Prepping for a trackday used to be such a simple thing. MotorMilt and I would mount up our bikes the day before the track adventure, ride up to a local motel, spend the night and subsequently rise the following morning ready to conquer the curvy asphalt. Little thought was put into anything beyond making sure there was a fresh set of tires on the bikes before we left and simply taping up the lights the morning of the trackday. These days however it’s a much different story.
There’s a lot more prep work to get done. Some of it’s solely bike related while other bits and pieces simply make the actual trackday adventure flow smoother. So early this morning I set out to make my way through an assortment of errands.
The first and most important was renting a cargo van so that we can drive the bike up to the track. Having now ridden all the way out to Willow from the Westside of Los Angeles, I’ve learned the hard way that there’s no good excuse for riding to a track. It tires you out and wears you down exactly before you need to be at your absolute best. Beyond that driving through the Antelope Valley isn’t exactly my idea of panacea. There’s a reason they test fighter jets out there. It’s absolutely barren and not particularly much fun on a sportbike.
Once I picked up the rental van, which was a hula hoop of an adventure in itself because the Enterprise folks somehow failed to record my reservation when I made it, I had to get back and prep the bike.
As I mentioned the other day the Trackdaz folks have a number of requirements, some of which I’ve dealt with in the past and others that were brand new experiences. So I quickly did the easy stuff first, taping the lights and wheel weights down. Then I moved up a notch and start to work on removing the mirrors. This turned out to be remarkably easy. One torox head bolt holds the unit in place. After unscrewing it, you simply remove a rubber grommet and disconnect a set of standard wiring male-female connectors. A slight tug later the entire mirror housing comes right off. Very simply, very fast and very easy.
With the mirrors out of the way I turned my attention to turning off the headlight and taillights. The gang at ProItalia smartly suggested that instead of pulling the fuses, the easier solution was simply to disconnect the wiring harness plugs that run to both the front and rear light assemblies. Again this went extremely smoothly. I was remarkably shocked it went this easily since I’d full expected that being an Italian superbike there’d be some sort of oddly idiosyncratic trick to getting the bike track ready…
But then I hit the snag. Flushing the coolant system and replacing the antifreeze with a water/wetwetter mix. Upon popping the fairings off there was nothing remotely resembling a radiator drain plug. So moments later I was off to ProItalia since I had the van already. John, the service manager, worked his magic and within an hour the bike was ready to roll. Talk about lifesavers…
Originally I had hoped to get a short ride in, but as I should have known prepping a bike for the track isn’t a one hour event. It’s a full day adventure of its own. And oddly while I’m not usually the biggest fan of rushing around to pick stuff up, today felt uniquely wondrous because it gave me plenty of time to think about tomorrow and what I hope to accomplish.
I’ve come to the realization that there are five basic things I’d like to;
Now I realize that these are rather general thoughts, but having never ridden the big track at Willow, I’m sure other things will pop up tomorrow. Right now I have a sense that potentially the most unnerving part of the big track will simply be dealing with a much higher sensation of speed. Everyone I’ve spoken to has mentioned how it’s a much faster track, so I’m both curious and a bit hesitant about finding out what they mean.
But I can’t wait…
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