Trackday : The Adventure Continues

Now that I’ve had a few days to reflect on my trackday experience I find that all kinds of widely divergent thoughts keep crossing my mind. I signed MotorMilt and myself up for our most recent motorcycle adventure several months back. Perhaps as far back as last September. The idea of getting the Ducs out on a track seemed like a great idea. Perhaps even the next logical step in our increasingly sporty outlook on life. Of course since there was a tremendous amount of lead time between when I signed us up and when the actual course was being held at The Streets of Willow, I think we both had almost to much time on our hands to think about what our first track day experience with the Ducati’s would be like.

To be honest, I really had no idea how it all would turn out. Would I enjoy it as much as my previous track experiences? Could I handle a liter bike on a track? Would I feel like a poser hanging out there? More importantly would I get myself in trouble because suddenly any number of the rules of the normal road didn’t apply?

I had no answers for any of these or any number of other questions that crossed my mind. I tend to think I’m a pretty good rider so this way of thinking frankly surprised me, but then I started to remember my first CLASS course experience which was nothing but jitters, nerves and an odd sense of almost ignorant confidence. The entire week building up to that trackday I honestly believed that I was suddenly going to be amazingly fast. I was mesmerized with the idea that I was going to be out on a track… A track!.. Instead what I found was that riding on a track is hard. Hard work, hard concentration, hard physically. Things happen out there in fractions of the time they seem to take on the normal road. From when to brake to where to get on the gas, everything shifted into a higher gear. I happened to be riding an old BMW R1100RS with ABS on that day. Thankfully so, because I wasn’t as good a rider back then and it was raining through out the day. During the fifth or sixth track session I engaged the ABS for my first and only time on that bike heading up the hill before the hard left hander that starts the famous corkscrew. I remember that by the time that the course ended on that day, I felt lucky just to be alive. As I’ve been thinking back on that experience both before and after this Monday’s more recent trackday I’m amazed how even the smallest events - good or bad - seem like biggest deals when you’re first getting the hang of riding.

Fast forward to this past Monday and the days leading up to it… In many ways I felt almost exactly the same heading into this CLASS course as I did the last time. Lots of doubts and concerns counterbalanced by a whole bunch of building excitement and a desire to see how much progress I’ve made as a rider. If you look back at some of the blog entries I wrote leading up to this trackday, I think it’s pretty obvious that I had at least a mild conflict going on about the day.

In retrospect not only have I progressed as a rider in a physical sense, such as how far I’m leaning over or my feel for the brakes, but also in a mental sense. Several times while I was out on the track I had what one of the CLASS instructors named Fred would call ‘a moment of concern’ and this time instead of going in the tank like I did after the ABS engaging entry to the corkscrew, I just went on and let it roll. Moving past whatever happened in whatever distance existed between the last corner and the next one.

The Morning
Having never been to Willow Springs, I had no idea that the temperatures would be so all over the place. MotorMilt & I had spent Sunday night in Lancaster, a small town just down the road from where Willow is located. During the day it was slightly windy and about 65-70º out, but at night it was freezing. Damn near 30º when you added in the wind chill. Dust is everywhere. It’s dry. The locals call it high desert and I don’t really disagree. All in all, a very different climate than the Westside of LA. By the time we woke up, the forecast had changed. We no longer could expect a day filled with sunshine. Instead it was hit or miss rain with lots of wind.

The Arrival
We arrived at Willow Springs at about 7:15am. I thought we were going to be a bit early but as it turned out the FastTrack folks were running (And I do mean running, after watching those folks later in the day, they can fly…fast) on the Big track at Willow and check-in at the main gate took longer than I think anyone anticipated. Once we signed the liability waivers, which has to be one of the better ways to start a morning , we headed into the main paddock area at Willow and started looking for the CLASS group. I have to say that of all the racetracks that I’ve been to as either a rider or a spectator, Willow Springs has to have some of the least descriptive signs I’ve ever seen. It took us a good couple of minutes to find the ’small track’ since it was our first time. Luckily we still made it on time, which let us unpack a bit before checking in with Gigi…

It turns out that Willow Springs is one seriously windy place. Through the course of the day it was consistently windy and when it really got going it was nuts. The kind of wind that was knocking helmets off of bikes on a regular basis if you weren’t careful. I was surprised that even though it felt incredibly windy, while we were out on the track it didn’t really bother me that much. Usually I’m not the biggest fan of riding when it’s gusting, but perhaps because I was so focused on the track it didn’t bother me as much…

After we unloaded all the gear, checked the oil and tire pressure and got sorted out it was time for tech-check. When you sign up for the CLASS course they send you a flyer with their technical requirements, which basically amounts to a bike in decent shape and relatively new tires. Truthfully I don’t think it’s much of a tech check. The main concern seems to be that you properly taped up your mirrors and taillights so that you don’t cause any distractions out on the track.

