04.05.08
Days Of Thunderhill
For the last 10 months since moving to California I have been working on becoming a better motorcycle rider among other things. Since then I have done the following to make that happen:
To say the least I was feeling pretty prepared for the two day-weekend at Thunderhill Donn and I had reserved. Here is a nice video (not me 
)to give an idea of the course at speed:
Friday: We started to stack the odds in our favor by renting a truck instead of a trailer (much faster!), Got to Willows on Friday instead of getting up at 4am, and had time to walk several turns of the track on Friday particularly 1-5 and 11-15, as well as dropping off our bikes and staking out part of the canopy. After walking the track we went to dinner and had way too much food at a nice mexican restaurant that served gargantuan portions. We got back to the motel and tried to go to sleep. This didn’t happen to go well given my allergies and the room got quite warm. All told probably got about 4 hours of sleep!
Saturday: We both woke up before the alarm at 6:15 and started to get ready. After collecting all our equipment and we headed out to get breakfast and off to the track. Once getting to the track it was a mad dash to get everything ready: Tire pressures, Tech inspection, Riders meeting and to boot our group was up first to ride for the day! Unfortunatly Donn had forgotten his boots at the motel and had to head back to get them and I did the first session sighting laps.
The first couple laps were done as follow the leader under a yellow flag. This was a nice opportunity to re-aqaint myself with track riding. It felt pretty good although it was a bit cold probably about 50º. One of the things I noticed right away was after the session was the new tires warmed up real damn quick and were soft as hell! I had my suspension base-lined by Dave Moss from Catalyst suspension, since it had never been . Aparently the front and back weren’t quite doing the same thing and Dave quickly got that sorted. The second session felt pretty good and the I started testing the abilities of the tires a little more, but I just felt like was going faster but still just wandering over. This continued for the next couple sessions but it was nice to just get some track time in.
By noon, my knees were getting tired. Controlling your bike when riding at speed is done alot with your legs, it definitely time to hit the gym and do more squats! During the lunch break Donn and I stopped by GotBlueMilk to go check out our form. Ughhh, I needed to hang-off way more. Donn had talked about his helmet being close to the windscreen and then when I tried it in the nest session, it really helped clear up a couple things. I purposely had to put my butt right on the edge of the seat and kept my head down. This had the instant effect of looking through the corner better and finally dragging my knee (briefly). I had a nice “moment” when my shift linkage loosened up and as I tried to downshift for turn five I found no shifter! I headed in early and fixed it up and was back out. By the last session I was pooped! It was more about track time and then trying to relax and just get some seat time. Checking in with GotBLueMilk after the last session proved the adjusting my body position had significant effects. We headed back to the motel, picked up some supplies and here I am writing.
Looking forward to getting some sleep tonight and a nice fast day tomorrow with a focus on reference points and turn 14 and 15.
Here are some pretty flickr pics from the day mostly courtesy of GotBlueMilk:
