Ron Haslam Race School

I did the ‘Premier Course’ at the Ron Haslam Race School. Three twenty minute sessions on the  Donnington circuit  on a CBR600RR. One instructor for every two customers. It costs £295 which for the habitual trackday rider is going to seem quite dear but it's a different kind of experience.

The typical customer isn’t a trackday addict. In the initial briefing when asked what they hoped to get out of the day, 'go on be honest, do you want to get your knee down?' A forest of hands went up. It seems like quite a proportion of customers are using this as a way of dipping their toes into track-riding waters. I was paired with Adrian. He rides a ‘blade on the road has never been on a track before but a mate had done the Race School and told him he HAD to do it. Adrian wants to get his knee down. We quickly go through what the flags mean, what to expect and then off to the pitlane to be assigned to our instructors.

Our instructor Paul explains what we'll be doing over the three sessions, and how he'll be using hand signals to communicate with us and to other instructor/rider teams out on track. This way he can move our group offline allowing other teams to safely come by and then smoothly get us back onto the optimum line. Session one starts at a moderate pace with Adrian following and me bringing up the rear. The speed builds smoothly until we're motoring along nicely. Adrian might not have been on track before but he's clearly swift and confident. Paul's monitoring us both in his mirrors and he's also letting other instructors know what we're up to and we smoothly overtake a few teams. Likewise a few teams of Fireblade riders and instructors (one on one instruction on the 'Elite' course) pass us but as long as we follow Paul's lines we don't have to worry about overtaking or being overtaken - the system works really well and with a nice big racetrack and a modest number of bikes on track it all flows very well and we find lots of space to do our thing, we only really got held up for a couple of corners in one session before the instructors worked together to get us through. Mid way through the session Paul indicates that Adrian and I should swap positions and I get to follow.

It's my first time riding Donnington, and I've chosen a very good day. Hot and sunny and I'm having a ball. What a great track! We're going at a decent pace but Paul's doing that annoying Instructor thing of riding one-handed looking back over his shoulder, exchanging nods and waves with other instructors whilst keeping a smooth swift pace through the Craner Curves. Bastard. It's my first time riding a Supersport 600 of any kind but it's a modern Japanese IL4 and just does it's thing. We've been instructed to thrash the life out of it 'it's a Honda so you won't break it'. First impression is Jesus! This thing has NO engine braking whatsoever. Coming off a big twin I'm used to banging down a couple of cogs and hitting a brick wall, on this I just get a sewing machine noise and it runs on into the corner... brakes! Oh yeah must remember to thrash the tits off it. Yes. Now it perks up a bit.

We pull into pitlane and head into the garage for a debrief. Adrian is wide-eyed and beaming, he can't wait to tell us how amazingly good that was. I think we have a convert.

After tips on body positioning, corner entry speed, gear selection and all sorts of useful pointers Adrian's got a head full of things to think about before we go out again. Paul's got the measure of me... 'you live to get your knee down, you really enjoy it but you could actually get the bike back upright on the fat part of the tyre and be going a lot faster out of the corner'. Paul's a racer and for him anything that sacrifices progress is a crime. A crime against speed. Yeah... but it looks awesome...

The second session sees us circulating faster and I'm working on some tips Paul has given me for the run down through Craner Curves to the old hairpin. It works! Whould'a thunk it? Several thousand laps of this place and Paul knows a thing or two. Once more Adrian bounds off the bike brimming with superlatives. All the riders now have a final briefing to answer any questions we might have. Clearly this is a useful way for them to manage the our time whilst another cohort of riders are on track but it's all done in a very slick fashion. We drink from complimentary Ron Haslam branded bottles of water.

For our last session Paul has matched Adrian with another instructor and we're out as a pair. We lift the pace, I dig in and see what the Honda has got. It's fast. Very fast, but very wieldable. Extremely sensitive to what gear it's in though. The big twin has made me lazy, it'll drag itself out of corners in a low gear and thump away but the CBR needs to live in a very tight rev range to give it's best. As we go faster I get flustered and start to fluff some corners... wrong gear bouncing off the limiter going in or bogging down coming out... I need to relax, calm down and recalibrate. Still, we're scything past other teams out on track. I get my head together and it really starts to flow. This is superb. All to soon we're back in pitlane.

Adrian bounds over he's beaming again 'I got my knee down!' He's absolutely beside himself and already planning another visit.

