My Second Track day
I've done another track day. This time at Cadwell park on 4/6/2014. Here are my thoughts on the day.First the negatives, just to get them out of the way. A few of them are petty ;-)
- No Garages for the bikes or you. It was a rainy day and it would not have been nice without being taken in by friends
- No funky sticker. Donington Park had a groovy Thermal sticker for your bike which you could peel off as a keepsake, no such luck at this event.
- Having to roll your glove back and show a wrist band to prove you were in the group was a pain but probably understandable.
Now a few good points:
- What a stunningly epic track. I loved it. Much narrower than Donington Park but still top quality tarmac and a well crafted track. Took me 3 sessions to become comfortable with the weather, track layout and my tyres and then it was full on entertainment.
- The Marshalling seemed good, plenty of guys on and around the track and the one 'off' we had in the group was dealt with quickly and effectively.
The track day was arranged with MSV via an excellent bike school in Nottingham called Bike Torque. The guys there are not only supremo instructors but one is an ex racer and they are all deeply passionate about motorbikes. Needless to say the banter kept me amused, the support was terrific and there really was a lot of warmth and good laughs to be had.
My bike, a Fazer 600 (an astounding 93Db of awesome standard can), is not exactly a supersports, but then I'm nowhere near needing anything like that. It's reliable, plenty fast and the handling is superb. I've recently put some Road Pilot 3's on and the amount of grip I got in the wet was just staggering.
It's always interesting for a people watcher at these events. You have the bikers who go out in all weathers, the ones who only go out in the dry. There are the people with track bikes, super sport bikes and others, like me who have their day to day bikes. On this occasion I even saw a 2 stroke which left me behind in short order. I did find that a lot of riders were put off by the rain and their riding altered. In the later stages as the day and track dried out the number of bikes in a session rose from about 10 in the wet to about 20 in the dry.
In retrospect, reviewing my video footage, I was seriously slow. I look at the video and think why aren't you nailing it there etc but for a first time on the track I was satisfied with my improvement on sessions 4-7.
It was quite mentally tiring but not physically tiring. The substantial amount of food that Bike Torque fed me kept me concerned for any doctor who may have had reason to operate on me. However my day started at 6am and finished when I got home at 8pm. Excluding the track day I also rode from Bingham to Cadwell and then from Cadwell to Market Harborough so many miles were covered.
It was quite mentally tiring but not physically tiring. The substantial amount of food that Bike Torque fed me kept me concerned for any doctor who may have had reason to operate on me. However my day started at 6am and finished when I got home at 8pm. Excluding the track day I also rode from Bingham to Cadwell and then from Cadwell to Market Harborough so many miles were covered.
Other Notes
I was glad that I had my Aldi rain suit to go over my leathers. I would have been soaked to the bone otherwise and a cold may well have followed
I took:
- drivers license (both parts)
- indemnity form (provided on arrival)
- credit card, cash card (for emergencies and fuel...£1.60 a litre !)
- mobile phone (for mytracks, emergency calls, Facebook, Email and photos)
- SatNav (I'd rather have too much satnav than not enough)
- Drift HD mounted on my right hand side fairing and powered from the bike battery.
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
