Kurosaki
November 25th, 2008, 12:31 PM
First off, thanks to Alex for adding this track sub-section. I can tell this is a really tight-knit and great forum.
Anyway, in this thread I'll post some pictures, the tracks I've been to, reviews of the bike's performance in the track environment, and anything else I can think of to jot down.
Just as a disclaimer, all of this is from my perspective only as a new rider. So keep that in mind when reading my opinions and such.:cool:
I'll start off by describing my feelings on the bike in general. First and foremost, it's an absolute great bike for the track no doubt about it. Not only for new riders but also experienced ones. The bike allows you to give all your focus to the racetrack, your lines, your body positioning, etc, without having to worry about things like giving the bike too much gas and spinning the tires, or coming into corners at super high speeds. Things like that. You can get on the throttle very early and pretty much crack the throttle all the way once you're in the turn. And it turns over almost effortlessly with some pressure on the bars and footpegs. The bike allows you to develop the fundamentals of riding before adding in other liabilities and variables like a super powerful engine and brakes. I found myself progressing throughout the day alot quicker than many other riders on 600s or 1000s because it's much easier to be confident with the 250 and what its capabilities which gives me a big boost in confidence to brake later, turn in fast, corner harder, and accelerate earlier.
I'll start some track reviews with my favorite track so far that I've been on out of the three.
The Streets of Willow Springs.
Streets is the 2nd course at Willow Springs International Raceway. It's a 1.7mile(if I remember right) course that is much more technical and slower speeds than the Willow Big track.
http://maxrev.net/Icons/streets.jpg
Streets was my 2nd track day so I already had a chance to get my feet wet and know what riding at the track is all about. My first thoughts about this track is that it is a fantastic environment for a bike like ours that is light and easily steered from side to side. Many of the turns here require you to go from full lean on one side to full lean on the other side the next moment. So being able to get the bike turned over without much effort is important here not only to keep your speed and racing line but also it doesn't beat you up physically as much.
I'll describe the track turn by turn to start with. You can look at the picture and count the turns.
The front straightaway on this track, as you see at the bottom of the picture above the pits, is not so fast. I don't think I bothered to even shift into 6th gear at all.
-After the front straight, there's a slight bend to the right which is turn 1. You can basically blast right through this turn without backing off the throttle at all. It's a little intimidating at first. But once you get the turn in your head, it's a really good feeling because alot of people on larger bikes tend to back off a little there because they're carrying alot more speed so I was able to make passes right there sometimes
-Turn 2 is a little scary at first because it's pretty tight and you have to remember that after carrying all your speed through turn 1. This is where I was the hardest on the brakes, bleeding off speed to make turn 2 without cooking it too hot into there. I downshift to 3rd I believe for this turn.
-Turn 3 is easier than 2 for me because it's not as tight and I'm not carrying nearly as much speed into this left hander. I took this in 5th I think because I was finding that 1 gear lower had me running out of RPM too early while accelerating out of the turn.
-Turn 4 is a tight short little right that doesn't require as much speed reduction as I first thought because as soon as you apex it, the turn opens right back up.
-The next set of esses are pretty much straight forward and WOT
-The turn at the top is called the bowl turn because it's a big sweeper and it's also banked pretty high. It took me awhile to get comfortable here because you feel you can go into the turn alot deeper than normal which had me scraping my boot or footpeg a few times.
-After coming out of the bowl turn, there's a short back straight which leads to a short group of esses. The esses are a little scary because they are a little hard to see coming out of the bowl which makes it a little difficult to judge what speed you should go through there. After a couple sessions, I was able to get more comfortable but still took it easy for the most part.
-The turn is a quick left followed by a right, and another quick left. That leads out to the skidpad, which you can see labled in the picture. This turn is a little weird because you have to sort of make your own line that works for you. And it's very bumpy. I was finding that it's best to run wide out onto the skidpad, then dive back onto the straight to carry as much speed as possible on the little 250.
And that's a lap at Streets. It's a lot of work and it's easy to get fatigued because there's not anywhere to really relax long enough.
Here are some pictures from this day. Most of these are taken in the Bowl Turn I described.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/3011369856_1b5654f370.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/3010533537_266708861b.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/CP3_3900.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/CP3_5303.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/CP3_5452.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/CP3_3842.jpg
At the end of the day, the biggest thing I wanted to keep working on is my body positioning on the bike. Form can vary from rider to rider but I notice with this bike and the bars being so high, you really have to exaggerate what you do. When I feel like I'm putting my head down really low, it's not as much as I thought because the height of the bars. Also, the footpegs are pretty low so if I go into a turn fast and deep, either my foot or peg will touch down every now and then. I know this has to do with my form as well so it's just one of the things on the list to work on. I'm hoping that aftermarket clipons will become available for us over winter and I'll be investing in rearsets too to help out with ground clearance.
OK, that's all for now.