The Start of the Course
Once tech check was over and everyone had registered, Reg ran through a quick set of rules for the day. The most important of which was that passing on the inside wasn’t allowed. This single rule probably is what separates Reg’s school from other more race oriented schools. And while some folks violated it during the day by accident - myself included - it allows you as a rider to know that no matter what the inside is a place you can go safely.

After the rules were out of the way, Reg split the roughly sixty riders into two groups, dubbed ‘A’ and ‘B’. The ‘A’ Group was filled with the fast cats, some of whom could really let it out. Definitely some knee dragging going on when they were on the track. The ‘B’ Group on the other hand had everyone from first time track riders all the way to folks who just wanted to practice at a slower pace. MotorMilt & I decided that the ‘B’ Group was probably the right place to start out.

Twenty Minutes On, Twenty Minutes Off
Once the groups split up, it was time to hit the track. The ‘A’ Group was the first to go out. They did a quick session where they followed instructors around the track in groups of five or so. After one lap around the first rider who was behind the instructor would pull over to the left and allow the rest of the group to move up in line. Then that rider would fall into the line at the back and the whole group would do another lap around the track before repeating the same routine.

While the ‘A’ Group was following the instructors, Reg took the ‘B’ group for a ride and stop tour of the track. In full gear and on our bikes, we followed Reg around the track en mass. Stopping every time Reg felt there was something important to point out. I have to say that seeing thirty plus riders swarm around Reg on their bikes is quite a thing. Luckily the LAPD wasn’t ticketing for traffic violations because there were some really interesting slow speed lane changes going on at this point.

This was really our first bit of instruction for the day. Some of it was track oriented - like where the correct line was in a given corner - while other stops were more applicable to being translated back to the street when we got home - such as throttle control and being smooth.

After Reg had finished taking the ‘B’ group around the track, the ‘A’ group went in for their first classroom session and the ‘B’ group then repeated the same instructor lead exercise around the track. As non race like as this was, I found these first few instructor lead laps around the track invaluable. Since I had never been to Willow Springs, let alone ridden the ‘Streets’ course, every turn was brand new for me. I can’t say that I had mentally nailed the track’s configuration down by the time we wrapped this first track session up, but I certainly had a much better feel for the course than when the day started. I suspect that every motorcycle school out there probably does something similar to introduce their riders to the track and I found it very helpful.

When our session ended we headed into the classroom for the first of several times. I suspect that the first half of the day’s sessions were more valuable for the newer riders or the guys in the crowd who were returning riders just getting back into motorcycling. None of the information that was presented was revolutionary to me - but then I’ve been to Reg’s classes before and also have read and reread his book on better riding technic several times. It was however a great clarification on a number of points. Nothing hammers stuff home like hearing it from an ex-champion. Especially for topics like the importance of being smooth, throttle control, and advanced body steering. That’s all stuff you can certainly write about, but it’s worlds easier to describe in person. Ultimately, perhaps this ability to get a hands on clarification is the greatest value of a school like this, you not only get to go practice what you’re trying to learn but also talk to someone who understands it and ask them questions as you’re doing it.

From that point forward, the rest of the day basically followed a twenty minute on, twenty minute off flip flop of both groups between track time and classroom sessions. The one deviation was a short braking drill right before lunch, but otherwise it was pretty easy to lock into the day’s schedule and find a nice rhythm. There were also a number of times where just as I was starting to feel fatigued and starting to think about pulling myself off of the track that I’d come around turn 9 and see an instructor facing up track with their lights on signaling that the sessions was over. It was just uncanny how often that happened. Obviously I’m not a MotoGP star in training but it just blows my mind how mentally and physically exhausted you can get in twenty minutes while whipping a motorcycle around a racetrack. I have more respect for superbike racers tonight than ever before in my life and I’m not even fast.

