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.
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.
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.
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?
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....
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
