GSS 7-28-12 Trackday

[cuong-nutz]

Zander (675Raisinator) and I were out at Grand Sport Speedway again yesterday brought to us by FastLine MCS. It was a sweltering 95+ degrees with a high humidity. The track was light since people here don't seem to like riding in the heat and humidity. The breeze that came in before noon was a godsend. My EZ UP canopy and gear was locked up in my GF's parents garage and I didn't have the key to get into their place but luckily, a friend let us pit with him at his trailer. Grand Sport Speedway has no covered paddocks and is open to the sun if you look a the pictures. The day prior, my clip master link broke on me Half of it was still on and the install was done a week prior and I had roughly 400 miles on it. So after work, I rode to Cycle Gear and picked up another clip master link and a can of PJ-1 Blue label Chain lube. I safety wired the clip master link and lube the chain.




I was riding Lightweight group while 675raisinator was riding in Intermediate which is a mix of advance and intermediate class riders. Of course, there's also a novice group too. I had ask Tim, one of the head honchos of Fastline if I should switch to intermediate to play with the bigger bikes, but he suggested I should stay in lightweight due to the closing speeds and I am really thankful I took his suggestion. I had a slight issue during registration since I was not on the roster for the trackday. I guess not Tim didn't let the folks doing the registration I was partaking in the event using my cornerworker credit.

First session was my warm-up session. I was running my street tire pressure which was 32 front and 35 rear with a 110 BT-16 front and a 150 S-20 rear just to give it a try. We were running Counter clockwise and it had been about a year since I ran it this way so I was still trying to learn the line again. About 2 laps in, my shifter knuckle bolt backs out so I can't shift. The night prior, I was testing fitting the rearsets I had gotten from Johnny (JP129) and forgotten to snug the bolt down. Zander happened to have a bag of misc nuts and bolts that he took off his bike so I found one that worked and I was out again. One lap back in, My damn shift rod backs out from the knuckle. I got it back in and snugged it down. I went ahead and dropped the tires press down to 25 front and I think 28 rear.

Unfortunately Zander's day ended quickly when he lowsided and bent his left side rearset. I offered him my X-Racing cruiser rearsets to use but they said they couldn't get installed because the lowside tweaked his frame. He found someone who was going to let him borrow their Rearset and somehow his shifter knuckle threads got stripped from the lowside so he was done for sure.

As the day progressed, it got hotter and hotter to the point to where I was the only one riding in the group on the track. LOL. I was noticeably getting faster and faster and found the limits of the rear shock. Crappy ass rebound!
There was a crack that filled in and covered with tar recently since I don't recall seeing it last time I was out at GSS. You know it's bad if satellite imaging picks it up!
I asked around and that crack/tar snake was giving people problems but nothing severe to cause an accident. I adjusted my line a few times and managed to scoot away from it.


A group of riders from MotoHouston came out for the parade laps and I followed them recording with my GoPro. Afterwards, I followed a little girl riding a fiddy out on the track. It was cool to watch!

I was doing a lot of knee puck and toe slider scraping to the point where I wore a hole in my leathers and ripped a toe puck loose. I had ingrained in my head that pucks were cheaper to replace than a lowside caused by my kickstand mount/switch. I found that the scraping was really slowing me down in the turns but also seemed like it helped me from lowsiding a few times when I started scraping pegs and the kickstand mount. Yeah, I still got them peg feelers on still.... or what's left of them




A guy riding Switch's old 250 came out in one session and I tried following him. He was holding a good lean without scraping anything so it gave me confidence that I can hold more lean and tuck my knees in more. Afterwards I saw he still had the kickstand mount on. Later on in the mock race, another rider on the bike went down. I wonder if the kickstand mount had to do anything with it. As I searched for the race line throughout the day, I found that I needed to late apex more than ever. I was early apexing which forced me to go wide and scrub a lot of speed. Not looking into the turns is a habit I still need to break.



By the end of the day, it looks like the BT-16 compound is a whole lot stickier than the S-20 but because of it it sacrifices tread life where the S20 seems to be less sticky but wear less. It could be just that I was running too low of a pressure.
rear S20


front BT-16



I think the crappy thing about the trackday was I got bitten by an ant or spider on my arm and had an allergic reaction. It must have crawled onto my suit or something. Luckily it was at the end of the day and I had finished all the sessions. I was going to attempt to join the novice session just before the CMRA licensing mock race but decided not to for safety.



Despite the heat, this trackday was the best experience I have had thus far since I got so much seat time and less people were out on the track! More focus on my riding abilities and bikes abilities! Mad props to the FastLine crew for putting together another great track day!

Videos and more pictures to come eventually

[jp129]

Sounds like you had a great time. I really need to visit GSS soon as I keep hearing such great things about this track.

Did the rearsets work out for you?

[675Raisinator]

nice write up man. I have a couple pics ill post up in a bit

[675Raisinator]

Here are some additional pics from this wknd. A nice shot of my left side of my bike when it used to be shiney. I went down at the end of the third session. Was able to dial in my new Penske rear shock a bit before the off. It happened very fast but after dwelling on it I think I lowsided at the exit of a left hand hairpin when I got on the gas hard and had not stood the bike up enough to exit. I am fairly confident that it was the rear that let go. My Bridgestone 003rs had seen a lot of action and too many heat cycles. This was to be my last track day on them. Needless to say I should have taken it easier crap tires. I spent the rest of the afternoon attempting to bend the frame back and patch together a working rear set and shift linkage. In the process I stripped a bolt on the shift knuckle and that ended my day. Coung is definetly progressing well and somehow manages to find speed with all those parts dragging lol.

Later today I am getting x-rays done on my wrist then depending on the results I will probably order some parts to get back out there. Definetly looking at new track tire options was not overly impressed with the Bridgestones.

[jp129]

How many events have you had on your tires?

[675Raisinator]

Originally Posted by jp129

How many events have you had on your tires?

this was my 6th track day on them I was planning to junk them after

[675Raisinator]

round 2

[675Raisinator]

I like this one

[cuz]

Originally Posted by 675Raisinator

I like this one

That suit makes ur ass look big.

[675Raisinator]

Originally Posted by cuz

That suit makes ur ass look big.

thanks man that caps off an otherwise terrible day

[cuz]

[cuong-nutz]

Originally Posted by jp129

Sounds like you had a great time. I really need to visit GSS soon as I keep hearing such great things about this track.

Did the rearsets work out for you?

Yeah it was a great time out there! I grew up in the heat and humidity so it doesn't bother me a bit as long as I keep the sweat off the eyes I didn't get to use the rearsets yet. I figured I'd give the stockers a try again and see how far I can go. For the next track day, I"ll probably have them on for sure just to save my toe sliders! I'm pretty confident now how far I can lean so I don't have to scrape the kickstand so much.

[csmith12]

Dood! Look what you did to your suit!

[cuong-nutz]

Originally Posted by csmith12

Dood! Look what you did to your suit!

Yeah I know! A patch of leather over it will fix it

[cuong-nutz]

quick vid I tossed together:

Link to original page on YouTube.

[csmith12]

Cool video!