Sof

Hey Pete! Good to see you on here. The trick is to spend all your free time posting on the forum in between using your wipes See you next week man! Cheers, Sof

Hey Guys, Just wondering how it went at Laguna? I hope it went well for everyone. Cheers, Sof

Opps my apologies. I meant turn 7 is my favorite! Turn 8 is fun too, but spooky how much lean you can get with the banking. Glad you had fun man

Too true Cobie. I look forward to the privilage of c/working again and only hope to help out better in the future both on and off track.

Comgrats on your weekend! I'm glad you enjoyed your riding and felt improvment and more confidence. Turn 8 is my favorite turn at the Streets. One of the few left handers where you can open it up. Hope to see you there again. There's more schooling there in just under 2 weeks

Trevor, that was an excellent weekend! Thanks for the invitation. I hope I did at least an OK job by your standards and look forward to helping out again very soon. I really kept my eyes peeled and tried to help the coaches out as much as possible. It was a tremendously positive learning experience. During the second day, I felt like I was corner working while riding on the track which was really fun. I felt kinda like the undercover agent . Next time I'll be even better as a corner worker. Thank you again guys.

Hey Trev, I'd like to participate. Perhaps this weekend? I'm working tomorrow and Friday, but the weekend would be sweet! Let me know what I have to do. Cheers, Sof

Nice vid man. Really enjoyed watching it. Congrats on your pb!

Hi Cobie, Just to let you know that I'm going to apply. That does give me some reassurance about what you said about the coaches not passing initially. Just out of curiosity, did you encourage them to try again and inform them what to focus on to improve? I really want to help so hopefully I have what it takes. Cheers, Sof

Great pics Fred. Thanks for posting them

I haven't read the article, but I did watch the interview with Jorge and Casey when the were asked about their 2009 Laguna crashes in the press conference after QP. They both said that they crashed "without throttle". If you have a subscription, you can view the video here: http://www.motogp.com/en/videos/2009/Loren...ress+conference . I would imagine that they would have already looked at the data gathered from their data loggers before they made those statements. However, what their idea of "without" throttle is could be our idea of too much acceleration! So it's hard to know what that means. At the extreme speeds and lean angles they're pushing, losing traction is like a hair away every corner! Also a vid of the crash if you have a subscription: http://www.motogp.com/en/videos/2009/Jorge...+in+Laguna+Seca . Pretty painful to watch.

Hi Mickey and welcome to the forum. Does your ninja icon mean you've been watching us for a while? Hope you enjoy it here. Look forward to reading more about you.

Mate, hahah, yes, I will try and do a school day next time at PI because Steve and the guys will keep me in check! I have some footage of some nice lines through Lukey too. Just got a bit too over my head that day . I checked out http://www.macpark.org/ and it looks cool but the onboard videos was under construction. I googled it but couldn't find anything onboard. Send me a link if you have one please. The R1 is a real pleasure at the island because you can really open it up in so many corners. I'm not shy to do it, but crashing there is usually high speed also! Remember Rossi's crash out of Southern Loop in QP last year? I wish I got the chance to ride a MotoGP bike. Those 990s were a dream; I came close last year to getting on Randy Mamola's two-seater Duke but it wasn't meant to be. Maybe I'll get to ride one of the real bikes someday. I met some real nice guys from Dorna last year at Indy, and saw Bret again in the Yamaha garage. It was cool of him to remember me from that ride day 4 years ago at PI. A real decent bloke if you ask me. I'll try and post the pics up in the pic thread sometime. I found them the other night Glad you enjoy your VTR. A friend of mine over there had one he loved so much. How did the RC feel? You rode it at the island I take it? Hey Cobie, will you guys be going back this Winter? If so, I'd love to coordinate with you and catch up over there. The cost of flights has gone down a great deal this year, even for Oz summer flights. Fish and chips, man I miss it. You're right about the flys, but did you wear one of those special hats with the dangling corks? I always cork myself in the eye with them

Hmm, I didn't realize. That's really cool to have more understanding about the turn points. I'd really like to hear that discussion between the coaches. I imagine that a deeper turn point might help more in the quick turn drill and a more shallow point might help in the hook turn scenario? I guess you have to find a happy compromise because you only draw them on the track once a day right? I had so much to think about on the track in my last school day that I only really tried to hit the points on the last session. That was actually my last session exercise, but it noticed that having a better line helped every other technique I was improving at the same time. Really cool stuff. Before I started learning any of these techniques, I was only ever thinking about my line!

Great thread Cobie. It's funny because I too noticed that it was so hot at the Streets a couple of weeks ago that I had really nice rear tire traction even in the first lap. By turn 8, the rear was nicely up to temp, but I did feel the front squirm under brakes for turn 9. This was during the end of the day. I had gradually started upping the pace of the first lap every session because of the the heat and increased sense of traction. I'm currently running some Bridgestone BT016 tires and I really like them. I was able to tell the tires were up to speed because I wasn't losing traction given the speeds I was going. What I always find very interesting in the MotoGP with the flag to flag rule is when the riders are racing on slicks and then it starts raining. It is always intriguing to watch the guys feeling their way through the every corner and how some riders are going so much faster than the others which can often be a totally different group of riders who were leading in the dry. It seems that the only way to find out where the edge is, is getting very close to it. And under those conditions, it is very tough to figure out where that limit is right away unless you have a "moment" or crash even. Rossi showed us this year at Le Mans where he wasn't too lucky, and Donnington where he did manage to recover. So it seems that experience helps a great deal in being able to know what sort of pace is suitable depending on the track and tire condition at that snapshot moment, but it doesn't mean that we can be certain our judgment is 100% correct. I have had experiences, that I would ordinarily be able to get away with while riding on nice warm tires, exaggerated to the point that they have caused me to crash on occasion with cold tires (like adding lean angle with throttle). So in doing the drills and improving my skills, it has helped to improve my riding even under much less than ideal circumstances. But in terms of feeling traction, I can certainly feel the difference between my tires gripping and sliding, but knowing where the boundary between the two is always a challenge. That's what makes cornering so intriguing for me. What would be great is if tires came with a temperature range chart... I have no idea what the optimal temperature range for my tires is sadly. However, I would love to know what it is.

