rchase

That's been my backup plan a few times. My big concern was not the track day itself. Being slightly jaded for speed and tired and then riding a long distance back home is ripe for tickets or an accident.

Something to consider as well that's often overlooked. I know of several individuals that ride with STT who have HUGE trailers and are always willing to help people out. Jump on the Forum for the particular trackday org that you want to ride with and see if you can make some friends. Gas money and help setting up always tends to sweeten the deal of course. If you don't have a tow capable vehicle you could always rent a pickup. A buddy and myself carried two 600cc bikes in the back of a Toyota Tundra. Just need a $100 ramp.

See what I mean SusanH BTW what kind of tires are available for the 250's? I run some really strange tires on my FZR400 and finding "the latest and greatest" compounds that are available for the bigger bikes is a bit of a challenge. Do they make Dunlop Q3's to fit 250's? Just curious. If I'm able to track down a 250rr one day I might need to have that filed away. It might be "slow" but nothing is more exciting than a 4cyl bike with a 20K redline.

P.S. Hotfoot one of the CSS coaches races 250's. If anybody has good advice about 250 specific stuff pertaining to racing it will be her.

Susan, What kind of tires are you running? That's an important factor to consider. Some of the higher end tires require warmers. Without them you risk shortened lifespan and even worse a loss of traction. Neither of those is much fun. Tire warmers allow you to have warm tires and be able to go "full attack" right out of the gate. If you are racing they give you a competitive advantage of not having to take it easy waiting for the tires to warm up. I have a set of warmers that came with one of my track bikes but I don't use them on either one because I am running DOT legal tires on both bikes. I don't mind the "take it easy" few laps to mentally prepare myself and allow the bike to slowly acclimate to the extra stress that's about to come it's way once I start climbing to the far end of the tach. But then again I'm doing track days rather than competitive events so warm up laps don't matter either way. A few of the colder days in October that I did trackdays I wished that I had brought the warmers. One morning it started out in the high 30's and warmed up to about 60 for the day. The first few sessions I did not have a lot of confidence in my tires because of the cold. You also have to consider your time and available power at the track. You have to put the warmers on the bike each time you return which requires you to put it up on stands (so you will need to invest in stands for front and rear if you don't have them). It takes a few extra minutes to install and remove them for each session so if your by yourself that's something to consider. When you are getting tired it's not a lot of fun to put the bike on stands and install and remove warmers between sessions. You also have to have a generator or power in the paddock to power them. The Last Barber trackday I did it took me about 20 minutes to hunt down a suitable parking space with power. I was not running my warmers but needed power since I was camping in my trailer. If your looking for a used set take a look here. http://weraclassifieds.com/

So this is an interesting topic. I use the school's technique of the 3 step to get through the turns if I can see all 3 elements of entry apex and exit. Once it becomes second nature you see an imaginary line through the turn in your mind. To answer the question presented though I know when I turn too late when I have to either make course corrections or if I end up in the wrong place on the exit. I experienced this in a panic situation on a wet track when I entered way too fast for conditions and was almost certain I was going to end up in the gravel when I missed my regular turn point. The entire corner was a kludge of adjustments and I had to lean the bike way farther over than I normally did to complete the turn. The real joy of "getting it right" is making a single steering input and having the bike effortlessly pass through the corner while you focus your attention on your exit throttle control.

Welcome to the forum. Absolutely gorgeous bike. It's nice to see people who appreciate the classics.

One of the trackday orgs that I ride with does 2up sessions in the last few sessions of the day. If you correctly adjust the sag on your suspension and have a particularly light passenger it's not too horrible. I have even been passed by 2up riders on much more powerful bikes. There's nothing quite like having the throttle completely pinned and watching two people on a much more powerful bike whizz by you on a straightaway.

Absolutely. Most trackday's are like a small village like feel with people loaning parts to neighbors and being helpful in general. People are SUPER friendly. I blew the clutch in my FZR400 to the parts graveyard in the sky powering out of the museum corner and had to return to the pit on the crash truck because I was dead in the water on the side of the track. When my neighbors saw my bike returning on the crash truck I got a LOT of people who walked long distances through the pit to make sure I was OK and to see if I needed any help. If it had been earlier in the day I'm sure they would have found a way to get me fixed.

