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Okey dokey, It has been sniffed out that the schools in Denmark will be held in cooperation with RacingEvents.dk. Price is 3150DKK/level. Kai

Ollie, If you type in "clutchless downshift" the the Search box there in the upper right corner, you'll get 13 threads. The thread Clutchless Down Shifting? should give you what you're looking for. Kai

Ah! that's where the extra propulsion is coming from Kai

Cobie, I was pondering whether you wanted complimentary or complementary activities (Contraria sunt complementa)? Kai, in the philosophical corner

Wales (ie: UK) Kai

Just a sidenote here on the Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa 190/55 vs 180/55 size on a 5.5" 600cc rim: if you put a 190/55 on a 5.5" rim, you will be unable to use the very edge of the tire: Danish racer Thomas Rebien (whom I'm talking to from time to time) tried this on his YZF-R6 2008 last year in search of higher grip when fully leaned over, but found it did buy him anything. Thomas is a former winner of the German Yamaha R6-Cup and was by far the fastest Supersports guy not on Dunlops last year (only two other were faster than him by ~1-2 seconds; both on Dunlops NTecs).

Oh my god, really! That must have sounded amazing! Hmmm maybe the bike hire will be the only option then.... Don't give up yet - find someone who can do a correct noise measurement and get a reading. Maybe a trackday vendor or someone at the local racetrack? Bullet: yes, it sounded awesome going down the start/finish line at Lausitzring with the big stands echoing :D:D Kai

Mine was measured at 122dB @ 3/4 rpm, including a dB-killer that took 10dB out . The guy measuring it said he wasn't surprised, as most Yoshi's he had measured was significantly louder than, say, Akrapovic's. Like I said, I replaced it with stock and haven't looked back.

Hi Steve, Welcome aboard the forum. I had exactly the same question 2 years ago before attending on Silverstone South. I shot off an email to Silverstone's Enquiries email, and this is what they replied: My Yoshimura full-exhaust system was significantly above the limit, even with a dB-killer inserted so I ended up putting the standard exhaust back on and I haven't looked back since then (too many noise problems these days). Best regards, Kai

Glenn, I've been running Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa's for the last couple of seasons. The bluing is quite normal for the Supercorsa's and all other tires I've abused hard enough on the track - and yes, it's the additives that are getting heated up and start to "leak". As for the tech inspection to turn you away due to the bluing makes me wonder if they've got rocks in their heads - as long as you've got a decent thread depth, the tires should be good. Since this is in no way unique to the Pirelli's, maybe Steve can weigh in here? Kai

Excuse me while I geek out... Creating your own calibrated gauge shouldn't be that difficult - all it takes is a bit of ingenuity and knowledge of the ideal gas law: Pressure * Volume = n * R * Temperature. Take a tubular tank where you can connect your gauge in one end and be able to compress the air using a piston. First, vent the tank to atmospheric pressure. Then, Compress the air volume to 1/2 using the piston - and you have 2 bar (+/- the difference in atmospheric pressure, which isn't that much). Sure the compression will heat up the air a bit, but that's really marginal (Temperature is in Kelvin, so we're at ~300K to start out). There are 14.5 psi to 1 Bar. You should be able to make smaller volume compressions to have 2-3-4 points where you can calibrate your gauge to. So 1/2 volume = 2 Bar = 29 psi, 1/3 volume = 3 Bar = 43.5 psi. 14.5/20 volume = 20 psi. The rest is left as an exercise for the gentle reader Kai

Now why would the Traction Control (TC) cut the power to the rear wheel at all? - unless grossly mis-adjusted, the TC should only cut power in order to avoid the rear wheel from loosing (further) traction. So if the TC is cutting into the power, the rider has already fed too much power for the rear wheel to handle (at the particular lean angle). That would imply that you're not generating that roll-on that transfers about 10% of the weight back to the rear wheel, but much more. Would that be proper throttle control? I'd say no. Kai

