George McConnel's RC51 BLOG
| Date: | June 3, 2007 |
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| Track: | Talladega Gran Prix Raceway |
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| Bike: | 2002 Honda RVT1000 (RC51) |
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| Weather: | Partly to mostly cloudy, high near 90. |
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| Sponsor: | Just me |
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| Conducted By: | Ed Bargy Racing School |
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Track Diagram |
The Talladega Gran Prix Raceway is designed to be run either clockwise or
counterclockwise. This weekend's event was conducted in a counterclockwise direction. The
redesigned track has been run in clockwise direction once since the repaving, owing to safety
concerns.
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This track day came available a few weeks ago, so I went ahead and signed up for it. I had
pressed my current set of Michelin Pilot Race tires into service at Talladega, Nashville
and Barber. The Talladega weekend even included a Solo 20 and half a practice day (3 sessions),
so the tires were ready to be discarded. I had considered pitching them after the Barber event
but cheapness won out and I left them on for this track day.
Hoping for pictures...
This is the first time I've ever done an event like this all by myself. Although I've gotten to
know many of the people who do track days with the WERA crowd, just about the only really familiar
face there was Dave Arkle. I drove down, stayed in the Econo Lodge that night, then arrived
at the track at about 7:15 or so. I set up my pop-up tent, unloaded the bike, registered,
grabbed the tech inspection card, got the bike through tech and was pretty much ready to go.
In tech I opted for the "intermediate" group rather than the "advanced" group. I elected not
to put my tire warmers on before the first session, but instead just to take it easy the first
couple of laps and then start riding 'em hard. That worked out pretty well, and after a lap or
two I was out there giving it whatever I had.
I think I can.. I think I can..
Interestingly enough, I honestly believe I was riding the track considerably faster this time
than I ever had before. I think that just relaxing and knowing that it was only a practice day
helped me not worry too much about close passes. This, in turn, left me free to give attention
to braking, setup and lines.
Feels different getting hung up behind slower riders
Riding in the intermediate group gave me a chance to ride with people who (for the most part)
were slightly slower than me, rather than the opposite. It was excellent experience
for a couple of reasons. First of all it was mentally good for me to get the positive mental
feedback that I was not the slowest rider out there. I really had been taking a mental beating
ever since crashing because everyone was passing me. Secondly, it afforded me an opportunity
to practice passing people, an art that requires practice. I didn't have motor on anyone
out there (except for one guy on a motard) because of my weight. I did get passed by the guy
on the motard once but managed to get past him on the next straight.
So for the most part I was just out there on this occasion working on one thing: Carrying
more speed into the corners. Because of this I was "better on the brakes" than most of the
guys I was riding with, which is where I did most of my overtaking maneuvers. I passed quite
a few people on the double 90's, which prompted a couple of them to come over to my pit and
ask for pointers. That was really cool. I tried to act like someone who'd given pointers
before and conceal my excitement that someone actually gave a rip about my opinion.
Unfortunately the battery in my lap timer was dead and I didn't have a spare, so I don't really
know what kind of times I was running, but I do know that the guys in the next pit were
slightly slower than me and one of them was riding in the 1:10's. That means I'm still
improving, as the best times I had done on (the revised) Tally before this session were in the
high 1:12's.
Each practice session went 15 minutes from "flag to flag". There were 3 groups (Novice,
Intermediate and Advanced), and the track clear/track crossings between each session would
take a few minutes each time, so we ended up running basically 3 sessions each hour, giving
me a chance to be on the track once each hour. Our third practice session, which was the
last one before lunch (at 11:00) got RED FLAGGED because of a
rider who highsided coming out of the Double 90's. He ended up landing on the inside of the
turn. At first they brought out the caution flags, which almost turned into a fiasco because
some of the riders evidently didn't know the difference between yellow and red. I was just
exiting the bowl when there was suddenly a wall of riders in front of me riding slow with
their hands in the air. A yellow flag was waving at the end of the "straight", which of
course meant a rider was down just around the next turn. It didn't mean "stop in the middle
of the track". It's a wonder there wasn't a major series of crashes because of that.
But moments later the red flag came out anyway, which settled the issue. We'd only gotten
about 4 laps in before the red flag, so they were going to continue our session as soon
as the ambulance was back off the track. As it turned out I opted not to go back out for
that session and just call it "lunch time". I was hungry anyway.
During the lunch break I took a long look at what was left of my rear tire and decided it
was just about gone. Actually, I was thinking it was already gone and just didn't know it
yet. I solicited the opinion of a wizened looking veteran rider in the next pit over and
he said he'd go ahead and run it until it started feeling "funny". I joked that at my
level of experience a tire feeling "funny" usually wasn't obvious until I was tumbling off
the bike. I decided that no matter what I was going to call it a day after two more
sessions.
So I went out for the first session after lunch and rode about 12 minutes before deciding to
come in. I think I probably only paid one lap for that decision as I was just getting the
bike onto the stands when the rest of my group came rolling in.
During my last session I only rode about 6 laps before I felt the rear tire slide a little
in the bowl. I rode hard through the Double 90's since I knew the right side of the tire was
still in pretty good shape, then wheeled on in and called it a day.
Most important lesson learned during this track day: Just keep it up ... I'm getting there!
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