Christmas Comes Early…
MotorMilt & I aren’t exactly the most holiday oriented people out there, but I guess everyone eventually gets caught up in the gift giving season. Actually I don’t mean to speak for ‘ol MotorMilt, he can do that for himself. But I’m definitely one of those folks who seldom remembers any important dates, anniversaries or birthdays. Usually it simply goes in one ear and out the other. Of course on the off chance that I actually do in fact write something down - like say, someone’s birthday - it usually ends up in whatever the latest and greatest email/calendar software I’m using and thus subsequently gets lost whenever I upgrade or switch to some other new cutting edge email/calendar client. So as you can see dates on calendars don’t really do me much good. If it wasn’t for MotorMilt reminding me of when I’m supposed to be somewhere I’d be one lost dude. Of course every now and then there’s a date that for some unknown reason doesn’t suffer the same fate as all the others. A date that for whatever reason gets permanently ingrained in my mind.
March 28th, 2005 promises to be that day.
Yeah, I know they’re not motorcycles, but it was the best I could do on short notice….
That’s right, we’re heading to the track… For the first time on the new Ducs. I’ve mentioned my desire to get the new bikes to the track for quite sometime in this blog. So I suspect this isn’t really a complete shocker for anyone who’s followed my ramblings, rather more of a ‘hey, we’re finally here’ moment. I’ve increasingly been thinking about track time ever since I started to realize that MotorMilt & I are closing in on the final stages of breaking in the new motors. Now there’s a ton of way to head to the track, everything from club days to organizations that simply offer track time to actual motorcycle courses held on at a professional track. The more I thought about what I really wanted out of taking the new Ducs to the track for the first time, the more I realized that what I’m after is on one hand to have the opportunity to push myself further than I can on the street while on the other hand having someone available critique me and teach me how to do it better. While I believe I ride well, I’m no MotoGP star. So any advice, education or insight I can gleam off of someone with actual track experience seemed like a good idea.
So the other night while surfing around the ‘net I decided to check out what was going on with Reg and the CLASS course folks. Milt and I have taken a couple of courses with them in the past. Abiet on very different motorcycles (i.e. the Beemers). Knowing them and knowing their drill seems like a good way to introduce the Ducati’s to the track. To my surprise they had just posted their 2005 calendar less than a week ago. The first date was… drumroll please… March 28th at The Streets of Willow, here in Southern California.
Obviously the stars were lining up… Who was I to stand in their way? A few credit card digits and a couple of clicks later, MotorMilt & I were on our way.
So now comes the fun part. We’ve got a three month wait - which is already killing me - and we still have to make hotel arrangements, figure out when we’re getting new tires and probably a prep service to go along with it. Not sure if that’s required, but we’re thinking that ProItalia might have some suggestions as far as suspension settings and the like.
Also unlike our last track day experience with Reg and the gang, which was at Laguna Seca - a track we were very familiar with because we had been to a ton of race weekend there - this will be the first time that either MotorMilt or I have visited Willow Springs. According to their website it’s a rather historical track:
This world-famous track hosted the first two NASCAR events west of the Mississippi, the first F.I.M. 500 Grand Prix motorcycle race in America, the first AMA events, the first 24-hour motorcycle endurance race, the first kart road racing in America, and the first California Sports Car Club racing on a purpose-built road course.
At 1.8 miles the Streets Course is slightly shorter than Leguna Seca (which is 2.2 miles long) and according to much of the information I’ve been reading on the ‘net it can get quite windy in Rosemond. So that might be an issue, as neither Milt nor I are huge fans of riding in heavy wind. The only major concern I have is that this will be the first time that I’ve ridden on a racetrack without an ABS anti-locking system. To be honest part of me is slightly scared about this since the very first time I was out on a racetrack I locked up my old trusty BMW R1100RS heading into the corkscrew at Leguna Seca. Luckily, I was straight up and down at the time and other than the odd sensation of wheel chatter and a bit of head shake I was okay. As I think back to that particular day, I had significantly less experience riding then I do now and I also wasn’t nearly as comfortable with the feeling of going fast. Times have changed rather dramatically on both counts and I while I’m as vigilant as I have ever been while riding, the fundamentals of riding simply happen now as opposed to having to think about them. I have no doubt that at the time I was locking up the brakes on the ‘ol beemer I was very conscience of getting on the brakes. I wasn’t preparing for a corner. I was locking everything down. These days, having no survived several hard braking ‘moments of concern’ while riding on the street - thinking cabs pulling out in front of you on a city street, bicyclists in the middle lane around a blind corner in the canyons, and general road oddities - I feel much better prepared to face the feeling of heading into a corner at a relatively high speed while at the same time seeing the track ending before your eyes as it swings on way or the other.
The bottom line is that I’m really looking forward to having the opportunity to test my limits without the worry of cross traffic, blind corners with rocks in the middle of the road, bicyclists, cars, horses and all the other stuff we deal with on a ‘usual’ ride. Plus it’ll be an adventure and who can turn that down? I’m so looking forward to this….
