for a 7:45 meeting, we wound up stepping out of the car at 6:30, thought there would be more traffic on the way down, but there was none.

Anyway got out on the track and spent the morning really working on getting the line down, took a few sessions to start to get it, but the instructors really worked with me and saw where I was having problems, showed me the correct line and kept me on track. After lunch they held a class on body position, put everybody on a bike and corrected any bad habits. Anyway first session after lunch went great, I lost the line a little coming through the second chicane, and kept dropping my ass down without moving my head. An instructor came out and ran a few laps with me behind him until I found the line again. I was able to keep a good line except for turn 5 (center top of the map, right hander), which instead of drifting to the center of the track after the apex I just hugged the inside edge of the track instead. The next session control rider came out and showed me what I was doing, then spent the next lap correcting my body position, getting my spine parrallel to the bike. Finally during the break before the 2nd to last session I was talking to a control rider and he gave me some pointers on a few corners, then took me on a lap showing me that i need to get inside the apex a little more, putting my body over the curbing.

From the 1st session to the last session I noticably increased speed, from being lapped in short order to the last session where I was passing other folks pulling away from the corners. Tons and tons of fun, the team that Tonys put together was great and gave a ton of one on one instruction from correcting my line and body position in the early part of the day to following me for a lap the last session and just a thumbs up before dissappearing over the horizon. The control riders really gave a ton of feedback even if it was just saying do that again. Anyway, I was very impressed by their organization and would def recomend them to anyone looking for a more relaxed track day.

My bro did great, he was able to pick up the line quicker than me, but his body position was way off, he was hanging too far off the bike, once he got his body position worked out he was able to keep his corner speeds way up and really push it, in fact coming out of the 2nd chicane he pulled in behind a duc 999 and after the ceter right and left turn (upper portion of the track), he pulled away from the 999 with no problem. I couldnt get around the guy because after taht we entered a no passing area, pretty much until the straight away, passed the 999 for a second after dropping a gear only to watch him pull away from me powering down the long straight (a control rider got on him right after that move). Anyway he did great, pretty much used the full range of his metzlers, he still has some tire left but not much, and he really enjoyed it.





Showing my bro how to lock his leg in on the tank, and how to loosen up on his arms







Tires getting worked in a little more

mine, about 1/4" left to use:


brians, about 1/8" left to use:


and loaded up and almost ready to go



More pictures to follow once the track photog loads them