Track day at VIR – session 3

April 22, 9:30 PMDC Motorcycle Travel ExaminerMark Poesch

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Back on the track, this time, with each group of eight bikes riding ahead of their instructor! 

Waiting on the grid, one of the pit crew came through with painter’s tape and taped over the speedometers on each bike.  The message was clear: focus on your riding, NOT on your speed!

It made some sense then, but in hind-sight it’s clear that it was a life saver:  No good comes from seeing your speed on the track, but there’s plenty of bad:

• Distracted: Hey, I’m going 115 MPH … oops!  (crash)
• Panicked: Holy shit, I’m going 115 MPH, I don’t think I can stop fast enough now!  …oh no!  (crash)
• Cocky: I can go faster than that; just 5 MPH more! …ack!  (crash)

I was second in line, so the instructor took a while to work his way up to me – and, coming from behind, I had no idea when he began to observe my riding.  Most of my laps were pretty good – reasonably quick, smooth, and accurate.  Now, we were matching or exceeding the pace shown in the video (turn 1 apex at 35 seconds, and 1:50):

My foot position on the pegs was good.  I was hitting the apex on each turn consistently, and in some cases running over the curbing.  Slower through turn 13, I was now consistently hitting that apex; although, I still wanted to ride through it harder than the bike would allow.  (Time to get out of the seat!)

When the instructor finally rode past me, he pointed out the apex on turn 5 which I had missed on a couple laps, and pointed to the left cone just past turn 7 to let me know to push harder and let the bike ride to the outside.  (The width of the track past turn 7 seemed like an enormous amount of space to work with, but additional speed would help use it up.)  Then, the thumbs-up and he was off to observe the rider ahead of me!

On my own, I was able to push up the speed, focus on hitting each apex and riding smoothly.  I was passed a couple of times, but only because I didn’t push too hard down the straights; letting more advanced riders get through so I wouldn’t hold them up through the turns.  With 168 HP from the four cylinder 1,000cc engine, it was really no challenge to outrun any bike on the track.  But, with only half a front brake, I wasn’t feeling too cocky.  In hind-sight, that was a good thing.

Post-session 3 training

The round of class began with a lesson on foot position.  Although it’s a very important lesson for the track, I was a bit surprised that a significant number of the riders didn’t have their feet in the right position.  Learned the easy way, you position the balls of your feet on the pegs close to the bike to keep them away from the ground.  The left toe moves forward only momentarily to shift; usually, while the bike is upright.  The right toe stays put; front brakes only.  Learned the hard way, you drag a toe through a turn, and your leg gets yanked behind you – one second you’re carving through the turn, the next your bike is riding off without you. 

With a bike in the room, we were also set up for something new:  Body position!  For now, just practicing getting our knee out.  No moving off the seat… yet.  One step at a time.

But, as a fan of Lee Parks’ book Total Control, I was anxious to practice getting out of the seat where it would really matter.  For me, now’s the time!

Meanwhile, back in the paddock, the first of the red and blue riders had gone down, and were nursing their bikes’ wounds.  (Fortunately, only the bikes seemed to be injured, so far.)  At least a couple went down:  a beautiful yellow Ducati 998 was now decorated with large splotches of white on the right slide after having low-sided and scuffed the faring pretty badly.  I believe I also saw at least one mangled right-side handlebar / brake lever.  Ouch!  Fortunately, all our bikes were in fine condition.

Next up, out on the track for session 4!

Catch the whole series:

• Track day as a journey to self-discovery
• Track day at VIR – first-hand report – the first warm-up laps
• Track day at VIR – session 2 – taking it up a notch; stay on the line!
• Track day at VIR – session 3 – out in front of the instructors
• Track day at VIR – session 4 – picking up the pace
• Track day at VIR – session 5 – the best session yet!
• Track day at VIR – session 6 – death of a gixxer
• Track day at VIR – session 7 - final session! – taking advantage of the run-off area!
• Track day at VIR – conclusion – confidence without discipline spells disaster
• Track day at VIR – epilogue – lessons learned on and off the track