From the inital greeting at Reception (the Race School seems to run on equal proportions of grizzled racers and chirpy middle-aged ladies from the midlands in branded swag) every aspect of the day is handled in a slick professional manner. You need only turn up and sign on and you'll be kitted out from head to toe in one-piece leathers, boots, gloves and an Arai lid* then directed towards a fuelled bike. Everything is taken care of. As I mentioned at the start of this ramble inveterate trackday riders might balk at the cost but to be fair when I pondered the outlay in leathers, lids, bikes, fuel, instructors, admin, et al I started to wonder how they make a profit at all. If you want to ride on track but have felt intimidated, or perhaps your bike isn't a typical trackday ride then this could be perfect for you - in the final debrief there were big grins all round and a half dozen proud knee-down neophytes certainly reckoned it a morning well spent. I worried that as a trackday regular I might find it all a bit stage-managed and slow but I enjoyed myself immensely. What a luxury to just turn up at a track, jump on a late model bike and thrash it round a track for a morning. I had so much fun I got back on my bike and thrashed it round Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire for a couple of hours. A good bike day

*you can wear your own kit if you prefer

Anglesey elevation

something I had to get out of my system

Anglesey September 22nd

What a summer! What an end of season closer! Had the pleasure of introducing a bunch of friends to Anglesey and she delivered in spades, arguably the best track in the country, definitely the best quality riding surface. Nature put on a great show the evening before with clouds boiling down of the snowdonia peaks as we walked the track. And then we were treated to absolutely perfect conditions for a blinding trackday. Love love love it. 

Fantasy Hauler

The track that taste forgot

Wherever evil occurs, when the downtrodden seek justice, THEY will be there...

Quick! To our PowerCycles!

2013 trackday season starts here!

Took a gamble on an early season trackday at a good price. Getting up at the crack of 'holy crap it's early and cold' we divided our time between reassuring each other that this early mist would soon 'burn off' and trying to open the doors on the van which were frozen shut. Ho ho. Still preferable to the hardy folk who'd decided to arrive the night before and sleep in the van. I'll take the warm bed and early start thanks. 

First time ever at Snetterton so I took the two sighting laps to try and find my way round. Slippy as hell and with an arctic blast I ducked in to the pits and decided to wait for things to dry off a bit. And Lo the sun did come out and we were mightily pleased, I even got a little sunburnt, or maybe it was arctic windblast? Either way it was very refreshing. 

   

Verdict. The circuit is fast as feck, I am not. Gradually working up a bit of speed here and there I was happy with the progress I was making, but there's no doubt that to go fast at Snetterton you need to take a couple of brave pills. It's awesomely fast. 









 all photos by FlatTel

Axis Fuel I love

I loves me a Jerry Can, oh yeah! Or should I say ich liebe einen Wehrmachtkanister? Great little article from Core77 on how one of my favourite pieces of industrial design is a typically clean well thought out piece of German engineering.

  
More information on the evolution of the design here.

Rockers pt2

Rockers

Anglesey May 26th

From the ridiculous (in the greatest possible way!) to the sublime... a chilly but fantastic Dirt Quake on the Enfield to a roasting Anglesey trackday with the PB Mag forum lot on the Aprilia a week later. I'd previously left Ty Croes circuit in an ambulance with a freshly busted collarbone but there were no nerves and unusually for me I went fast from the first session. Great conditions, awesome time on track followed by a bevvy or two and lots of stupid chat with mates. Perfect day.

Mountaineering

Peter Wileman photography

Cadwell Park 18/7/11

A grey and rainy start at Cadwell Park seemed an ideal opportunity to brighten things up with some bitchin' new leathers, and they must have worked as it dried up soon enough and conditions were great. Much to everybody's surprise.



Back to the black leathers for the afternoon sessions - pics by PB Mag forum member tonk who arrived on his stunning BMW HP2 and took some great pictures.




It took me some time to find a rhythm but when it came I had an absolute ball, although I suspect there is still plenty to learn about getting round Cadwell quickly.

The Splish Splash Show

Awake under canvas pitter pattering to the gentle beat of rain. The rain came and went throughout the day at Oulton leaving us with a paltry single session that had a drying line. Managed to scare myself and almost lose the front on a sighting lap - small consolation that when we viewed the incident footage from Mike's bike it did look quite scary and it wasn't just me getting the heebie jeebies.

This was confirmed when Mike manage to lose the front a couple of sessions later at the same spot and drop his bike. Luckily the damage was restricted to a slightly bent footpeg and bruised pride.

Oulton Park - fantastic, beautiful and challenging. Riding in the rain on road tyres, a pain in the arse. Next time. Still the folk who did have wet tyres seemed to enjoy themselves.

Rockingham 6/7/10

Some footage of me taken from Mike's blade. I expect he doesn't want get too close in case my leathers screw with the camera.