I don't know of many trackday groups that require side stand removal. That's mostly a racing thing. They have triangle stands that are pretty cheap and simple to use to hold the bike up. I also notice pit walls are great to lean a bike against if you have to dismount near start finish. My R6 trackbike I recently purchased did not have a side stand and that was one of the first parts I bought. I'll throw these links out there for people who are interested. These are two very good trackday groups with dates all over the USA. http://www.sportbiketracktime.com/ http://www.nesba.com/ I have ridden with STT personally and they are great people. I'm going to be riding with NESBA soon next season as well to see if I like them slightly better. STT's Novice setup is slightly limiting to me but I don't really feel ready to jump groups until I work on a few things. STT does gear rental. Nothing pretty but it's been looked over and is safe. Lots of sizes and options...

I have read a bit about NESBA partnering with Yamaha to do exactly that. I'm not sure exactly how it works as I have yet to attend a NESBA event but they have some details on their website. http://www.nesba.com/yamaha-alliance/

For a while the big thing that kept me away from trackdays was the following list. Not anymore. 1. Bike Prep. It's actually quite simple in most cases. I have two bikes I could easily race now if I wanted with bellypans and full safety wire. For minimal prep most of the time you are looking at just changing your coolant to an approved one, taping the lights and adjusting tire pressures. You can take a bike out of the showroom and in 20 minutes be ready to head to the track with an investment of less than $20 for most Novice groups. 2. Transportation to the track. My first trackday I rented a Uhaul trailer for around $120 for the weekend. I have an enclosed trailer now. For minimal trackday transportation for around $99 you can pick up a hitch mounted single bike carrier and with a friend load a bike onto the back of your SUV and head to the track. 3. Perception of the culture at the track and being afraid to be the "slow one". Just do it and put that out of your mind. Most organizations are quite welcoming to new riders and provide a lot of coaching and help to new people. Just find one of the control riders and tell them your situation and they will bend over backwards to help you. They LIVE to help people and I have found that anybody with an orange jersey is passionate about helping. It's important to keep in mind that no one was born riding a motorcycle and had to start somewhere. Most of the trackday orgs structure their Novice group with new riders in mind and create a safe feeling environment without being restrictive. You can go as fast or as slow as you want.

Interesting topic. I have read a few times on many of the trackday forums people who prefer turning left or right. Figured I would share some of my own weirdness. I have a pretty pronounced visual defect with my left eye being a lot weaker than my right eye. To pass an FAA class A flight physical years ago I had to "cheat" with some special glasses as they require 20/20 vision in each eye and test individually. Left or right I have no preference turning wise even though my right eye provides most of my visual information in normal circumstances. The turning your head thing is really important and I found out the hard way. I was super nervous on a track day and was taking it easy and not going my fastest in my turn entries. One of the coaches grabbed me and mentioned what he was seeing. I was not looking into the turn. Once I made an effort to look into the turn it seemed to open the door to some amazingly quick entry speeds. Nerves make it amazingly simple to forget everything you know in an instant and revert back to some pretty horrid riding.

That's an awesome video.

I love the TT. What I find hugely appealing is the purity. A single rider battling the track itself and nothing else. While it is technically a road it's not much different than the Monaco Grand Prix where F1 cars are raced in very tight quarters with no run off areas. Some great footage of Aryton Senna at Monaco bending his car around the tight corners. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh6bwZ4ooTI

Hmmm. Good question. Strain gauges are used on quick shifters but those have a limited range of movement and are just used to tell the ECU when to stop the spark for the shift. You guys might want to get in contact with an engineering firm that does custom stuff. Here's a good start. There might be other options out there already. http://www.omega.com/prodinfo/StrainGages.html I think it would be interesting for you guys to equip the camera bike with strain gauges and an advanced telemetry system so both the riders and the coaches can "see" what's going on even better. There's a lot of telemetry systems that have g sensors, GPS's and can even talk to the bikes onboard computers to record lots of information. Prices are dropping on this stuff by the day as it's getting more popular.

