jontflesh
06-30-2003, 06:32 PM
Hey all!!!! Welcome the newest racer to the site!
Jon T. Flesh, Novice # 241
:bounce:
Yup went through the class, did not go down, and had one fuggen GREAT TIME!!!!!!
It was my first track experience, my first racing experience (besides being a spectator), and my first REAL sportbike experience. Yup, any of you who have not been on the track do not know crap lol. Nothing can compare to what Saturday was full of.
Anywhoo let me start this out right.
I would not have gotten the guts to take this class if it were not for Glenn aka MRA Racer 157 on here and also an instructor, Ytry, MIlehighGSXR pushing me to do it. I was a little aprehensive about taking a race class to be certified for my first track experience but in hindsight I would not have done it anyother way. If you are in Colorado or this region I would highly reccomend the class to anyone with more than about 1 year of streetriding, no matter the bike pretty much too. There was some peeps on RD's, Nighthawks and some other non racey bikes.
So this is how my weekend went
Friday AM:
Took off wheels to take to the track and get new rubber put on. Dunlop 208Gp's. A couple minor glitches with the install but pretty much went fine.
6pm- Classroom part of the class which lasted until about 9pm. Met most of the instructors, head tech, New Rider Director; Mark Schellinger and a few others. Mark more or less ran almost all the class. We talked about a ton of things. The differn't kind of turns, how to run through them, where to look, where to brake, where to gas it ect ect. We also went onto things like all the flags, waving and still flags. Things like how to handle an Ambulance on the track during a race, this kinda freaked me out. I never new they kept racing with an ambulance heading to a crash! We talked a lot about tires, warm up, scrubbing in, heat cycles ect. I took about 10 pages of notes on Friday. Things you really never know unless you take this class, things that the spectator never see's. Really interesting night.
Well they tell us to be at the track for tech inspection at 7am on Saturday. I figured I woud wake up around 5 or so. I am meeting my friend Alex (who took all the picts and movies BTW) at my work and he will follow me in my car to the track. Well being the Flesh I totally screw up and set my alarm for 5pm, DOH!!!! Luckly my internal clock woke me up at 6am and I made it just in time.
For the class if we are not competing in the Sunday race we do not have to go through as much of a strict tech. No saftey wire, belly pan are required. We had to remove our mirrors, tape up all lights and have a steering damper and that was about it. I make it through tech with no problems.
Next up they match you with a instructor based on how hard you want to ride. Now take into mind that if you go down at all on the track you will not pass the class. Mark asked on a scale from 1-5 1 being the slowest, how do you want to ride. I choose 2 seeing I had no track riding under my belt and did not want to go down.
I and 4 others got teamed up with MRA#91, I cannot remember his real name but everyone call's him Lurch. This is apparent when you meet him. 7' Tall 6' wide and rides a TLR lol.
So I need to break this up a bit and also say this is the biggest class the MRA has done thus far, I think there were a little over 32 riders or so. They will run us all on the track at the same time with the faster guys first. I am feeling a bit scared at this point. Including instructors there will be about 40 bikes on the track at once....Yowza.
Well off we go. Our first session is a no brakes session. You are not supposed to use brakes and try to follow the instructors line through the turn. I am 2nd to last in our group so I have a little bit of trouble at first seeing the lines because the other riders in front of me were not really following Lurch. We start getting a bit faster, still trying to keep off the brakes at the turns and I really start to feel more relaxed and let things come.
We would pull in every two laps for a quick talk in the hot lane and then back out. Once we got out of the no brakes things my eyes really were opened.
With all the riders on the track at the same time it was pretty easy to get seperated from your group. At first I thought that was bad but Lurch told me not to worry and just keep doing what I was doing and he would catch up to me sooner or later.
I started going around turns faster and faster. I really felt the way to set my throttle in the turns and look ahead. Man I was in heaven! :D That smiley does not nearly express the smile that was on my face. I am really glad you are givin the chance to kinda ride by yourself too, it helped me out a ton to pay attention to my own riding rather than try and concentrate on my group. I would hear the rumble of a tiller behind me and know Lurch was watching my lines and movements. He would pass me and signal me into the hot lane for a quick talk.
Well after the first 30 minute session we went in for a talk by Mark. He talked about us keeping our racing stance while on the bike, stay tucked all the time. One person went down by this time (waving yellow flags are kinda scary at first in person hehe) and told us to go easy it is not a race. I think 4 went down throught the whole day, one right in front of me in a turn, talk about pucker factor!!!
We were then going to be split into two groups. One would work on take off's while the other would go back on the track. I got the take off group. I need to work on this, I suck. That is all I have to say for now lol.
I do have to say this is the first opportunity I got to see my tires at this point...... BALLED UP!!!! Fuck yeah, never balled up a tire before in my life!