Sorry for the long winded post. :D I'll post up another track in a little bit.
Anyway, in this thread I'll post some pictures, the tracks I've been to, reviews of the bike's performance in the track environment, and anything else I can think of to jot down.
Just as a disclaimer, all of this is from my perspective only as a new rider. So keep that in mind when reading my opinions and such.:cool:
I'll start off by describing my feelings on the bike in general. First and foremost, it's an absolute great bike for the track no doubt about it. Not only for new riders but also experienced ones. The bike allows you to give all your focus to the racetrack, your lines, your body positioning, etc, without having to worry about things like giving the bike too much gas and spinning the tires, or coming into corners at super high speeds. Things like that. You can get on the throttle very early and pretty much crack the throttle all the way once you're in the turn. And it turns over almost effortlessly with some pressure on the bars and footpegs. The bike allows you to develop the fundamentals of riding before adding in other liabilities and variables like a super powerful engine and brakes. I found myself progressing throughout the day alot quicker than many other riders on 600s or 1000s because it's much easier to be confident with the 250 and what its capabilities which gives me a big boost in confidence to brake later, turn in fast, corner harder, and accelerate earlier.
I'll start some track reviews with my favorite track so far that I've been on out of the three.
The Streets of Willow Springs.
Streets is the 2nd course at Willow Springs International Raceway. It's a 1.7mile(if I remember right) course that is much more technical and slower speeds than the Willow Big track.
http://maxrev.net/Icons/streets.jpg
Streets was my 2nd track day so I already had a chance to get my feet wet and know what riding at the track is all about. My first thoughts about this track is that it is a fantastic environment for a bike like ours that is light and easily steered from side to side. Many of the turns here require you to go from full lean on one side to full lean on the other side the next moment. So being able to get the bike turned over without much effort is important here not only to keep your speed and racing line but also it doesn't beat you up physically as much.
I'll describe the track turn by turn to start with. You can look at the picture and count the turns.
The front straightaway on this track, as you see at the bottom of the picture above the pits, is not so fast. I don't think I bothered to even shift into 6th gear at all.
-After the front straight, there's a slight bend to the right which is turn 1. You can basically blast right through this turn without backing off the throttle at all. It's a little intimidating at first. But once you get the turn in your head, it's a really good feeling because alot of people on larger bikes tend to back off a little there because they're carrying alot more speed so I was able to make passes right there sometimes
-Turn 2 is a little scary at first because it's pretty tight and you have to remember that after carrying all your speed through turn 1. This is where I was the hardest on the brakes, bleeding off speed to make turn 2 without cooking it too hot into there. I downshift to 3rd I believe for this turn.
-Turn 3 is easier than 2 for me because it's not as tight and I'm not carrying nearly as much speed into this left hander. I took this in 5th I think because I was finding that 1 gear lower had me running out of RPM too early while accelerating out of the turn.
-Turn 4 is a tight short little right that doesn't require as much speed reduction as I first thought because as soon as you apex it, the turn opens right back up.
-The next set of esses are pretty much straight forward and WOT
-The turn at the top is called the bowl turn because it's a big sweeper and it's also banked pretty high. It took me awhile to get comfortable here because you feel you can go into the turn alot deeper than normal which had me scraping my boot or footpeg a few times.
-After coming out of the bowl turn, there's a short back straight which leads to a short group of esses. The esses are a little scary because they are a little hard to see coming out of the bowl which makes it a little difficult to judge what speed you should go through there. After a couple sessions, I was able to get more comfortable but still took it easy for the most part.
-The turn is a quick left followed by a right, and another quick left. That leads out to the skidpad, which you can see labled in the picture. This turn is a little weird because you have to sort of make your own line that works for you. And it's very bumpy. I was finding that it's best to run wide out onto the skidpad, then dive back onto the straight to carry as much speed as possible on the little 250.
And that's a lap at Streets. It's a lot of work and it's easy to get fatigued because there's not anywhere to really relax long enough.
Here are some pictures from this day. Most of these are taken in the Bowl Turn I described.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/3011369856_1b5654f370.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/3010533537_266708861b.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/CP3_3900.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/CP3_5303.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/CP3_5452.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/Turbo-Joe/SOW%2010-31-08/CP3_3842.jpg
At the end of the day, the biggest thing I wanted to keep working on is my body positioning on the bike. Form can vary from rider to rider but I notice with this bike and the bars being so high, you really have to exaggerate what you do. When I feel like I'm putting my head down really low, it's not as much as I thought because the height of the bars. Also, the footpegs are pretty low so if I go into a turn fast and deep, either my foot or peg will touch down every now and then. I know this has to do with my form as well so it's just one of the things on the list to work on. I'm hoping that aftermarket clipons will become available for us over winter and I'll be investing in rearsets too to help out with ground clearance.
OK, that's all for now.
Sorry for the long winded post. :D I'll post up another track in a little bit.