And so it ends...for the day anyway

Discussion in '5th Generation 1998-2001' started by OOTV, Sep 8, 2017.

  1. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    If you've been watching my thread 'And so it begins' you will know that my 5 Gen was totaled in a low side back in February and it was rebuilt to running condition over the past few months. Although not 100% finished, mostly body work left to deal with, it is not quite ready for the streets either because of the salvage title and the need to get it re-registered.

    That being said, nothing says I can't take it to the track. As luck would have it, I was invited to be a corner worker for the California Superbike School being held at Laguna Seca Raceway this past Wednesday and Thursday by member sfdownhill. As I had no projects on the schedule for this week or at least not one I couldn't send my employee to, I accepted the offer and chose to take my 01 to "break it in" so to speak.

    What does corner work entail exactly? Well for one, you are setup at one of the corners to observe the students and report if they are not following the lesson they are to be practicing or if they are doing something wrong or just plain aren't staying on the track or worse yet, not staying on the bike!

    The other part of being there is that you get use of the track. Not only when the students and instructors are on the track but during lunch time as well. During the student involved runs, the rules are simple, obey the track rules and don't crash! The latter part is the most important one for me as it would have sucked to crash my newly rebuilt bike. During lunch time, the track is used by all the track workers and quite a few instructors too, however the rules of the track are a little looser! Although everyone seemed to be polite and professional so no instances there to report.

    Wednesday morning things got off to a slow start. The track was pretty much fogged in and until we could see portions of the track from our corners, no one was going to ride. Pretty much a hurry up and wait scenario.

    A view of the paddock...

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    Looking towards turn 4 from my first station turn 5 as it started to clear up.

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    My bike in the paddock area before we unloaded.

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    You'll notice that the headlights are missing, I decided to leave them at home but taped up the holes to prevent air from filtering through the large opening. I wasn't sure how this would affect me so I covered it up anyway. Also, if god forbid, I went down again (knock on wood) no headlight to have to replace.

    Since I was considered the "newbie" not so much for lack of riding but the fact that I had not ridden this track other than at a "parade" speed, so I was allowed to go out with the students on their sighting lap. Afterward, I parked it at turn 5 and watched the students and instructors do their thing.

    [​IMG]

    At first we had a little scare in regards to ride time. We were short a person or two and were at risk of losing riding on the track unless we got a body or two. The corner worker captain, for the lack of a better term, called in his wife and his father to come help after lunch time and one of the school staff members volunteered to switch with a few of us so that we could ride before they showed up. Which was way cool!

    We were all able to get out and ride and got to enjoy the track mostly to ourselves during lunch time and then we (sf downhill and I) got moved to turn 6. Although not much excitement at turn 5 or 6, turn 8 (Corkscrew) and turn 9 (Rainey) had a couple of mishaps! No one was hurt but a bike had to be pulled off the track and a dead suicide squirrel!

    A view from the turn 6 lookout tower looking towards Salinas I believe.

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    A view of a couple of riders, student, instructor and VFRWorld member sfdownhill. He actually ended up passing them coming out of turn 6 heading up the hill. Hard to take pics and do our job so I snuck this shot in while I could.

    [​IMG]

    So the first day went well and I improved my speed but was really more interested in practicing my lines and body English, alas I did get some scuffing of the tires.

    [​IMG]

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    Day two started a little better, as the fog wasn't hindering our start time and we got two more bodies to help us, so even more track time was up for grabs. That is until just before lunch as I was queuing up for my turn, my bike starts to make a weird clunking noise as I started rolling! It sounded like something was stuck in the chain but it ended up being a little worse than that. The rear brake torque arm bolt that attaches it to the swingarm came out. Essentially leaving me without a rear brake and very little time to get it fixed. Track control sent me to their mechanic to see if we could fix it but he couldn't find any bolt that would fit.

    Technically I was still on duty for the next round so one of the other corner workers who had brought like 4 bikes with him, lent me his KTM 390 to ride back and forth to relieve the other workers when it was their turn to ride. Essentially my day riding the track was pretty much over. Well, except for the last session, sfdownhill lent me his 5 gen to ride one last time! Thanks sfdownhill!

    Here's me on the KTM...Go Orange!

    [​IMG]

    Here's what we ended up finding out what was causing the clunking sound. The torque arm was working like a ratchet in reverse, when the wheel rotated forward, the arm would hit the spokes and even knocked off the wheel weights. All I can say is that I was lucky this didn't occur at speed and that the arm has a rounded end on it, had that been square, I think I would have a bit more damaged that a slightly scarred rear wheel.

    [​IMG]

    A couple of shots of the arm and wheel weights.

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    Oh yeah, they have a nice tribute to Nicky Hayden just before turn 11.

    [​IMG]


    TLDR; Got to do some track time at Laguna Seca Raceway in exchange for doing some corner work, lost a bolt on the rear brake torque arm on the second day and had to call it a day.


    P.S. Yes I have video! The new front camera setup worked very well, but the rear camera was acting up and wasn't recording properly. It was only recording in small clips and even then, some of those were corrupted, so I might not have any rear video footage this round, unless I can find some good long clips that I can match up to the front clips. Still have to edit the front camera stuff, hopefully this weekend I can get some time.
     
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  2. sfdownhill

    sfdownhill New Member

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    Hey OOTV - that was a great day! Thanks for doing the write-up. Here we are in turn 6 after finishing our duties and last riding sessions. Now we just have to collect our contingency/product placement check from Dainese...

