Track day at VIR – session 7 - final session!

May 1, 5:12 PMDC Motorcycle Travel ExaminerMark Poesch

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The final set of laps are the quickest yet.   One of the more experienced riders in our group, Mike, zips past us in the straights and follows lines in the turns that we dare not follow.

On my own, I’m running more quickly with each lap, hitting my troubled turn 13 apex with reasonably good consistency, and accelerating faster through turns 14, 15 and 16.

Perhaps too fast on one lap as, in a split second, I find myself running out of turn 16 into the run-off area just prior to turn 1.  Hard to say if it was a lack of nerves, exhaustion, or excessive speed.  I’m just glad to be stopped safely, and able to look back to the pit boss for his “all clear” to jump back on the track.

With his OK, I accelerate into turn 1, and get back on the pace.  Although I’m a little more careful through turns 15 and 16 on the next lap, it seems that the momentary lapse is behind me.

Sweeping down to the right through turn 1, to the left through turn 2, up the hill to the right for turn 3, and then over the hill nearly straight through turn 4.  Down the front straight accelerating to 80 to 100 MPH then braking hard for turn 5 sweeping to the right for the late apex, then flipping the bike to the left side for turn six, heading up the hill and flipping the bike to the right for turn 7.  Accelerating hard out of turn 7, letting the bike drift to the far left side of the track, reaching 120 MPH  on the back “straight” after clipping the curbing for turn 8, then hard on the brakes for turn 9, tip-toeing right through turn 10, left turn 11, right turn 12 and then holding the line to clip turn 13, then on the throttle clipping left turn 14, knee out on the right for turn 15 and then left for turn 16.

We didn’t capture lap times.  But, the first 60 second lap in this video now looks very comfortable to me:

I’m hooked – I can’t wait for our next track day at VIR!

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