I’ve been behind in my posts, so here the latest.
Both the Track day and the races were held on the ‘new’ configuration. There are things I really like about this config and things that I don’t like, more so then with any other track. This config is bumpy, and it’s bumpy enough in two spots that I struggle with my suspension set up. The two sections I struggle with are the stairway and the drive way. These are great names for the two sections of pavement that were added so we could have a different config to run. The stairway goes from the inner oval to the outer oval there are 3 bumps as you cross each one slightly larger then the last. For me by the time I hit that last bump, my suspension sometimes bottoms out. Making the turn that follows (very quickly) after hard to complete in a non scary manner. The driveway part is great, until you come back onto the oval, if you hit this wrong you catch air and end up way to the inside of the next turn. If you hit it at the correct angle it’s just really rough and it can bounce you off the bike.
In May for Miller I had PJ’s put stiffer springs in my forks, since I didn’t have any preload left to put in and I was on the hard stop for each lap. I wasn’t feeling it bottom out under hard braking, but I usually don’t brake that hard. This is another whole issue that I’ve bee working on for a while now (It’s related to the pink tape on my instrument cluster), I will say it’s getting better. With the stiffer springs I was able to for the first time in over a year run my fastest times on this config. Not just one lap either, but consistently, I had races where all of the hot laps were within .6 of each other. Unlike the last time I was able to put down my fastest lap last year. It was only 1 lap and the rest were off by 1.2 seconds. Best part no bottoming out!!
That taken care of I was stoked for the races the next day. Figuring I’d be able to hit a new personal best. That was until I had a ‘moment in turn 3. I’d just accelerated out of the north hairpin, rolled off the throttle and the bike popped out of gear, and I mean popped. In the video (which doesn’t look nearly as scary as it felt at the time) you can see the bike bounce. I thought for sure I was going to end up going off the track. I literally pulled the bike over to get as much lean as I could, so the bike wouldn’t run off the edge of the track. I dragged the toe of my boot through the corner, on a 675 that takes some doing too, I never touch my toes on the track. It worked out, I stayed on the track, the bike stayed up right and I got it back into gear. I did two more hot laps after that and then called it a day.
The bike popping into neutral was an indicator of things to come for the races then next day. I struggled in 3 of the 4 races with that. I had great starts in every race only to bump the bike into neutral in the first turn. It worried me that I was going to have people run into the back of me every time. I’d lose multiple positions and then have to fight to get around people to make up spots. Not really my strong suit, I’m far too polite in how I pass people. So I didn’t end up with very many good finishes, except for FF which I won and lapped the rest of the field.