Track Day Report: Putnam Park 9/27/2008

Track Map

Swiftly following my breakthrough day at Mid-Ohio, Free Radical Racing loaded up the bikes again and set off for Putnam Park Road Course in Mt. Meridian, Indiana. The track day was being hosted by Cycle Options, an organization I normally don't choose to ride with because of their rather-- er, lax administration of their track days. But it was my last chance of the year to revisit the track where I got my start, and also the track I had left over a month ago with my tail between my legs, having scared myself senseless in a near-crash coming out of turn 10.

But I came ready to conquer this time, with a set of race tires still mounted on the bike, another in reserve, and my trick suspension bits freshly dialed in by Jason Etter of the Department of Suspension. I was riding a wave of confidence from my meteoric progress to-date, and had the added bonus of knowing that, this being the last track day of the season for me, I had very little to lose if I crashed the bike.

My wife's probably not all that happy to hear that last bit, come to think of it...

We arrived at the gate before dawn (a first for me), and yet there was already a considerable line to get in! After the usual ritual of setting up our pit area and drinking a Frappuccino during the rider's meeting, I made the executive decision to sit out the first session. At the rider's meeting, I had glanced over my shoulder to see a seemingly endless crowd of riders. Given my previous experience with Cycle Options, I decided to watch the first session and see how crowded the Advanced group would be, before I went out into it, and see if there were any riders I needed to be concerned with, from a safety aspect.

But not to worry, while the other two groups were packed chock-full of riders (and the track marshal wasn't even splitting them up as they went out on the track), the Advanced group was small enough, and everyone out there seemed to be riding fairly professionally. And riders coming in from their first sessions were reporting that the track was pretty grippy right from the start, which is always good news when you're running race tires without warmers.

I went out for the second session of the day (my first) and slowly felt my way back into the track and into my tires, and finished out the session turning one hot lap of a 1:23.86. Everything felt good, and I was highly impressed by the difference in the feel of my suspension since Jason had tweaked it at Mid-Ohio. Putnam is a significantly less smooth track, so suspension plays an even larger role in turning a fast lap. Properly tuned suspension can be worth its weight in gold at a bumpy track.

I went out one more time before lunch, working on settling into a rhythm, finding my braking and turn-in markers, and generally getting in the habit of turning clean laps. I settled right down into a groove, ending the session with a satsifying 1:22.29.

At any track, I've found it useful to mentally divide the track into its natural sections, and work on each of those sections individually to improve your lap times. It's easy for a rider to go into mental overload, especially as a newer rider or at a new track, trying to improve everything all at once. At Putnam Park, for instance, I take turns 1-2-3 as the first section, then 4-5-6, 7-8, and finally 9-10. Each of those sections will have individual aspects that I try to work on, but I never try to work on more than one section at a time, when I'm trying to lower my lap times. When I feel I've made progress in that section, I'll put it all together and see what it has netted me in my overall lap time.

The first session after lunch was quite productive for me, as I was able to put in 12 laps in a row, the most of any session all day, and really work hard on improving sections of my laps. I started pushing my brake marker deeper towards turn 1, which has been a perennial problem area for me. I was able to move that brake marker to the end of the rumble strip on the left side of the track, and then throw the bike into a tight line through the turn, still scrubbing off speed from the front tire. Having gotten what I wanted out of that section, I started working on opening the throttle earlier and harder exiting turn 4, to take advantage of all my new-found grip from my race tires. In that same section, I was working on carrying more speed into and through 5, and keeping the throttle open as far as I could through 6. (This is one of the secrets of Putnam that is often overlooked because if it's apparent ease, but a fast rider can make up GOBS of time here). I was fairly satisfied with my lines through 7-8 and 9-10, so I just spent the rest of the session committing my new-found lines to memory, and turned a 1:22.59 as my fastest lap. My lap average, though, had fallen considerably as I started to gain consistency, regardless of whatever traffic I was running into.

The next session, I started to put it all together, and to good effect. Directly after my warmup lap I put my head down and started pushing a bit, and was immediately in the mid- and low-22s. After sifting through some traffic, I got clear track for a lap and turned in my fastest lap to that point, a 1:21.41. The last time I had turned a lap in the 21s, I had nearly crashed doing it, so this was something of a milestone for me, and a testament to the awesome new Bridgestone rubber I was using.

At the start of the day, I had set a personal goal for myself of seeing a 1:19.xx. While not an incredible lap by any means, it would certainly represent an immense psychological triumph to be in the same "decade" as the really fast guys, who are running 1:15s or better. In my next to last session, I started really trying for that goal, and despite being hampered by traffic for much of the session, managed to claw my way down to a 1:20.88 on my last lap.

I was stoked! The bike felt good, I felt good, and I was, for the first time ever, leaving Randy and Daryl (who used to blow my doors off) behind me consistently. Turning 19s seemed perfectly attainable, all I needed was one more session and some clear track to do it.

