My old racing partner, Thane, got me off my ass and back out to my home track, Summit Point for a Sportbike Track Time track day. It was GOOD. I think that this pic pretty much says it all.
For the morning sessions, I hooked up my GPS to check the top speed - It's unusual to have the throttle twisted to the stop for something like 20 or 30 seconds. It's a whopping 93 mph, if you're curious. It's kinda cool to have the route for Summit on my GPS as well. That'll make a fine electronic memento.
I'm really looking forward to the Enduro with RRob this weekend.
You could say I'm really getting my money's worth out of my DRZ this week.
STT offers a "2-up" session after lunch. Thane forgot to put the passenger pegs back on his Triumph, and his GF had taken a day off work specifically to do the 2-up session, so I let them take the DRZ.
Good call on the exact turn.
I actually got chased off the outside of Turn 5 because there is a photographic service that has "carte blanche" at STT events. Apparently, the BSR cornerworkers don't speak French, and think that it translates as "Exclusive Rights at Summit Point to operate a camera with a big-ass lens, all others must use a shitty point-n-shoot". After that, I said fuckit, they're getting pix from 10.
Sorry, no pix of me, although I could have purchased them from the photog. I might change my mind about that and see if they keep pix after the event.
Frankly, Thane's easily distracted, and a bit of a klutz. He's has damaged more than one of my consumer appliances. I wasn't about to turn him loose with nearly $2k worth of camera.
Regarding riding the DRZ on the big circuit, well, it was interesting. Of course, I was only one of two guys there on a bike with fewer than 600ccs, and the ONLY guy with fewer than 2 cylinders -- there was a sweeeeet 'priller RS250.
I got passed a lot. I think I got passed more in that track day than I got passed in my entire racing career. I was literally getting passed like I was standing still --- as in if you subtracted my speed from their speed, they'd still get a speeding ticket on the Beltway. It's a little unsettling to get passed at 165 when you're doing 90. I don't think I'll be doing that again. It's literally placing a HUGE amount of trust in your fellow squids not to hit you like a big fat deer in an expensive leather suit.
BUT, there are 2 things that completely make it worthwhile: passing squids on the brakes into T1 and T5; and, catching and passing squids in the carousel. That was fantastic fun, even with the front end chatter. I really need to do the suspension.
I think it was a little hard on the bike - I'd just changed the oil, so I know it was full, and by late afternoon, it was missing shifts and back-shifting -- it almost spit me off exiting T1 on 2 consecutive laps. I didn't have extra oil, so I skipped my last session. The brakes were definitely spongy by the end of the day, too.
It makes me want to put my ZRX back together and go play -- there was a guy on a Bandit 1200.
