I Did It!
Trip Start
Apr 13, 2006
1
2
Trip End
Apr 16, 2006
Tooele, Utah
Friday, April 21, 2006
I arrived Wednesday evening about five pm. Since I was spending the night nearby, I thought I'd get a quick first look at the track. This did absolutely nothing to quell my nerves. First, the new Miller Motorsports Park is stunning. This is no back lane asphalt strip. I'm told that Larry Miller is putting 84 million dollars into the facility and building it to FIA Formula One spec. It is huge at four and a half miles in length and with twenty four turns. Secondly, there were a few dozen race bikes on track and watching these guys blast down the straight at 200 decibels convinced me that I had made a terrible mistake and was about to die a horrible death!
Thursday morning and I'm up early enough to watch the moon set on my drive to the track. I set up my pit right by the track entry, do the registration and tech inspection thing, sip my coffee and listen to the riders meeting. I think I was one of the first riders on track for the opening session. I knew that the only way I'd ever get rid of the butterflies was to actually get out on the bike. I was right.
The first few laps were sighting and tyre warm-up laps behind a riding instructor; Clay from Apex Trackdays (who graciously donated their time and staff for the event). On the third lap we started picking up the pace. By the fifth lap I'm thinking, oh my god we're going fast! So now I'm not nervous anymore, but the thought of dieing is making a comeback.
The MMP Track was configured into two separate half courses of about 2.2 miles each; a west and east course. This allowed alternating 30 minute sessions of street riders on one and racers on the other. This meant you could ride at any time, but I'm here to tell you that learning two courses and twenty four turns in one day is a brain hernia.
My teammates, Dennis and Dave, show up and pretty soon our pits look serious with a 1992 Ducati 900ss and a 2000 R1. With those bikes sporting Ferracci and Akrapovic carbon fiber pipes, I secretly yearned for the full Arrow system - except for the fact that every ten minutes someone new walks up, points at the 675, sucks air through their teeth, ask if it's mine and look at me like I'm Mick Jagger. Well - this is okay!
My first day goes well. Each time I come in to take a break I check my tyres and am delighted to watch the chicken strips incrementally disappear. I have a lurid moment when I run out of a turn too hard and drift off the edge of the asphalt. The bike starts doing a hula dance but I kept the presence of mind to stay on the gas and ride it back on.
Probably my biggest problem was riding for the first time without mirrors. On the road, I'm like a radar station, always wanting to know what's going on all around me. Its all fine and dandy being told that the rider in front has the right-of-way on the track but that doesn't stop me from worrying about it. I have a big surprise early on when a faster rider stuffs me on the inside at the apex of a turn appropriately named "scream" - a left hand kink listed at 115 mph. Lucky me, I'm only going about 95 mph so getting pushed wide off the clean line is doable. Fortunately, I had packed extra clean underwear.
At the end of day one I'm completely lost for printable words to describe my experience. "Awesome" is over-used and abused and I can't come up with any satisfying non-cuss synonyms for "intense"! Playing around with a few quick turns on public roads has absolutely nothing in common with the speed you carry on the track.
I meet a casual acquaintance from road riding as he comes into the pits and watch with surprise as he peals off his helmet then takes his I-Pod earphones off. I ask him what he is listening to and he replies, "oh, just angry heavy metal". That, I think, sums up exactly the mind set on the track. Later that day I hear Stevie Ray Vaughn playing the Hendrix tune he did (I can't remember the name of the cut) and I can't help but think how fast I would be riding to it.
And that is kind of my first day impression - I've just done a lot of very fast dances with my 675 in a very large ballroom. Sexy, intoxicating and brilliant! She never stepped on my toes. She knew all the cool moves and never missed a beat. I go to bed feeling like I've climbed Everest.
Day two, Friday, and by the end of the day I'm using the full racing line, occasionally spinning up the rear driving onto the straight, pulling off nice clean passes and, holy cow, this is a blast! I have another lurid moment on the brakes at the end of the east course straight. I brake way too late so I'm on them hard, and as I blip the throttle for the last downshift to third for the turn, I lock the front. I get a loud chirp from the tire and a wicked wiggle but it puts me just right for the turn-in and the forks never unload. Sweet, but it gives me pause for thought and I back off a bit on my braking.
