Track Day Report: Mid-Ohio 9/23/2008

Track Map

I assume I've kept you all in suspense long enough. Time to hear less about politics and more about what really matters in life-- going really fast around a racetrack!

Tuesday, September 23rd was my third and final track day of the year at the famed Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course near Lexington, Ohio. The 15-turn, 2.4 mile course has a little bit of everything, from the amazingly fast back straight to the Esses, long corners, short corners, fast stuff, slow stuff, and quite a few blind and off-camber corners for good measure. It is certainly a track that can teach you a WHOLE lot about riding a motorcycle at speed.

Previous to this season's excursions to Mid-Ohio, I had only visited once previously, in 2006. I was still fairly new to track riding, and certainly didn't know much about what I was doing, so I bumbled along through the day and finished with a best lap time of 1:51.53. What I thought was reasonably quick then has suddenly become a rather placid warm up lap for me now! Such has been the pace of my progression as a rider this season.

On my first trip to Mid-Ohio this year on July 1st, I made immediate progress, besting my previous personal record in only the third session of the day. That afternoon, I arranged for someone to get some chase footage of me around the track, both to show me what I could be doing better, and to take home to show to family and friends. The resulting video can be found here. With the video bike behind me, I put my head down and started clicking off laps fairly well, dropping my times into the 1:47s by the end of the day.

Between that track day and the next at Mid-Ohio on August 12th, I had finally been able to upgrade my long-abused stock suspension. Thanks to Sportbike Track Gear I had a brand new Elka rear shock, and Matt Carr at Ducati Indianapolis had rebuilt my forks into something significantly more track-worthy. I felt I had reached the point where I was struggling to progress further, and this was partially due to a bike that wasn't giving me the feel, feedback and traction I needed, and was thus hurting my confidence. With these upgrades and increased determination, I dipped down to a 1:45.23, and more importantly, got the long-awaited bump into Advanced class.

[As a note, I was accompanied to this track day by my father, an aspiring (and might I add talented) photographer, whose work can be seen at the top of this page. He can be reached at f51gtracing@f51gtracing.com for future engagements. A further sampling of his work can be found on his SmugMug page.]

This track day was to be another joint venture between myself and my friend Paul, accompanied by our wives Jenny (his) and Katie (mine). Though to be honest, to simply say my wife comes along is completely untrue. Katie is the official Free Radical Racing coach, chef, nutritionist, photographer, pit crew, rig driver, cargo loader, logistician, mental health specialist, accountant, assistant mechanic and the founder and charter member of the Free Radical Fanclub. She's the reason the whole operation happens, and I owe every corner of every lap to her.

We arrived at the gate to the track just as the sun was coming up. Uncharacteristically, I had been nearly unable to sleep the night before at the hotel, for no apparent reason. Nonetheless, I didn't feel tired, and assumed (rightly) that adrenaline would carry me through the rest of the day.

We were one of the first few through the gate, and proceeded to hurry down to registration to get our garage number and begin setting up. Talk around the already-packed garage was that the morning sessions would find a rather slippery track, as overnight temperatures in the low 50s F and high relative humidity would leave quite a bit of dew on the track, despite the previous several days of clean, dry conditions. After the riders' meeting (and more warnings about slippery sections of the track), I consulted briefly with some of the faster riders I knew from previous track days, several of which said they'd be skipping the first session.

No matter to me-- I paid for track time, not to be a spectator! So I took to the track anyway. I had mounted up my first set of race tires, a set of Bridgestone BT-002 race-takeoffs, and was eager to try them out after only having the chance to briefly scrub them in on the street. The unfortunate thing about race tires is that they take longer to reach operating temperature than do street tires. Couple that with an already cold and damp track, and I found myself riding on what felt like marbles for the first couple laps of the opening session. Gradually, I started to get some heat into the tires, and five laps into the session I was finally able to get a little lean angle out of the bike, and brought my times down to the 1:44s immediately.

