Track Day Report: Bumpy-Willow and a Little Turbulence Part 1

It's amazing what a few weeks of inactivity will do to you as a rider.  It felt like ages ago that I did the season-opener and as time rattled on slowly, it felt like an eternity before the next track day would come.  Finally it did, and as much as I was eager, optimistic, and motivated after the last date, I found myself sputtering on fumes.  In the time that had passed I had worked a little on getting the DRZ back together, and bought some new tires and levers for the R6 in hopes that the clutch issue would be resolved with aftermarket levers that might offset the leverage. Once I installed the levers, I found that everything changed and suddenly I had no clutch disengagement whatsoever, even with the lever pulled all the way in the rear wheel wasn't budging. Add to it that I had acquired a head cold last week and it wasn't quite as heel-clicks-and-badassery as it had been in the days immediately following that incredibly inspiring track day.  Luckily, at the last minute, things started clearing up.  One of my closest friends and trusted technical expert had made his way up from LA to help me get to the track day.  We spent the evening before working on bikes and trying to sort the issue (which even left him scratching his head).  There was some improvement and some was better than none so we went with it.

  I knew that if I didn't get any sleep on the night before this track day, I'd be seriously hurtin'. Since it had been 36 hours hours since I slept (damn insomnia), I threw some burgers on the grill, had a couple of beers with my friend and we went to bed early.  I almost immediately fell asleep but then woke up an hour later when the dog had to go out.  Then again an hour after that... and again... When the alarm went off at 5:45 I grimaced.  My eyes were dry and my brain was groggy.  It had been almost 6 hours since I last looked at the clock and I figured that with a good shower and an energy drink, I might be able to snap out of it. I drank the energy drink, we hit the road, and once at the track I prepped for my first session.  It was sunny, beautiful, and forecast to be in the 70s: perfect.

My enthusiasm and eagerness to get on on the track wasn't quite enough to pull my head out of the clouds.  I drank a RedBull and sat through the riders meeting trying to wake up by doing mental exercises in my head;  focusing on as many different factors of my immediate environment as possible - both peripheral and focal.  By the time the first session rolled around, I was actually pretty glad that it was mostly a sighting session.  The slow pace would give me some time to wake up the muscles and hopefully get the senses and processor into the groove. We went out, and I realized that the new brake lever was designed poorly.  Even at full adjustment it was still a good 3 inches from the clip-on which had my wrist cramping by the 3rd lap.  I shrugged it off, and started taking an inventory of things to adjust when I came back in.

Second session was a little better. The clutch was still weird as hell but I was more concerned about my focus. In my tired state, things felt so much more high-def than they usually do.Everything was brighter, louder, and more intense.  I was having trouble keeping my attention flowing smoothly and instead of scanning through corners, I found myself getting caught up in what seemed like a slow sequence of frames.  I felt tenser than usual so I tried to relax, smooth steady breathing, "meditate and find the flow."  The faster I went, the harder it was for my brain to keep up and when I came back in I was feeling discouraged at about a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10.

The next few sessions went a little better. Finding the sweet spot of the clutch and inputting my controls smoothly became my primary focus, followed by maintaining good body position and processing the feedback of the bike. Even in my tired state, I was still keeping pace with the fastest lap times of my last track day so it wasn't bad.

Wide awake in dreamland...

As the day went on and I cared less and less about whether or not I was destroying my clutch, I came to accept the fact that even in my abandon, I was learning some pretty key lessons...