Back to the track. We get two more 45 minute sessions between the regular MRA guys before the student race. Again I get better and better.
I finally find YTry in the pits between sessions, along with MV,BusaEater and Bigtime. On the last session I am more or less running by myself, except for Glenn see's me and gives me some pointers while on his bike. I am riding really ridgid and tight. Via body language he trys to tell me to loosen up and shift from side to side depending on the turn. Both Ytry and Bigtime tell me the same thing. "You are doing really good Jon but you look so damn tight out there".
Anyway this is turning into War and Peace so let me wrap it up a bit. I participated in the student race, came in 2nd or 3rd to last. I had another problem getting over the fear of passing people. I passed one guy in the race which brought me up but that was it. It was cool though.
I learned so much in this class. All I want to do now is track days, fuck the street. The fun is not out there with cars and trucks and busses and so many assholes. It is on that twisty roadracing track!!! This summer I am going to try and do as much track as possible, If I can relax more while I am out there and become a better rider maybe I will try racing next season. I want off the street!!!! I have seen the good country and can I tell you it is GOOD!!!
Things for Flesh to work on:
Right handed turns. I cannot get my body off the bike on right turns, I feel totally wierd on them right now.
Loosen up, relax
Get some balls and pass people
Work on take off's
Left handed turns are millimeters away from knee down. Keep at it
Sorry about the length of this, but shit I am stoked!
Here are some quick movies if you care: Remember I have a B/W 600, all black leathers with B/W Arai. Alex pretty much trained the camera on me in these movies so hopefully you can tell.
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV00993.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV00994.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV00995.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV00996.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV00997.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV01001.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV01003.MPG
Here are the picts: I have this directory open and all the pictures are not hotlinked in here so feel free to gothrough http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/DSC00968.JPG
Going on the straights in front of the grand stands. This is the first session before I was told to stay tucked lol
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/DSC00972.JPG
The rats nest, fuggen scary low speed turn. Notice the no lean angle I have lol. The SV650 behind me is piloted by a girl from coportbikeclub.org who was kickin my ass all day hehe, she rocked!
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/DSC00990.JPG
Griding up before the student race
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/DSC00973.JPG
Exiting a turn right before the grandstand straights ,fun fun fun turn
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/DSC00977.JPG
Lurch following me through a turn, watching my lines.
Just thought I would post this up here too. Some of you bike guys and gals might be interested
Flesh
Jon T. Flesh, Novice # 241
:bounce:
Yup went through the class, did not go down, and had one fuggen GREAT TIME!!!!!!
It was my first track experience, my first racing experience (besides being a spectator), and my first REAL sportbike experience. Yup, any of you who have not been on the track do not know crap lol. Nothing can compare to what Saturday was full of.
Anywhoo let me start this out right.
I would not have gotten the guts to take this class if it were not for Glenn aka MRA Racer 157 on here and also an instructor, Ytry, MIlehighGSXR pushing me to do it. I was a little aprehensive about taking a race class to be certified for my first track experience but in hindsight I would not have done it anyother way. If you are in Colorado or this region I would highly reccomend the class to anyone with more than about 1 year of streetriding, no matter the bike pretty much too. There was some peeps on RD's, Nighthawks and some other non racey bikes.
So this is how my weekend went
Friday AM:
Took off wheels to take to the track and get new rubber put on. Dunlop 208Gp's. A couple minor glitches with the install but pretty much went fine.
6pm- Classroom part of the class which lasted until about 9pm. Met most of the instructors, head tech, New Rider Director; Mark Schellinger and a few others. Mark more or less ran almost all the class. We talked about a ton of things. The differn't kind of turns, how to run through them, where to look, where to brake, where to gas it ect ect. We also went onto things like all the flags, waving and still flags. Things like how to handle an Ambulance on the track during a race, this kinda freaked me out. I never new they kept racing with an ambulance heading to a crash! We talked a lot about tires, warm up, scrubbing in, heat cycles ect. I took about 10 pages of notes on Friday. Things you really never know unless you take this class, things that the spectator never see's. Really interesting night.
Well they tell us to be at the track for tech inspection at 7am on Saturday. I figured I woud wake up around 5 or so. I am meeting my friend Alex (who took all the picts and movies BTW) at my work and he will follow me in my car to the track. Well being the Flesh I totally screw up and set my alarm for 5pm, DOH!!!! Luckly my internal clock woke me up at 6am and I made it just in time.
For the class if we are not competing in the Sunday race we do not have to go through as much of a strict tech. No saftey wire, belly pan are required. We had to remove our mirrors, tape up all lights and have a steering damper and that was about it. I make it through tech with no problems.