My goals for the day had been fairly conservative. I wanted to work primarily on consistency, being able to turn the same lap time over and over again, to prove to myself that I was reliably fast, not just fast on accident. As such, I spent the remainder of the morning and the first couple sessions of the afternoon turning 1:44s and :45s, but improving my lines and technique in various parts of the track. I was slightly unhappy that my lap times weren't falling on their own, but encouraged that I was starting to really understand how to put in a good clean lap, and repeat it at will.

Finally, at the insistence of Jeff, my friend who had shot the chase video for me previously, I went out with him and his two friends to "play". I am riding a 2004 Yamaha YZF-R6, a revolutionary middleweight bike for its time and still a very capapble track weapon, especially as I have it currently modified. Jeff rides the 2007 edition of the same model, and has the edge on brakes, acceleration, and suspension in that regard. His two friends were equipped with a Kawasaki ZX-10R and a Yamaha YZF-R1, both heavyweight horsepower giants more than capable of running away from me on any of Mid-Ohio's several fast straights.

I've played with 1000cc bikes before, so I knew the drill I would need to run in order to keep pace. Get every bit of corner speed I could out of my little 600, drive hard onto the straights, and brake like a man possessed at the end of them. That said, when we got out and started having fun, I didn't really feel like I was working hard. I was playing with them, as we fright-trained through slower traffic (wait, since when is there traffic slower than me?!), showing them my front wheel going into corners to let them know I was there, and trying new and inventive ways of passing where I could. I was pushing the bike harder than I ever had previously, but somehow it didn't feel like I was pushing. I came into the pits grinning from ear to ear (and sweating profusely), and was rewarded with a 1:42.98 on my lap timer!

Throughout the day, Paul had been progressing rapidly as well, and was trying to make the bump to join me in Advanced class by the end of the day. Finally, he had worked out a deal with one of the track coaches that the latter would follow him for the final Intermediate session, and if he rode well enough, let him ride in the last Advanced session immediately following. Paul rode well, the instructor gave his blessing, and Paul pulled up beside us to go out for the final Advanced session.

Being fairly satisfied with my progress on the day, and generally just intending to enjoy myself, I had decided to ride with Jeff and friends again, and just go have a bit of fun to close out the day. Jeff had said that he was going to take some video of his friend on the ZX-10R, and I intended to harass them mercilessly for the whole session! But then at the start of the warm-up lap, Paul (benefiting from the increased cold traction afforded by his street Pirellis) elbowed his way past the Kawasaki and took off. I laid back a bit, as my tires weren't yet up to temperature, and watched as Paul put his head down and charged off into the distance.

As my tires gave me their quiet signal that they were ready to go, I looked up to see Paul some several corners ahead of me. I muttered "oh hell no" in my helmet and put my head down as well. I made quick work of the ZX-10 in the back section of the track and went to work reeling in Paul, who rides an R6 very similar to my own. I proceeded to turn my two fastest laps of the day, a 1:41.81 and a 1:41.71 back-to-back, and found myself right on Paul's rear wheel as we entered Thunder Alley. I kept the throttle pinned through turn 12 and stuck my front wheel right up inside of him in 13, to let him know I was there. Now we could play! I didn't have the right position to actually complete the pass, but I intended to try it again on the brakes for turn 1. But to my surprise, as we came onto the front straight, he sat up and waved me by! Oh well... I spent the remainder of the session just having fun, tossing the bike around and wringing its neck like you can only at a big track like Mid-Ohio.

Paul and I both came back to the pits exhausted, but happy and satisfied with the day's work. I had dropped my times a full three and a half seconds, gained a whole lot of consistency, and gotten comfortable running the pace I was running. On the season, I dropped nearly 10 seconds from my lap times! And more importantly, I had a helluva lot of fun doing it! There are still several areas where I can improve at this track, namely in corner exits and ironing out my lines at the end of the esses, and I think improving those areas will net me some sub-1:40 lap times next season. Can't wait 'till spring!

~Cephas
THE FREE RADICAL