I fought this battle with my FZR for a while. The stock seat was super slick and I slid around like crazy especially under hard braking. I eventually made my own seat but it was not without it's problems. I started with a stock seat base and stripped it down to the plastic pan. I then put thick race seat foam on the seat. It's far from pretty but it made some decent improvements. The only problem is the race seat foam grips leather like velcro. It took a lot more energy to move around on the bike because of the super grippy seat. The foam could be used to build up an area near the tank if desired. I placed foam on the rear tail of my bike because in the "locked in" position my butt was right up against the hard plastic. The only other problem with the foam that I have seen is it's not really very durable. Based on the visual wear I saw with just one trackday you probably would have to redo the seat every couple of seasons.

My version of fun? Any day I get to ride on the track and improve. Off the track any sunny wonderful day I get to spend time with my MV Agusta F4.

This guy is riding an FZR400. He seems to be doing ok for himself with the bigger bikes. Hopefully some day soon I'll be making a video like that of my own. If the track favors smaller bikes (lots of slow/medium speed corners) , sure. if vice versa, you are really out of luck. Which track? I would like to see the layout and give you a free assessment You do have a very valid point there. On a track with a particularly big bias towards straight sections the more powerful bike will likely be at an advantage. The closest track like that to me would be Road Atlanta. The back straight would be very difficult to make up for in the corners if you were comparing lap times between the bikes. Interestingly enough your original suggestion had been made to me by a few other people and I eventually ended up taking the advice. I bought an ex race R6. I'm just too stubborn to give up on a challenge. I will continue to ride the FZR400 occasionally until I learn it's quirks. My goal is really just to improve my skill set. Learning how to maximize the strengths of a "slow" bike is probably not the easiest way to go fast I certainly admit. It's about having fun for me. Hopefully some day I can terrorize some R1's and R6's with my 24 year old clunker.

Great video Eirik.

Why big bikes have to slow down in the corners and in other parts of the track? More mass typically means lower corner speed; the forces required to hold a heavier bike in a turn are higher: F=mA. (Lighter bike = faster through corners is a generalization, of course - a lightweight bike with terrible tires or lousy suspension would not necessarily get around a corner faster than a 600 with super grippy tires and great handling). Areas of the track that have tight transitions (corners 4-5-6 at Streets of Willow, for example) favor lightweight bikes because you can flick them side to side more easily and faster, and thus carry more speed through the whole section. As a personal example, my husband rides and races a BMW S1000rr, roughly 200 hp and 400-something pounds. I usually ride an MD250, 180 lbs and about 32 horsepower. We ride together at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana quite often; he leaves me in the dust on the two straightaways but I gain ground back through turns 3,5,6,7,8,9,10 and 11 and we ultimately turn almost exactly the same laptime. (We also turn similar laptimes when riding EQUAL bikes - but that is more fun because we can duke it out corner by corner, riding right together, which we can't do on the very unequal hp bikes; and this is the crux of Robert's issue, he can't really "ride with" the 600s and 1000s, he has to ride it differently to achieve similar laptimes. ) That's pretty much exactly the problem. In the corners the bike is quite lovely but on the straights even the older 600's pass me like I am standing still. My most enjoyable trackday so far was in the rain where the FZR's handling was absolutely amazing. The lack of traction leveled the playing field a bit and I had an absolute blast. Holy Moley Laura. I had no idea your bike weighted ONLY 180lbs. That's amazing. My FZR is a heavy pig in comparison to your bike even though it's about the same weight as many 250's.

This guy is riding an FZR400. He seems to be doing ok for himself with the bigger bikes. Hopefully some day soon I'll be making a video like that of my own.

That's pretty much exactly the advice I was looking for. The friend in this case is actually me. My big problem is I'm riding the little 400 like a more powerful bike and It's not really working well.

So I have "a friend" that's first time at the track was on an S1000RR where he learned a lot from a world class riding school. He then went out and bought an old Yamaha FZR400 to have some fun at local track days but soon was disappointing with the bike's lack of power and his inability to adjust to the different needs of the bike. Is there anybody out there that can provide some tips and tricks for maximizing the strengths of a bike that handles well but does not have a lot to offer in the horsepower department? My friend says his ego is taking a beating from having the throttle pinned (probably at the wrong time) and being passing fodder for everyone on the track. He even went out and bought a new bike to solve this problem but he's hard headed and eventually wants to have fun on the little bike.

Did the people who got it right help you back up off the ground? That would have been the nice thing to do.