Silverstone 20th April

Good to see everyone today, had a great day! Looking forward to the next one now enjoying a beer with Bombay mix.

MMm, just out of a nice hot bath to relax those muscles.

Absolute horrid journey home, had to filter pretty much the entire length of the M1. My arms and my thighs feel like jelly!

I'll update later or tomorrow, for now all I'll say is 1st Trackday, 3rd Session, Objective Completed!

Must eat and relax. I had no idea how bloody demanding this is! Either that or I'm just surprisingly unfit and weak. Although the northerners were complaining a bit too...

Nice to meet you all!

Sod it I'm well chuffed haha



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[Binky]

Back home, eaten and all beered up. Cracking day today. Probably the best track day i've done so far. The best i've ridden in a while too, so glad to be back in the groove after being **** slow at Oulton Park.

Nice to see everyone, cheers to everyone for tinkering help and tool borrowing. Can't wait for the next one. Looking forward to videos and photos already.

Like the one of you in a dress....................? BTW I always thought you were an old man (literally like late 40's/early 50's)...sorry.

[Binky]

Originally Posted by hongman

Like the one of you in a dress....................? BTW I always thought you were an old man (literally like late 40's/early 50's)...sorry.

Aw bless, I am at heart. It's great meeting people that you've known only online before. See how close your guess of appearence/personality are.

Interesting to see what you thought before you met me...

Did anyone catch the web address of the photo man?

[sandman]

I think this is the link but it says the website is under construction

http://www.hottrax-online.com/produc...1c14d5f398fc46

[Mr Speirs]

Report of the day preceedings.

So my day actually started the night before, a bunch of garages got broken into down my street so had a restless nights sleep involving me getting up every 2 hours to check my trailer was still there and my garage was still secure. Thankfully all was ok but it wasn't the best nights sleep I've ever had.

I got up early and started to load up the car with tools, paddock stands, leathers n stuff. Put the GSXR on the trailer and then removed the front wheel from my Hyper so I could get the tyre changed. This all went well until I noticed my trolley jack which is supposed to be good for 2 tonnes decided it couldn't hold the weight and slowly lost pressure, luckily I noticed before the side stand toppled the bike over against the wall. So had to drop the forks onto a platform made of bricks and a book. Actually worked quite well however this set me back meaning I didn't leave until about 7.50am.

So I departed for Silverstone stopping at the petrol station to fill my car and jerry cans for the bike. I then remembered I forgot my paper license so had to turn back. By this time I was getting frustrated as I didn't want to be rushing to get out on track. I ended up arriving at Silverstone to find the place full of bikes and vans but a distinct lack of people. The briefing had started, so parked the car and legged it over to try and catch the end of the breifing. Couldn't actually hear a thing as I was outside as it was so busy and there was a noisy air conditioning unit and some bloke on his phone.

Anyway get signed on and unload the bike and bits. Soon inters were called up and we headed out. My plan for the first session was to take it easy and try to follow Binky to try to copy and keep up with him.
Failed miserably, I managed to keep up for a little while but I am not too confident in traffic so Binky left me for dust. Never the less I had a real good session and it was great to get to know my GSXR a bit more. Knee downs were plentiful but by the end of the session my knee was hurting and my hips were aching. Essentially whilst I was getting my knee down I was striving to do it. Too little leaning of the bike and too much leaning off to achieve the stability of getting my knee down which makes me feel more confident. I decided in the next session I would try to lean the bike more so that I didnt have to strain so much to get off the bike to get it round the corner.

The second session was a blast, I went out 3rd in Inters, started out slowly trying to warm my tyres and too my surprise I hadn't yet been passed and I was bearing down on the guy in front of me. Passed him quite quickly and the next guy who was on a RSV was quite far ahead, so just buckled down and rode at my own pace. Caught up to him much quicker than I expected, he was quick out of corners and on the straights but not good on the brakes or going into corners. Got passed him and was dead chuffed that
A: I hadn't been passed
B: I was 'leading' the Inters group and catching up to the back markers
The second session ended and I was really pleased, I had started to lean the bike more but only on certain corners so was still suffering from the leaning off the bike too much aching.

Third session started out much the same as the second...except I went out with a bit more enthusiasm and passed the RSV rider during my warm up lap. I then was quickly left standing by some guy who was obviously using tyre warmers, on we go thinking I'm doing well and quickly become aware that there is a V-Twin bellow behind me...then a flash of blue and yellow to my right identifies Flymo trying to get past. I was doing okay but was aware I was holding him up in the slower corners, he got past and I rode in his tow for a little while seeing how far he was leaning the bike and trying to imitate him. This helped alot and a quickly started leaning the bike so far over that getting my comfort knee down required a lot less effort and I ended up doing it on every corner.
Still I ran into traffic and my lack of confidence in traffic had a few people catching me up and then their skill overtaking me and leaving me for dead.

The forth session was great and really got comfortable leaning the bike over and started entering corners so fast that my eyes were telling my brain 'waaaaaahhhhhhh way too fast' where as my brain was saying 'eerrrrrrr naaaaa I think we'll be alright'
It was copse that really changed my lap. Heading along the pits straight and reaching 140mph, jabbing the brakes on for half a second and banging it down a gear entering the corner in order of around 100mph, the same with Stowe, the corner looks tight but you just go in there quickly and somehow the apex pops out at you. It's great.
My bike was running Metzler Racetecs and they are awesome!! Really inspires confidence and not matter how hard I pushed I didn't have one moment the entire day.

After lunch the next two sessions were much the same as my fourth, getting quicker and quicker and hardly getting passed which made me feel good. One of the sessions was red flagged don't know why but it seemed to start a spate of red flags...all of which due to people running out of fuel....3 in the fast group!!

The last session was the winner for me though. Binky donned his dress and Speedplay cable tied his camera to the back of Binky's bike. Sensing the oppurtunity to get some camera time I thought I'd try to stick behind binky. We hung back to get out on the session and went for it. I was on binky's coat tails the entire session and was going faster than I had been all day, myself and binky must've passed 20-30 bikes, all clean I might add apart from one where the guy I overtook didn't realise I had over took him on the outside which put me on the apex of the next corner which he decided he wanted, so there was a near coming together but we both put our hands up and carried on.
Ended the session on a high feeling like I had accomplished a lot today and was exited to see some of the footage on the camera...only to find it had run out of battery!! Great!! Haha

Anyway great day, really really great.
Was good to put names to faces and see people again, I don't think I got round to everyone but none the less had a cracking day and can't wait til my next track day.

[flymo]

Originally Posted by Mr Speirs

Oh and none of us crashed...which was nice.

One of us came VERY close though

[sandman]

Here are a few pics

Well this is where we went


Just in case you didn't know