Captains LOG Star Date 2018-5-27.28 Palmer Mass
I had a great weekend at the Palmer Mass track the last 2 days. Since my crash in August of 2016 I have only had time to ride my bike or any bike approx. 2 hours total along with 2 track days at NYST. This is not any type of excuse (joke away if you must) just the facts leading into this past weekend. I felt that my pace prior to my crash at Palmer was in the high end of the Yellow group (intermediate). When I went to the NYST track days, my skills were really "rusty" to say the least and I not only had significant issues with learning the track but also in even getting comfortable with my bike.
Thanks to several of the people on this forum, @
adouglas, AMisti, CSmith12, @
DannoXYZ, @
SpeedCraft, @
jrshooter and @
KikRox along with many others, I was able to find out why I was experiencing issues and correct them!
I can not place a value on the help I have received as a member of this forum.
Back to this weekend,
Sunday was wet and cold. I have Dunlop Q3's on my bike and have no experience with these tires other than dry and hot conditions. These are the same tires I was using when I crashed in turn 7 of the Palmer track in the clockwise direction. This weekend we were going counter-clockwise and this was my first time running the track in this direction, so we have unfamiliar track and conditions. I spent most of the Sunday just doing 3 or 4 laps per session learning the new track layout and worrying about losing traction from my tires. I ran really slow laps and could not find any confidence in the bike at all since I had no experience with the tries in cold/wet conditions. I managed to figure out most of the lines well enough but still could not bring myself to keep pace with the faster guys in the yellow group. I did not have any serious "moments" but there was always a "pucker factor" every time I leaned into a turn--especially the back to back #4/5 turn a tight "S" turn with negative camber, which was now down hill, wet and cold. Again--NOT AN EXCUSE--Just the facts.
Monday started wet but soon after the riders meeting the rain stopped and the drying began. I skipped the first wet session and just sat in my truck studying a track map with my lines traced onto it and doing "mental" laps. Once I finally was able to get out onto a mostly dry/drying track, I was able to run at approx. 85% of my best pace (in the opposite direction) from before my crash. This was a major accomplishment for me and actually exceeded my goal's for this trip!
Looking back onto the issues I had experienced at NYST I had not expected to do really well this weekend since I had still not been able to get in any seat time as practice. There is also another reason for me to consider this trip a success.
I had a couple of issues during the weekend which had me second guessing myself and adding to my lack of confidence. When I first started lapping a little faster on the first day, I noticed that the steering on my bike seemed to get really heavy and the bike did not want to turn anymore at some point. When exiting turn 7 (from opposite direction) there is an up hill with a turn just past the crest. I set for the turn early run up the hill and as I turned the momentum pulled me a little wider than I expected. I was drifting out towards the grass on the right ride of the track. I did not target fixate, I looked where I wanted to go and consciously pushed the left bar forward and pulled the right but the bike did not seem to come back as I would expect. I guessed that I must have just "fought" myself pushing on both bars and just not realizing it (counted it as an "SR"). Once the track fully dried out and heated up, I experienced similar issues when at near full lean trying to turn in more. I was unable to touch my knee down even when trying. The downhill scary turn 4/5 from Sunday was easily accomplished in third but as I tightened up the turn to hit the exit apex I still could not get the bike to turn more without lowering my body/dropping my head and shoulders further than normal. There were several other spots where I noticed this type of behavior but just marked it down as "SR'S" in my brain--Untill!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Once home, my wife came out to help me get the bike off of the truck and commented "why is your tire so flat?". I explained to her how I had slowly lowered the pressure down to 28PSI as my pace increased during the day. She said I did not understand and said the tire looked like a V not round like normal! I looked closely and the center tread was still nearly new depth yet from edge of the center to approx. 3/4" from the outer edge of the tire, the tread depth was less than 1/4"!! During the Palmer trip when I crashed, NYST and now Palmer reverse, I had worn down the tire to the point that when I was leaned over I could not go any further. This explains all my observed issues. #1 why the steering felt great then got heavy #2 why I could not further tighten turns, #3 why I could almost but not quite get my knee to touch!! New rubber should fix all these issues.
So I have now Babbled on for multiple paragraphs and should wrap it up. Studying the track map was the most critical thing I did all weekend. Knowing my lines allowed me to focus on finding the best reference points. Once I had all the reference points I needed to run full laps I was able to fine tune my riding from them and have a great day VS stumbling my way around the track trying to figure things out.
Please discuss, comment or even criticize for all to learn and benefit