I headed out for my last session with a single-minded sense of purpose, got out on the track, and went to business. I warmed up the tires aggressively, wanting to get every lap I could out of the session to try and make my goal happen. As I came onto the front straightaway at the end of my warmup lap, I did a swift inventory of all the things I needed to do right to make it a good lap, and then set about doing them.

Coming over the rise after the pit exit, I wound the bike out through 5th gear, wringing the throttle for all it was worth. I kept my head low, eyes just above the windscreen, and waited for my brake marker. Just as I came up to the rumblestrip on the left I popped up into the wind, getting on the brakes hard as the red and white stripes flashed by, clicking a couple downshifts and tipping the bike right towards the turn 1 apex. I dipped my shoulder in low, planting my knee on the ground just as I was trailing off the brakes, and scrubbed speed with the front tire over the ripples midway through the corner. Letting the bike drift back out to the left for just an instant and standing it up only slightly, I tossed it down on my right knee again, this time just picking up the throttle. Through the apex of turn 2, I got on the throttle with some aggression, picking the bike up for only a split second before dipping down to the right one more time for the turn 3 kink.

Rolling off the throttle just long enough to flop the bike over the other way, I tossed myself left into turn 4, dialing up as much throttle as I thought my rear tire would allow. I sucked the bike down hard to the left, my knee slider skittering over the pavement, my head and inside shoulder reaching for the rumble strip, as the power of the bike started to carry me wide again towards the right side of the track. Exiting the corner, I straightened up and tucked in at full throttle for just a second, drifting back to the left to set up for turn five. I stabbed the brakes momentarily at my previously chosen skid mark and barreled through five, squaring off the corner slightly to miss the bump in the middle line. No aggressive throttle yet, as the rumble strip at the exit rushed towards me menacingly. Standing the bike up just a bit as I got out of five, I opened the throttle hard and kept the bike headed right, to and through the apex of the turn 6 kink.

Keeping the throttle open as far and as long as my intestinal fortitude would allow, I clamped down hard on the binders for the "bus-stop" turn 7, hooking a downshift just as I was about to tip in. I slammed the bike down onto my right knee and looked for the apex, opening the throttle just as I crossed it and feeling the torque of the bike rocket me forward towards the exit. I stood the bike up just as I came to the rumble strip, short-shifted into 3rd gear and pounded the throttle to the stops for just an instant before braking for the long, left-hander that is turn 8. Settling into my well-practiced and proven line around 8, I apexed slightly late, grinding my knee slider over the inside rumble strip and rolling on the throttle smoothly as raised the bike back up and hurtled towards turns 9 and 10.

With the throttle pinned hard and the front tire just skimming the ground furtively, I set up to the left at the entrance of turn 9, just trail braking a bit and making sure I hit my apex as tight and soon enough to put me on the preferred line through the double-apex right that is the 9-10 complex. I settled the bike over onto my right knee and put in just enough throttle to settle out the chassis, letting myself drift out to the short rumble strip between 9 and 10. Sucking the bike back down into 10 I looked for the apex and started opening the throttle with a vengeance, waiting for any sign that the rear tire was going to let go. It didn't, I hit the apex and drive hard onto the straight, hitting my upshifts to 4th and 5th gears just right, at 15000 RPM.

I knew I had put in a fast lap. I knew just from the seat of my pants that it had to be my fastest lap I had put in all day, and I just couldn't wait to see what time I had pulled! So I broke my general rule, and looked down at my lap timer as I hurtled down the straight at 130 mph, and was greeted with... A BLANK SCREEN!?! A stream of obscenities not repeatable to my mild-mannered readers issued forth from my mouth, drowning out the scream of the bike and almost surprising even myself.

I tore back around the track, riding mad and sloppy, and went into the pits. I practically screeched to a stop next to the track marshal, and politely inquired what had happened to the lap timer beacon. He informed me that one of them had run out of batteries, and that the owner of the backup had packed his things and gone home. I wasn't all that thrilled to hear his answer, to say the least, but I wasn't going to waste pefectly good track time, so I set back out around the track and put in several rather determined laps, making quick work of several other bikes in the process. Those on hand who witnessed the last half of the session said that they were quite taken aback by my sudden aggression, particularly with my swift overtaking of a black R1 who was some distance ahead of me at my reentry to the track.

Despite the heartbreak of not really knowing whether I had broken into the 19s, I was somewhat content to know that at least those watching said I had gone much faster, and I had pushed the bike harder than almost ever before, and still not reached the limit of my new equipment. However, the circumstances of my final track session of the year have left me with a somewhat unrequited feeling, and the overwhelming desire to go back out and try it again. But for those of us in the Midwest, the season's over for awhile. The mornings are getting cold, the leaves are turning, and it's time to bed the bikes down for the long winter. Spring can't come soon enough!

~Cephas
THE FREE RADICAL