I\u2019ve been behind in my posts, so here the latest.<\/p>\n
Both the Track day and the races were held on the \u2018new\u2019 configuration. \u00a0There are things I really like about this config and things that I don\u2019t like, more so then with any other track.\u00a0 This config is bumpy, and it\u2019s bumpy enough in two spots that I struggle with my suspension set up.\u00a0 The two sections I struggle with are the stairway and the drive way.\u00a0 These are great names for the two sections of pavement that were added so we could have a different config to run.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 For me by the time I hit that last bump, my suspension sometimes bottoms out.\u00a0 Making the turn that follows (very quickly) after hard to complete in a non scary manner.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 If you hit it at the correct angle it\u2019s just really rough and it can bounce you off the bike.<\/p>\n
In May for Miller I had PJ\u2019s put stiffer springs in my forks, since I didn\u2019t have any preload left to put in and I was on the hard stop for each lap.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t feeling it bottom out under hard braking, but I usually don\u2019t brake that hard. \u00a0This is another whole issue that I\u2019ve bee working on for a while now (It\u2019s related to the pink tape on my instrument cluster),\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I will say it\u2019s getting better. \u00a0\u00a0With the stiffer springs I was able to for the first time in over a year run my fastest times on this config. \u00a0Not just one lap either, but consistently, I had races where all of the hot laps were within .6 of each other. \u00a0Unlike the last time I was able to put down my fastest lap last year. \u00a0It was only 1 lap and the rest were off by 1.2 seconds. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Best part no bottoming out!!<\/p>\n
That taken care of I was stoked for the races the next day. \u00a0Figuring I\u2019d be able to hit a new personal best. \u00a0That was until I had a \u2018moment in turn 3.\u00a0 I\u2019d just accelerated out of the north hairpin, rolled off the throttle and the bike popped out of gear, and I mean popped. \u00a0In the video (which doesn\u2019t look nearly as scary as it felt at the time)\u00a0 you can see the bike bounce.\u00a0 I thought for sure I was going to end up going off the track. \u00a0I literally pulled the bike over to get as much lean as I could, so the bike wouldn\u2019t run off the edge of the track. \u00a0I 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.\u00a0 It worked out, I stayed on the track, the bike stayed up right and I got it back into gear. \u00a0I did two more hot laps after that and then called it a day.<\/p>\n
The bike popping into neutral was an indicator of things to come for the races then next day.\u00a0 I struggled in 3 of the 4 races with that.\u00a0 I had great starts in every race only to bump the bike into neutral in the first turn. \u00a0It worried me that I was going to have people run into the back of me every time.\u00a0 I\u2019d lose multiple positions and then have to fight to get around people to make up spots.\u00a0 Not really my strong suit, I\u2019m far too polite in how I pass people. \u00a0So I didn\u2019t end up with very many good finishes, except for FF which I won and lapped the rest of the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been behind in my posts, so here the latest. Both the Track day and the races were held on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":833,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}