Track Time
Track time
LEANINGS
Peter Egan
“THIS IS THE LAST STRAW,” I SAID, hopping up and down while exhaling deeply and trying to zip up my racing leathers. “I gotta get in shape and lose some weight.”
It was a pretty pathetic sight. There I was at Willow Springs last winter, taking part in a 600cc sportbike comparison test, trying to shoehorn my 6-1, 192-pound frame into a set of leathers once sold to a guy who looked just like me but weighed 172 pounds. It was like trying to jam a cheap plastic rain-suit back into its pouch.
Once zipped into the leathers, however, I had a wonderful time on the track-my first such outing in many years-and returned home to the frozen tundra of Wisconsin with my jaw firmly set in new resolve to a) lose weight and b) buy myself a modern sportbike that would allow me to participate in various track days around the Midwest. The joys of the racetrack were back in my blood.
Part A of the Big Plan began that very month, at Daytona Bike Week, when I bought myself some new running shoes and began jogging again. I’ve been at it ever since, and am up to about 40 miles per week now. I’ve also been riding my bicycle a lot. I’m down to 167 pounds, feel great and am contemplating entering my first-ever marathon later this fall. More importantly, though, my leathers fit again.
Part B was realized when I sold my old bevel-drive Ducati 900SS and bought a new 996 a few months ago.
Okay. All dressed up in leathers that fit, armed with a new bike. Where to go?
“Why don’t you sign up for the Team Hammer Advanced Riding School & Track Ride,” my old touring buddy David Knox suggested over the phone. “It’s just before the Superbike races at Road America. A bunch of us from the Twin Cities do it every year, and then stay on for the race weekend. It’s a good school, and you get a lot of track time.”
Perfect. I called Team Hammer in Wildomar, California, and found myself talking to none other than Trudy Ulrich, wife of my old CW colleague John Ulrich. The Ulriches publish Roadracing World & Motorcycle Technology> and also manage the Team Hammer school. Trudy sent me a registration form, I sent in my $285 for the one-day school (track rides for graduates are $185) and I was set.
Well, almost. I still had to tape my headlight and all plastic lenses on the bike, take off the mirrors, fill a cooler with food and energy drinks, load everything into my van and show up at Elkhart Lake at 7 a.m. on a Wednesday morning.
I had expected a small tribe of students lost in the vastness of Road America’s park-like grounds, but the race weekend was already in full swing when I arrived, the paddock crowded with big Superbike team transporters and lots of privateers, many of them using the Hammer school to warm up or learn the circuit. Thirty students lined up to register for the school, 25 more signed up for the track-ride sessions.
I had also expected an eclectic mix of new and old motorcycles, but the vast majority were the latest Open-class track weapons: Yamaha Rls, Suzuki GSX-R750s, Honda 900RRs, Kawasaki ZX-9Rs, Ducati 916s and 996s. Seems most of the people who sign up for these advanced schools like to mix it up with their pals and are not interested in bringing up the distant rear.
My friends from the Twin Cities— David, Tony, Peter, Bob and Paulshowed up on almost exactly that mix of motorcycles. David had a new yellow 996 with carbon-fiber pipes and a computer chip. A fast, serious crowd. My bike, just barely broken-in, was still dead-stock.
David was right about the school; we did get a lot of track time. Five separate half-hour sessions, interspersed with classroom talks on technique and racing setup, taught by many-time WERA National Endurance champ Michael Martin and Team Hammer crew chief Keith Perry.
The track sessions started slow, building quickly to whatever speed we could stand, riding in groups of five, each with its own instructor. By the end of the day, our sessions were essentially chaparroned roadraces, flat-out-or as close as we could get to flat-out in our own minds. It’s quite humbling to think iyou’ve got a fast sweeper nailed and then have an instructor cruise by on the outside, looking back over his shoulder and gesturing to follow him.
You would feel worse, I suppose, if he were eating a sandwich.
Nevertheless, we ended the day highly pumped up, and glowing with that sense of satisfaction that comes from pushing harder than you thought you could. And not crashing. I collected my diploma, loaded my Ducati (tires nicely cooked to the edge of the tread), said goodbye to my Minnesota friends and motored home in my van with the A/C on high. It had been a very hot day-the kind where it takes two hapless bystanders to help peel off your soaked leathers. Even when they fit.
So. Was it worth all the months of running and riding and the $285?
Yes.
You learn many things at a track session, but I’ve always thought the most valuable gift of the racetrack is faith in your tires. Every year that I don’t ride on the track, my cornering lean angle gets about 2 degrees more upright and I start to forget just how hard you can lean on a good set of modern motorcycle tires.
The track brings it all back into focus. This renewed insight doesn’t necessarily make you ride faster on the street, but it lets you ride more safely because you have a better sense of how much traction is left in reserve. And there’s usually a lot more than you think.
Most of the crashes I’ve seen over the years (or almost had myself) have stemmed from a simple lack of belief. Halfway through a botched corner the rider says, “I can’t get out of this,” and subsequently gives up and crashes, as if surrendering to fate.
Track time makes you believe in your tires again. Especially the unused shiny parts, with those little rubber bristles on them.
