Track Day #3: 5 Seconds Faster, Still Not Enough!

Ahhhh track day…when everyone can be a racer in their own head, haha. As everyone who begins going to trackdays knows, you will eventually turn your streetbike into a trackbike and there it will remain in your garage until it is let out to run free again. 

As I have mentioned before, it is primarily Shawn’s fault (www.higbee-racing.com) and Dan Lo’s (from www.cornerspeedphoto.com) fault for the onslaught of buying parts.  I blame Shawn for exposing me to track day and soft compounds in the first place (THANK YOU!!! You may have my first born!) and for Dan for triggering me into buying my first set of bodywork which I had tried out earlier on the backroads and found I had indeed been enlightened. 

So with the help of Shawn in my garage, we started chucking needless parts like headlights, tailights, etc..  Also made suspension adjustments, bougth new Pirelli soft compounds, etc. Of course the bike  required modification of the OEM structure itself just because of the bodywork alone, i.e. hacksawing a portion of my tailsection off, making brackets for the belly pan to attach to, tapping holes, resituating the lean sensor, etc. etc. etc.  However, I am NOT Happy with the bodywork that I purchased. I have no idea which model in REALITY they used to make the mold but it seemed like a one size fits all for the Honda CBR. There were some oddities.  But that article will follow when I have time.  

But not to be a downer, this is about Track Day! Yay! So, we take off for Fontana and Shawn ia making fun of me (in a friendly manner) as to why I have all the junk in the rental truck. Canopy, rugs, stands, tire warmers, a cooler, a ramp, fuel cans, tools, tools and more tools, everything you would need to run an actual  race.  I told him simply because then I can be like every other wannabe racer at the track ;)

I am lucky that Fontana is less than an hour away. I don’t have to get up at dark thirty to get to a rider’s meeting like when we go to Willow.  SO we finally got there and a few other guys allowed us to share a garage. I felt bad for Shawn when we were driving around the paddock because a few people said stuff about the skull and crossbones and you know they thought it was his and were making fun of him being a guy in a 600 with a skull. But HA! It’s mine and I’m a girl and I could put a pink bow on it and use the girl card as an excuse. We are forgiven as a gender. 

Shawn wasn’t riding at Fontana that day. Although he did take Dave’s bike for a run to get some vid of me. Higbee on anything but a Buell? Say it ain’t so!  (Of course I have a pic)  So to get to the story, Shawn pitted for me. Um, well, he tried pitting for me. He had to be reminded how to pit, lol. His excuse was, “I have never pitted for anyone, give me a break.”  or “You don’t need your tire pressure checked every session!”  Yes, I do.  I am no different than any professional racer when I am on that track when it comes to gear importance. I don’t need it in my head  that I may have low pressure from a leak while going 100+. He understood. It worked out in the end. And I am only giving him a hard time as he did a lot for me. that day.

I felt like I was riding my ass off all day and I swear to you the best recorded time was 2:00.106.  WTF!!!  I was bonsaiing it every turn.  How can this be??  I know I felt I did better on the last session of the day (they always take your transponder before the last session) . But I have no way of knowing if I really did do better.  I looked back at my prior times and was told that was only my 3rd track day ever so my improvements were acceptable. Acceptable? I am over 30 seconds slower than Shawn.  This is not acceptable.

1st Trackday February 2, 2009 / Time: 2:13.510
2nd Trackday March 14, 2009 / Time: 15:55:30.4 3 2:05.283
3rd Trackday July 12, 2009 / Time: 15:58:05.6 7 2:00.106

But it was fun and that’s all that’s supposed to matter and I do feel I made pretty good progress on transitions–especially making turns 14 – 20. Turns 16-20 have now become one long turn for me with negligible corrections. I still hate turn 3.  [map: http://www.fastrackriders.com/tracks/cal-800.html]  it is worthy to note that we had to adjust my set-up a few times to help my bike transition for turn 1 because of the highspeeds coming out of the front straight. It seemed slow to flick and eventually it got better but still feels heavier to flick than last track day.  It shouldn’t be but the adjustments did alter the feeling in a negative way for this particular turn. I will figure it out eventually.

The modifications held up, the bodywork didn’t fall apart, but even with the wrap the pipes are truly overheating the crap out of my belly pan. S drilled holes in the front to help but we still need to make some mods to get it to cool down. It was actually bubbling my paint. That’s hot.  The belly pan is smaller than the OEM one so making it fit is not easy. 

So after a fun day of riding and visibly salt-stained Under Armor, I left elated and exhausted. And might I add planning a track day at Willow a few short weeks later. WillowTrackday Update: http://msxxfast.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/willow-springs-track-day-what-an-intimidating-track/

Yet Another Balloon Jump!

I needed some footage for a reel of mine and so when Jenn called me, I grabbed two spots (1 for Karen for video).  I decided to go in my skydiving gear because I was slider off on my BASE rig and was SO not wasting a packjob. Besides how often do I really jump a terminal object?  Not worth the change-out. So I invited Shawn along if he wanted to get up at 3:30 AM and go. He said yes so off we went!

Luckily there was an observer spot available so Shawn hitched a ride and took some cool video from the basket.  He had never been in a balloon so this was a cool opportunity. Although he said he felt pretty damn nervous watching people jump out when he himself had no rig on his back, lol! I feel ya! I hate being on a cliff with no rig, it completely freaks me out. You can see his concentration in the basket as I jump out.

We had the same jerk balloon pilot who always tries to rush us out. I miss Phil the balloon pilot. He gave us a ton of altitude and would take us to freaking Murrieta if necessary.  So as this new pilot grouchily rushed us out, Karen took over and basically took charge and gave him safety reasons, etc for reasons we were taking our time. Not to mention the sun was in the camera angle. She got him to turn the basket and through communication a 3 yr old, but clearly not this guy, would understand we finally were in position.

And I facked up the exit. As she was outside the basket and I gave the count, I looked at her below me and went headlow.  So instead of waiting for airspeed since I was all scorpioned over, I decided to do a front flip. Without enough airspeed I got caught on my back for a second HAHA!  So I flipped over and didn’t track off too hard because I was trying to stay with her.  Karen is a great photographer and videographer and skydiver. She can put herself anywhere and she is amazing.

But like I said, I am the one who screwed it up. So $225 for 3 flights later, that footage was scrapped. (But the stills were awesome!) Not to mention, my brake lines were taken in and I had to pull higher to test them out. Whew! They were a lot tighter and instead of the usual lift I had more planing and not being used to coming in as hot, with no wind and ”different” brake behavior, I wadded it. Great. But I did have the pleasure of watching a newbie balloon jumper pile in, sreaming in flight.   The idiot actually almost hit a chainlink fence so he instead he decided to front riser it and hook in–hard. He rolled for a while in a cloud of dust, jumped up and said “WOO HOOOO! That was f####g awesome!!” And repeatedly explained that this was his first balloon jump for about the next 2 hours if spoken to.

So, even the landing footage was scrapped. It wasn’t even fun because I was too busy trying to “work” and then we didn’t get the shot.  We met up with Shawn at the second lift site and then went to IHOP, as is customary, for some chicken florentine crepes! Now I just need to schedule yet another jump and try and get some footage again this time. Shawn did get a good pic of me tracking over the Freeway which was pretty cool. I’ll post it when I get a copy. Karen took the pics above and has had a lot of her work published. Again, she is amazing

Went Streetluging with X4 Today

After the shoot we all took off for a few runs in my area for some board time. Major fun and progress.  Can’t wait to hit Bonelli and hopefully Mary Hill with the girls this year. Here are some pics…