Awesome - I'm already looking forward to this. Keep the details coming :-) Kai

I appreciate your belief in my abilities, but I wouldn't even qualify at the tail end of a rookie race here in Denmark. I'm just an engineer and a trackday junkie at the same time (dangerous). As for my local track-side tire rep, there is none (can't even find the name of the distributor on www.dunlop.dk!). I've certainly never seen one at the track days in Denmark/Sweden (makes sense, I'd say), and I don't recall seeing any at the Cup races last year either. Kai

I wasn't aware that I was asking a riding technique question ... But the soft tire question brings back an observation I had this summer with a Supercorsa SC0 rear (they don't come softer than that): I noticed that if I did not soften up the compression damping on the rear, I would be chewing up the soft tire pretty quickly. Sure enough, when reducing the compression damping, the tire started to heal up pretty quickly - although the rear would oscillate quite a bit when accelerating hard out of corners (with elevation/camber changes thrown in). I guess the reason is that the "hardness" of the tire must be followed by a similar suspension setup (ie soft-soft or hard-hard), in order to avoid forcing the tire or suspension, to be overloaded because the other part is too "hard". Steve - any comments here? Kai

Two questions: For the track day rider, going at the infamous 15 seconds off the winning pace, you say his feedback for grip is invalid. Do you mean that it's overall invalid, or just invalid as a reference for the gals and guys on the winning pace? - Surely the feedback or sensation that the rider gets is important to the rider her/him-self? Secondly, since the track day rider can usually use any compound, would it not make sense for said hapless track day rider to buy rear tires in the "Endurance" compound from a longevity/cost point of view? It's really hard to know "whichever compound works" if you haven't tried them, and last time I checked, the truck with Dunlop sponsored tires haven't stopped at my doorstep yet Thanks, Kai

Didn't you get a day off when mother was married too? Yeah, I remember. I was actually at Jersey at the time. Kai (showing my age here). As a penance, I'll go and ask Steve a real question.

Does that mean that the GP Racer are 'flimsy' and feel like they're searching for the right lean angle when turned in? I'm asking because I'm wondering if it's like the Metzeler Sportec M1 vs the M3's. I used to run M1's on my 2003 R1 and loved it, but when I got the M3's I was surprised because especially the front tire is much more pointed, which makes them quicker to turn, but they give the sensation that they're constantly changing the lean ever so slightly. Not comforting at all, although they have plenty of grip at my speeds. Kai

No, not me, Cobie. Like ozfirebalde, I don't know if the UK school has one. Bullet, Andy? Didn't see one when I was doing Level 3 & 4 at Silverstone in July 2009 Kai

Yes, it is possible. Takes a little more practice, than a single shift, though. As an example, you go from 6th to 2nd gear at the end of the 'flight straight' at the Scandinavian Raceway Anderstorp, and going down 2 gears at the time is not unusual there. Kai

For those who are running Pirelli tires, the Diablo Racer forum may be of value. Kai (hoping that I won't attract the unforgiving wrath of Steve and Cobie for this)

No responses so far, but I think I have located some local (ie: Danish) potential sources of Starlane Athon logfiles - people that I've actually met and 'raced' (read: met a trackdays) with previously. Googling on Starlane GPS laptimers brought up a user name of one Dylan Code. Do you know if he have one? Kai

Hi richinio, I'm not Steve, but he has previously explained that there are different tyres available in different parts of the world. But judging from the contents of the links, the tyre in the first link (Sportmax Q2) is a US tyre, while the second tyre (Qualifier II) is available in UK/Europe. Hope this helps, Kai

Apparently, guys like Matt Mladin and Niel Hodgson don't think that TC has made racing easier for them - but then again, they're getting paid to find those tenths and hundreds that we loose every other second ;-) Andy Ibbott told about him almost binning the S1000RR first time he was on track with it, because the ABS system wouldn't let him brake anywhere near the limits of traction on dry pavement, but in rain mode, coming up to a corner. Kai

Sorry, here's the link. Thanks. I've seen it "live" and while it looks very convincing, it seems like it's taking a lot of space up, even when disassembled for transport. Besides the ultra-cheap manual "machines" (like this), there's this one by GP503 in Germany (sorry, webpage is only available in german), with a nylon "head" that touches the wheel. Kai