The Streets of Willow
The Streets course is clearly the little brother track at Willow and it’s not a particularly fast. I found that for most of the day I was riding in first, second and third gear. There just isn’t any place to really run the bike up higher than that. On one hand this bummed me out a bit because let’s be honest one of the attractions of getting out to a track is speed. On the other hand running a road course in first is quite a trick and a heck of a lot of fun while practicing throttle control and smoothness.

The real pisser was the condition of the actual track. The asphalt on the Streets course is just terrible. There were a number of potholes and cracks that you could really feel unsettle the bike while it was leaned over in a corner. Very quickly I found myself aiming away from ‘the line’ in certain corners just to stay out of the way of some of these areas. I suspect the wet SoCal winter had something to do with it because I can’t fathom that at a place like Willow Springs they’d let this sort of stuff happen. But what do I know?

Lessons From The Day
During the course of the day I heard a great number of tips and pointers. Some were more helpful than others. Yet the real value of the day wasn’t during the group sessions, but when I would approach instructors for individual answers to questions. One specific example was with Reg. For quite sometime now as I’ve gotten more aggressive in sticking my knee out in corners (not dragging it yet!) I’ve had some trouble maintaining a horizontal transition across the tank from one side to the other. Sometimes I have a tendency to pop up a bit in the saddle thus slightly unsettling the bike. Obviously this doesn’t work out so well for traction. After one particular session I realized that my bad habit was being exaggerated while on the track. So I pulled Reg aside and asked him what I could do to reduce this tendancey. His answer was two fold and quite simple. The first was to practice the exaggerated leans on a stationary bike. I’m not so sure how much impact that’ll have, but I’ll give it a shot. Why not right? The other point he made and this I thought was much more valuable, was to be very conscious of have the outside knee up against the tank while the other knee is sticking out towards the inside of the corner. His feeling was that by thinking about that you’d focus less on popping up. During the subsequent session it might have been my imagination, but I honestly felt that this helped me not pop up as much.

The Bottom Line
Obviously I greatly enjoyed the day. I can’t thank the CLASS folks enough, if there is a more relaxed, mellow, personal, educational and fun environment to learn about riding I don’t know what it is. Reg is great and has a wealth of knowledge and humor. Fred is simply a magnificent instructor. And Gigi runs a really smooth ship. All in all it was really worth the $300 bucks to sign up. There are cheaper track days and other schools for right now I can’t say enough about the CLASS group. They’re just outstanding. I have no desire to be a pro-racer nor do I wish to emulate one, what I do want however is to learn how to ride better and faster and safer. All of which happens at CLASS. In my mind they really rock.

The Aftermath
As many readers know, tires win a race. As it turns out I chewed mine up pretty good. Reg and the crew had suggested that both MotorMilt & I lower our psi to 30 front and 30 rear. Usually the Ducs are at 32/36. Since it was such a cool day with rain and wind, I felt that dropping them down for a little bit of extra traction seemed like a good idea. In retrospect I wish I had gone 30/34 because the back tire was done by the end of the day. Of course somehow whenever I’m under what the manufactures suggest I kill my tires and maybe one should just expect that at a track day you’re going to abuse your tread….

As glorious as the day was it ended a bit disasterly. After the course had finished, MotorMilt, Gaz and I chilled out for about a half hour before heading back to our lodging. One the way back My Duc ran beautifully. Once we got off the 14 freeway however I noticed that the bike seemed to get a bit hotter than I would have thought given the weather temperatures. Instead of running at 160º it was now running at about 175º or 180º. Normally I wouldn’t give it a second thought because the Ducs only really run cool when they’re running at fifty miles an hour or more. I have no idea if this little bit of extra heat was at fault or not, but when we got back to where we were staying I slowed down to the park the bike and bam… oil was coming out of the bottom of the bike. Not a gush exactly, but a decent amount. I wish I had taken a pict of it. If there’s a more Ducati experience than oil pouring out of places it shouldn’t be I don’t know what it is… To make an incredibly long story short, ProItalia ended up picking up both bikes the next morning.

I realize that I was running the bike hard at the track, consistently hitting the rev limiter for the first time, but this is a brand new liter racebike. It shouldn’t be spilling oil for no reason after a trackday, it should live for days like this…But such is life I guess. So I’m in a bit of holding pattern for right now.

Apr 01, 2005 | Categories: Rides, Top Rides | Tags: CLASS Course, Ducati 999, Reg Pridmore, Trackday, Willow Springs | 2 Comments »