Next up they match you with a instructor based on how hard you want to ride. Now take into mind that if you go down at all on the track you will not pass the class. Mark asked on a scale from 1-5 1 being the slowest, how do you want to ride. I choose 2 seeing I had no track riding under my belt and did not want to go down.
I and 4 others got teamed up with MRA#91, I cannot remember his real name but everyone call's him Lurch. This is apparent when you meet him. 7' Tall 6' wide and rides a TLR lol.
So I need to break this up a bit and also say this is the biggest class the MRA has done thus far, I think there were a little over 32 riders or so. They will run us all on the track at the same time with the faster guys first. I am feeling a bit scared at this point. Including instructors there will be about 40 bikes on the track at once....Yowza.
Well off we go. Our first session is a no brakes session. You are not supposed to use brakes and try to follow the instructors line through the turn. I am 2nd to last in our group so I have a little bit of trouble at first seeing the lines because the other riders in front of me were not really following Lurch. We start getting a bit faster, still trying to keep off the brakes at the turns and I really start to feel more relaxed and let things come.
We would pull in every two laps for a quick talk in the hot lane and then back out. Once we got out of the no brakes things my eyes really were opened.
With all the riders on the track at the same time it was pretty easy to get seperated from your group. At first I thought that was bad but Lurch told me not to worry and just keep doing what I was doing and he would catch up to me sooner or later.
I started going around turns faster and faster. I really felt the way to set my throttle in the turns and look ahead. Man I was in heaven! :D That smiley does not nearly express the smile that was on my face. I am really glad you are givin the chance to kinda ride by yourself too, it helped me out a ton to pay attention to my own riding rather than try and concentrate on my group. I would hear the rumble of a tiller behind me and know Lurch was watching my lines and movements. He would pass me and signal me into the hot lane for a quick talk.
Well after the first 30 minute session we went in for a talk by Mark. He talked about us keeping our racing stance while on the bike, stay tucked all the time. One person went down by this time (waving yellow flags are kinda scary at first in person hehe) and told us to go easy it is not a race. I think 4 went down throught the whole day, one right in front of me in a turn, talk about pucker factor!!!
We were then going to be split into two groups. One would work on take off's while the other would go back on the track. I got the take off group. I need to work on this, I suck. That is all I have to say for now lol.
I do have to say this is the first opportunity I got to see my tires at this point...... BALLED UP!!!! Fuck yeah, never balled up a tire before in my life!
Back to the track. We get two more 45 minute sessions between the regular MRA guys before the student race. Again I get better and better.
I finally find YTry in the pits between sessions, along with MV,BusaEater and Bigtime. On the last session I am more or less running by myself, except for Glenn see's me and gives me some pointers while on his bike. I am riding really ridgid and tight. Via body language he trys to tell me to loosen up and shift from side to side depending on the turn. Both Ytry and Bigtime tell me the same thing. "You are doing really good Jon but you look so damn tight out there".
Anyway this is turning into War and Peace so let me wrap it up a bit. I participated in the student race, came in 2nd or 3rd to last. I had another problem getting over the fear of passing people. I passed one guy in the race which brought me up but that was it. It was cool though.
I learned so much in this class. All I want to do now is track days, fuck the street. The fun is not out there with cars and trucks and busses and so many assholes. It is on that twisty roadracing track!!! This summer I am going to try and do as much track as possible, If I can relax more while I am out there and become a better rider maybe I will try racing next season. I want off the street!!!! I have seen the good country and can I tell you it is GOOD!!!
Things for Flesh to work on:
Right handed turns. I cannot get my body off the bike on right turns, I feel totally wierd on them right now.
Loosen up, relax
Get some balls and pass people
Work on take off's
Left handed turns are millimeters away from knee down. Keep at it
Sorry about the length of this, but shit I am stoked!
Here are some quick movies if you care: Remember I have a B/W 600, all black leathers with B/W Arai. Alex pretty much trained the camera on me in these movies so hopefully you can tell.
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV00993.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV00994.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV00995.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV00996.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV00997.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV01001.MPG
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/MOV01003.MPG
Here are the picts: I have this directory open and all the pictures are not hotlinked in here so feel free to gothrough http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/DSC00968.JPG
Going on the straights in front of the grand stands. This is the first session before I was told to stay tucked lol
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/DSC00972.JPG
The rats nest, fuggen scary low speed turn. Notice the no lean angle I have lol. The SV650 behind me is piloted by a girl from coportbikeclub.org who was kickin my ass all day hehe, she rocked!
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/DSC00990.JPG
Griding up before the student race
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/DSC00973.JPG
Exiting a turn right before the grandstand straights ,fun fun fun turn
http://www.jontflesh.com/mra/DSC00977.JPG
Lurch following me through a turn, watching my lines.
Just thought I would post this up here too. Some of you bike guys and gals might be interested
Flesh