I think my biggest challenge over the four days was getting the balance right between charging the turns and not carrying enough speed in. I am really amazed at how fast you can go into a turn, but I also had some really satisfying moments where I would be passed going into the turn by a rider on the outside, only to be able to take it back with a stronger drive off a tighter line. My front tire is testament to trail braking too hard and charging too often; I've cooked it flat on each side. But I'm very glad to report that never once did it feel like it wanted to tuck. Push yes, but very planted at all times.
Saturday morning the weather forecasters are correct and everything is soaked from a heavy overnight rain. I'm kind of glad as it gives me some time off to rest. At the eleven o'clock session, the track is dried out so I roll up to the track entry. There are only about a dozen racers out on the west track and no street riders, so they send me out with the racers. For the first time I'm not worried about some squid taking out my back wheel and have an absolute gas riding the full race line.
Noon and the start of the sessions for the folks that only signed-up for the mid-day block sees about seventy street riders line up at the track entrance. It looks like a cluster-funk, so I decide to sit it out for an hour and save my energy for the end of the day when most people pack up to go home and the track is less crowded. It's the right move and I get some clearer track time.
Sunday the weather forecaster was right again - unfortunately. We had frontal winds come up around ten o'clock that were gusting to 40-50 mph. The plan had been to run the full 4.5 mile course on Sunday but it was decided that the winds made it too dangerous. The full course straight is over 3500 feet long, and you don't want to be getting knocked sideways at maximum speed!
This wasn't a great day for me. A fast sweeper called Dreamboat (turn W2) had the wind picking the front end up mid corner from the gusting. People were pretty much all over the place. Even Dave, my racer experienced teammate who ran through two sets of tyres in three days on his R1 decided to pack it in early.
In one of my last sessions, I'm cruising around taking a middle line doing a tyre warm-up lap when a rider pulls up in front of me and taps his tail indicating I should follow him. The instructors had said they might do this to help us with our lines. Well, okay. I figure my tyres are almost up to temperature so I tuck in and follow him. We proceed to do a lap in heavy traffic using the full racing line and I'm thinking, this is nuts. All four days they have been telling us to hold a middle entry line to allow faster racers around us safely. It wasn't until later that I spot the rider's leathers off track and realize it isn't an instructor but one of the racer owners of the Triumph of Salt Lake dealership who was on one of their 675s. He probably didn't realize I was doing a warm-up lap. Oh well...
And it was like that with a lot of the riders. While it wasn't a race per se, get a bunch of guys on a track and just try to stop them! There were maybe a dozen or so crashes over the course of four days, but nobody got hurt enough to require an ambulance. This is good!
So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I had a blast! Also, I won the bidding in the silent auction for a set of Dragon Supercorsas in super soft front and soft rear for $200! The private sessions with Ben and Eric Bostrom went for almost $1000 - out of my price range. It was fun watching them. It was also fun watching Jason Desalvo lay down a black stripe the length of the hot pit with the front end pointing skyward. Jessica Zalluski was there with her Kawasaki crew, Vincent Haskovich on Saturday, and a gaggle of other serious go-fast people.
And a final note on the 675 and my thoughts about it. This is my first real sports bike since I don't think the ergos on my Speed Triple qualify it as one, so I'm not very qualified to do a meaningful revue here, but... I loved this thing! No, really! It felt fantastic everywhere. A fellow rider with a GSX-R 600 told me I just blew past him on the straight out of the last hairpin. I never had any power band issues. I could take a second gear turn in third and hardly suffer on the drive out. If anything, this bike is way faster than the benign 600cc class learning ride I was expecting. The graduated shift lights are fantastic, especially when you're, ah...um, a bit busy with other little details like brake markers and apexes! The ergos fit my 5'-7" altitude challenged body perfect and hanging off was very secure. Traction and feel from the back end is fantastic - likely the result of the long swing arm.
Plus... It just looks fantastic!
Again, thanks to all for your donations and support. Here are a few photos. Not very good since my mind was more on riding than taking pictures. For higher resolution shots, go here to my favorite hangout;
www.triumph675.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2115
Comments
Looks like a blast!
Glad you made it through without a scratch. Looks like a fabulous time, except the wet weather the last few days. Now that you've prooved that old guys can still do it, come and show me how old guys do yardwork! Love trina