Mallory Park - 17th April 2010

I'm booked in for the 17th of April with Focused Events at Mallory Park

Click here for info

My Trackday report:

Left home in the van for mallory at about 7:30am and arrived on circuit at about 8:15, so I had time to just sign on and get the bike out of the van, Usually by now something will have gone wrong so I would be running around like a headless chicken before the briefing started, but not this time, I even had time to get a chair out and basque in the lovely morning sunshine.

Got in for the briefing at 8:30 and listened to the same old jokes and looked on impatiently until it was over (As a note it was focused events and graham that gave the briefing, I have read complaints recently, but wont comment on that as I didnt have any real dealings with the bloke, but he seemed decent enough.) Listened to the waffle and got back to find the old man had sorted my tyre pressures and the warmers were already on. Jobs a good un, back to my chair then!

Watched the novices get released and then one of them ditched it at edwina's on the second lap of their first session, but after a quick turnaround we were formed up nicely in the pit lane. Feeling a bit more nervous than usual, as the last outing I had was last november when I broke my collarbone, putting that to the back of my mind, out I went and as soon as the sighting laps were over and we got to leave the pit lane of our own accord, the nerves were gone and I was left with a lovely big smile instead.
My first session ended abruptly when i noticed my temp gauge rising pretty badly, and started to notice some steam coming up the right hand side of the bike. Buggery. Into the pits and waited for a while for the rad to cool and then flushed it and re-filled it again. From what i gathered we had lost some water from a slightly loose water pump bolt, but refilling the rad again and making sure everything was tight, The tempreture settled and all seemed well again.

Next couple of sessions went well, Felt there was a fair bit of traffic at times getting in the way...



But it was tracktime nonetheless and I felt like i was getting my rhythm back again. After each session we noticed the overflow pipe from the radiator was steaming and i had small traces of water down the side of the fairing and on my boot, didnt think much of it at the time being a hot day and knowing that ZXR's sometimes struggle with the heat anyway.

The session before lunch started differently. I was near the front and i set off at a good pace. The track felt empty and i really managed to get my head down and get some solid quick laps in. Quick look at the laptimer after the session showed me a 1:03 which is the best recorded time I've had on my ZXR so i was pretty chuffed with that, again about halfway through the session the traffic came and after overtaking a group, someone decided to shaft me into edwina's leaving me nowhere but the run-off to go this lead to mistake number 1:
RED MIST.
Blazing up the lake esses and into the hairpin I overshot the braking point, Rear wheel was squirming which felt okay, But then all of a sudden we started to go into a longer slide. I present the evidence of mistake number two:



(To get the picture look at the front wheel and the handlebars)
This put a stopper to my session as i thought it best to come in and sort myself out, I've never lost my rag properly on the track before and felt a bit daft about it afterwards, but If I ride courtiously on a trackday, I just expect others too aswell.

After getting the bike into the pits again we notice a small drop of oil running down the side of the engine casing from one of the bolts. As I'm due to be racing next weekend had a quick call to my mechanic who advised me to call it a day, Leaving me to spend a lovely sunny afternoon carting my bike to my mechanic, just hoping she will be fit for next weekend.

I've blabbed on a fair amount here. I'll keep it shorter next time, At the start of the day I was worried my track day/racing bug had gone, but its back with a vengeance and biting at my wallet already.