Hey Cobie and thank you so much for replying. Your encouragement means a lot to me. I'll definately get the application is as soon as possible. As excited as I am, I know the road to being a CSS coach is a challenging one. I can't wait for the journey to begin.

Awesome Cobie. That is very helpful. It puts the video lap into perspective a lot better.

Thanks Lyle. That link worked great! I was reading through the application and yes, I would love to be able to give back to the school and other students by coaching. I will fill out the app this weekend and so should you!

Hi Cobie, I'm actually in Pasadena about 15 minutes from the SBK school office. Nothing is stopping me from signing up except not knowing the process. How do we start?

G'day Mate Three levels in three days and a 4th track day, WOW! I wouldn't have been able to walk after all that riding . Sorry about not understanding correctly, but under 2 minutes is pretty good at the Island regardless. Well done mate. What is Mt. Gambier like? I just did level 3 and 4 back to back at the Streets of Willow here in Cali. Was great fun, but nothing like PI! It's almost a bit like Broadford, except the runoff there sucks in a lot of places, especially crash corner where there's a ditch and a steep hill going up. I know people have passed away in that corner I wasn't too keen on that track, but it was still good experience. It's always inspirational to get on the track right after the pros. You're lucky to have that experience. I did a track day a PI in March of 2004 and it was just before the MotoGP were coming for testing. Actually most of the teams had already arrived. Their bikes were there even though the riders weren't, and I got to take some happy snaps in between sessions. I believe I still have some pics somewhere ; must post it up sometime. Yeah, Lukey is a tricky corner. I was pretty silly going into it too wide and off the racing line, the camber changes in that corner depending on the line you take. I would have known this earlier had I done the left side/ride side drill with the SBK school. Least to say, it was pretty dirty off the race line too, and I had cold tires. There are so many reasons I crashed there. Anthony Gobert was riding in my group that day too! Luckily, I was perfectly OK, but the bike is still in pieces. It is a bone stock 2004 R1. Poor thing ; I'd love to get it fixed up next visit and take her out for a spin. In the mean time, I'm lucky to have my R1 here which I've been careful with. This one was already broken when I bought it, but I spent a lot of time working on it to get her ridable again. So glad I did

Thanks Lyle. Hopefully, some day, we'll both be qualified. They lay those x's down in those particular spots for a reason. I have an inkling as to the reason it is different in this case, but I really want to know for sure so I can improve my lines and corner speed. Sometimes what I perceive to be the right line in my mind, isn't always the fastest line in reality. OK, almost always I get it wrong, but I practice a lot with this playing my MotoGP video game. One advantage of the game is that you can turn the "ideal" line "on" so that it is visible when you play, but sometimes I find I can get a bit more out of a corner by using the line as a reference and pushing the limits of the track on either side of the line. It would be pretty cool to connect the x's on the track with an arc so as to understand better how each corner connects to the next one. Hence, it would be wonderful to have the ideal/racing line drawn on the track instead of what I think it might be.

Always a pleasure mate Great to know about your experience with the SBK school and glad your friend converted. It was the same for me after I did level 1 at Laguna Seca, couldn't believe how much I learned. So you already did some decent times at the Island before you did the school, very nice. It would be great to see just how much those times have come down after the school. I am interested in comparing my times (and also the effort required) at the Island after I go back because I've done all the levels here in the US. Would be great to do level 4 at PI with Steve Brouggy. I did track days with him and had a blast. Around what time of year were you thinking of doing level 4? It would be great to see you there. I might even do it around Xmas time when hopefully going back to see the fam. Won't have a bike though, since my old track bike is still in the same state it was when I crashed it in Lukey Heights some years ago. It's been parked in storage and who knows what I'll have to do to get it running again since it's been so long. Will be a fun project though.

Hi Guys, I have a quick question about turn points and setting up the right line. Basically, I was watching the Streets of Willow Track Video in the videos section on this site, and saw that the turn point for turn 2 was in a very different position to where it was marked during the school day last weekend. I figure it was due to a different riding style and caliber of the riders, but what is really the ideal line through this section if you were going for the lap record? I'm really interested in knowing. Thanks, Sof

Hey Bullet and thanks for the great post! I really appreciate your insight and I can imagine how rewarding it is to be a coach. From my experiences as a student, I can tell that the coaches are enjoying it so much when I'm really getting a lot out of the session and absorbing everything I can. Maybe I'm a bit too enthusiastic! I was watching some onboard footage I took when my instructor zipped past me and indicated what I was doing wrong, and what I should be doing. I then made the adjustments which could be seen with my body position changing in the vid. It was really awesome. We had a great day. That's what would do it for me too. I'd get great satisfaction in seeing improvement from a student who wants to develop. I did some tutoring over time and found that to be the best feeling. Glad it's something you get to experience. I would imagine that your personal riding would improve tremendously with the fast guys you have to follow and the amount of track time you get. That's one of my problems right now in that I hardly ride on the street at all, and I only get to the track once in a while. I'm going to try and change that, but doing some coaching would be ideal. Thanks for the support mate. It is really great to have the network here. Maybe someday I'll come to Silverstone or Jerez and do some riding there. I have a British passport so I could even do some coaching there someday perhaps Would be great fun.