The way you look tonight

And a good time was had at Rockingham. Somewhat nervous about my first time back on track after breaking my collarbone at Anglesey eight weeks ago gently does it was the idea. It took the whole morning to get some semblance of mojo back especially braking into the two hairpins. Curiously looking at the Video VBOX playback between sessions revealed that although I felt I was really wussing out braking early and gingerly and then pootling through the corners in fact I was carrying pretty good speed... there's a lesson in there somewhere.


One unforeseen advantage of the new leathers is that it allowed swift identification... strangers walking up and saying 'you must be driverchris from the Performance Bikes forum' ha take that you trackday sheep in your cookie cutter Alpinestars and Dainese!


Sid from Lucky Shot reckons I'm showing off a Chris De Burgh tee-shirt. Get a grip man, I don't want to look like a twat do I?

Video footage coming soon.

new leathers

My usual trackday one-piece leathers took a bit of a beating at Anglesey. I reckon they could still serve with some judicious stitching and the application of strategic gaffa tape if I ever get round to trying short-track... but not really fit for circuit work.

And if you don't mind looking like an Australian's nightmare there are bargains a plenty out there on ebay, from those heady eighties days when flouro was all the go. These may be a crime against taste but the protection is top notch, and as a bonus I'm hoping that in the event of an off, like an incompatible organ transplant, the road will actually 'reject' me and I will skip harmlessly away.

Check out the dials on the arm. These I believe are 'testosterone meters', and as you can see, they're off the scale.

Silverstone trackday pics

impressive tool

One of the benefits of running datalogging on my bike during trackdays is the post match analysis... in the heat of the moment you can lose sight of what you're actually doing - so when you do something right it can be hard to know how, why, or how on earth to do it again. It's a tool that racers and teams have benefited from for a while now, I'm just lucky as a intermediate plodder to get some of that sweet sweet insight without laying out muchachos simoleons (I guess it's who you know :). Oh and it also settles who went faster on the day between you and your buddy *cough*.

The frankly awesome Circuit Tools now allows the data harvested by the Video VBOX to be expressed in multiple ways synchronised with the video playback so you can see exactly what's going on, compare laps and find those vital seconds (vital for bragging rights at the Dog & Hammer later on). Hopefully it'll also help me to keep the bugger upright and out of trouble for the next time.

This screenshot shows the point where I'm just about to take a gravelly excursion and the same moment on the previous lap where I managed to go round the corner without screwing up... the laps seem reasonably consistent, although on the wrong'un I'm slightly on the gas but mostly I got out of the brakes and then grabbed a gert handful - to the tune of 1.1g! Adding in trying to steer and that dog won't hunt monsignor, no sireebob. In fact on reflection I was lucky not to chuck it down the track in spectacular fashion, generous friends have suggested that this implies some measure of skill. More candid ones might suggest a skilled rider wouldn't make such a bollocks of it in the first place.

click for biggety

For more on the awesomeness that is Circuit Tools check out this vid showing just what can be done... mmmmm techpron....

Silverstone Arena GP Circuit April 22nd 2010

With the new infield section Silverstone is now 3.66 miles making it one of the longest circuits about - it's also very bloody quick! They've moved the grandstands back quite a way and filled in the gap with FIA spec kerbs (nasty looking buggers) extra run-off tarmac and oodles of kitty litter. The spectators loss is our gain though, it means they can get rid of the annoying bus stop chicane before the pitlane - Copse comes up v. quick indeed!
The down side of such a long lap for trackdays is that an incident on track can take a long time to clear - getting everybody off track at red flag pace can take 5-7 minutes easily so a 20min session can get eaten into sharpish.
It's still Silverstone - flat, windswept, wide and featureless and very dusty off line whilst still under construction - it's a shame they didn't/couldn't put in some kind of elevation changes that would have made it absolutely belting... ho hum.

Your intrepid reporter was determined to sample the full range of new appointments at the circuit though, so in the spirit of vigilant investigation I took a trip into a new gravel trap to discover if they work properly... I am happy to report they do (see the end of the video). Luckily with a push from a helpful marshal (thanks fella) I was able to return on track without ruining too much of the session for everybody






In conclusion - its a belter! I look forward to more visits, learning the track, going faster and staying on the black stuff.

Here's a view from the pitwall showing the extra run-off and gravel

Murdered out

The trackday bodywork is getting there, rocking the Max Rockatansky look at the moment a little battle-scarred but hard as fuck.





Fitting the crash protection now... they fit onto metal frames using the engine mounting bolts. Whilst I wait for the socket to arrive to tighten them properly it's worth reminding myself not to go for a short blast.


I've just booked the first trackday of the year on the new extended MotoGP track at Silverstone, can't wait.