    Seca Darryl 09 07 17.JPG
     
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  3. duccmann

    duccmann Member

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    [​IMG]
    Thanks D


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
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  4. RVFR

    RVFR Member

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    I knew you two where up to no good, or in this case a lot of good. Wow though on the brake arm, now that's a crazy one, good to have caught that when you did. Yea, I would like to see what video you did get, I'm still (*&^ out with the go pro footage I took from the Ridge last weekend. Good going guys , that had to be a lot of fun.
     
  5. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    So I edited one clip, this is one of the first sessions. Just before I take off, the track controller says "4th gear, no brakes". That is the exercise the students are going to practice. Essentially they want all of the students to be in 4th gear the entire time around the track and not use any brakes. I'm just following along. My feeling is that this is their track and I'm just there to have fun. Lunch time, the track is pretty much ours and is pretty open.

     
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  6. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    A little more spirited run but nothing too crazy. Hard to beat the acceleration of those S1000RRs!

     
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  7. RVFR

    RVFR Member

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    What an awesome experience for you two, thanks for sharing. Hot Damn, ya gota love the sound of a 5th gen huh . How'd you like the cork screw? in the video you can't tell much, but that's one hell of a drop off. That transition into it is a bit tricky too.
     
  8. RVFR

    RVFR Member

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    Just look at those smiles woulds ya.
     
  9. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    I played a little with lines and speed on the cork screw, at slower speeds it's not as intimidating but going a little faster can be both scary and fun, all in the same run. Although I didn't really push it here, mostly because I wasn't sure how the bike would hold up, considering it was just "recovered", add that to new, never run tires or non-bedded in front brakes, I really didn't want to be that guy who wiped out on the track. Speaking of which, we did have two instances where riders went down but no one was hurt but one rider had to park the bike off the track and got picked up in the chase car. Both of these incidents happened at, you guessed it, the corkscrew.

    When, not if, I go back, I know I can increase my speed a bit in almost all the corners. Turn 5 I seemed to be the most comfortable in, as you can see that's where I passed a rider going around the outside. Turn 6 was another area I felt good as well as turn 10. Since their bikes had much better acceleration and brakes I wasn't comfortable enough to try and out brake some of these guys, as you can see in the video, they can pull ahead real easy so the corners is about the only place I could over take them.
     
  10. Bubba Utah

    Bubba Utah Member

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    Sweet video! Thanks OOTV.

    Mike D.
     
  11. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    The video was shot through the opening I made in the fairing, as shown in my other post. For some reason though, the rear camera was acting up so rear camera footage is hard to figure out as the clips don't match the front clips one for one. I'll see if I can piece together some footage that I can match up and insert into the front camera footage as a PiP, no guarantees though.
     
  12. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    Another one for you. Here, sfdownhill and I went on the first run after lunch. You'll see after the warm up lap, he just took off! Great riding sf!

     
  13. duccmann

    duccmann Member

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    Wowzer nothing like having the track to yourselves and great weather ta boot
    Streamed it to the flatscreen in my break room with about 12 guys-- loved it
    Thanks D


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  14. Bubba Utah

    Bubba Utah Member

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    I need to look into Larry Miller Sports Track in Utah. I know that when built about 5-8 yrs ago it was poised to be one of the best tracks in the west. I know the Miller family sold it after Larry's death and i have not payed much attention to it since then. Now it is called Utah Motorsports campus. It was bought by a foreign company. It would be cool to have a track day next year with all of the VFR community that could, and book a day on the track exclusive to us. Looking at the schedule most of the time is carts and Porsche club of America track time. Hundreds of thousands of dollars spent for nothing. I know that proto type bikes like this track for testing. Why because it is the newest track built and the demand is low. SO let's all meet up in Utah next year!
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2017
  15. RVFR

    RVFR Member

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    or if... come on up to the the Ridge.. :) Sf knows what I'm talking about.
     
  16. duccmann

    duccmann Member

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    Got ta see Spies spankin ass at Miller when it opened
    Took 20 minutes to get to the track
    4x4 up and over kennecott copper mine.


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  17. sfdownhill

    sfdownhill New Member

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    Glad you had those cameras rolling. Nice capture.
     
  18. loosenoose

    loosenoose New Member

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    what a cool experience. i have been riding a little over 10 years, and still avent ever gotten any track time. my budget is always real low for repairs. i'm too scared for the bike to be able to commit. i'd still love to ride laguna at least once.
     
  19. OOTV

    OOTV Insider

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    I highly recommend doing it. As you can see in my videos I am not pushing it by any means and yet I had a very fun time. I know I can shave off a lot of time on this course, especially now that I have a feel for it but since this was the bikes "baptism" since the rebuild, I took it easy and considering what happened to the brake torque arm, I'm glad I did. So fortunate this didn't happen at speed as that would have been really bad!

    Although the cost is a factor, sometimes you can get deals with track day organizations where if you join their organization, they will usually give discounts to their members. Yes, it does cost to join but ultimately it pays for itself within the first two tracks. Obviously this will vary from organization to organization but worth looking into. Also, as sfdownhill and I have discovered, there are organizations that allow track time in exchange for corner working. This basically translates into gas, food and lodging cost, which would still be part of any track day anyway, so you essentially save the cost of attending the track, which if you looked into is a huge part of the cost of track riding.
     
  20. reg71

    reg71 Poser Staff Member

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    those bolts and weights and even that rear brake are just extra weight you don't need. toss em.
     
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