A wet crashfest
This is my first blog post from the WordPress iPhone app, so bear with me. First post in way too long, too. Guess I’ve been busy living it up in my last free summer before med school! Case in point:
Saturday evening, Papa Bear showed up at my house, ready to load up for our track day at New Jersey Motorsports Park. His enclosed trailer is awesome, with plenty of room for our motorcycles and all our gear. We enjoyed a traffic-free ride down to the Quality Inn in Millville, NJ – $60 per night! We had plenty of time to catch up; I haven’t seen enough of Dan this year.
Sunday, 6 am came very quickly. We grabbed our free breakfast and drove the few miles to the track, and set up in the paddock at the Thunderbolt course. I failed tech inspection with a leaky fork seal (nothing I could do about that but “promise to watch it”) and a too-loose chain. Easy fix, but adjusting the chain meant I missed the first lap of red group, so I never got to see the race lines. Shame, that, since I’d never been on Thunderbolt before. Ah well.
So I took it easy the first session, for that reason and because I haven’t been on the track since 2007. Eep. Everyone passed me at least once, but it wasn’t crowded out there so there were no problems. Apparently someone crashed during the checkered lap, no injuries but he was out for the day. Someone always tries too hard in the first session …
Dan, like me, took it easy in his first session – though he was in the blue (advanced) group. He may have gotten passed as much as I did. 
As I geared up for my second session, I was concerned I might get bumped down to the white (beginner) group. Turns out I wouldn’t find out yet, as crash #2 happened right in front of me in lap 2 of red session 2. Right after the 90 degree left halfway through the back of the course. I didn’t see him go down, but I had to pick my way through his yard sale of plastic and metal debris. Sigh, session 2 over for red.
A coach, Chris M, pulled me over on the pit-out lane, asking me if this was my first time on this track. Yes sir, sez me, that’s why I’m going slow, and I never got the lines. He wanted to take me out in white to show me the line and evaluate me, maybe bump me down to the beginners. No problem, I’m not proud, let’s go …
There was some confusion about me needing a white sticker to go out in that group, but it turned out to be bogus. I followed Chris and got the lines, but a lot of the two laps were at parade pace due to the ART basic gang. And then, right after the 90 degree left again, sone idiot tries to pass into the baby duckling line of ART basic riders, on and off the throttle all choppy … he set up a tankslapper, hit an ART student (!) and was pitched off his ride 10′ into the air. He came down hard into a tumble right in front of me; I could hear him cry out in pain as I swerved to avoid him and his bike. I later found out that his buddy did the same thing on lap 2 of session 2 the day before, crashed out secondary to idiocy. You’d think it would have slowed him down … the aftermath was a busted collarbone and femur.
Hard lesson to learn.
So if you’re counting, that’s three crashes before blue even got their second session. And we were fresh out of ambulances, so the track was closed until one came back. At 11:30 we started up again, and when red came up I went back out with Chris M. He led for a few turns then signaled for me to pass him … I went ahead for two laps, and then the rain came. Big time. I pitted in, and went to find the coach.
He said I wad running mid-white pace, but didn’t need to be demoted as long as my lines stayed clean. Whew! =) Which would have been fine, except for the storm …
Turns out Thunderbolt was aptly named. Dan and I hunkered down under the pop-up for what seemed forever, getting to know some of the riders near us in the paddock, eating, watching others pick up and leave, and wondering if we should do the same. I really wanted to wait it out, though, as this may have been my only track day this season! We caught a break in the weather, and then it came again … really heavy. It laid down a lot of standing water on the track, the guys running slicks would be SOL.
Eventually it cleared, and TPM dried off the race line so we could get back out around 3:15pm. They had held a meeting and let us decide if we wanted to wait it out … the 20 of us who’d stayed were all for it. So when the track was safe, they gave us open track tine for the rest of the day!
Now this meant everyone could go out any time they wanted, for as long as they wanted – as long as we played it safe and watched out for the wet spots. There were about 10 places where water was running across the track (there were a lot in the 120 degree left) and there was standing water coming onto and at the end of the front straight. No worries, take it easy they told us, and do all of your braking early on the straight.
So Dan and I joined the free for all, and we had a blast! I could feel the rear sliding around a bit on that left, but it was manageable, and a fine spot to learn traction control. I stayed slow on the straight to let the red & blue riders pass me so I wouldn’t be a rolling road block in the turns.
I got more comfortable as the afternoon went by, the air warmed up, and the track dried off. I dialed in turns 1, 2, and 3, and up to the 90 degree left … figured out how to handle that one as it had some slick patches … but I never got to master the tighter left or the decreasing-radius right on the back side. I needed more time and maybe a coach.
There was one more crash: one of the kids next to us lowsided coming from the front straight into turn 1. He was unhurt, and his Aprillia was mostly unharmed … just muddy as hell from where it went off-roading. Guess he missed the note about the standing water …
In any case, I haf no complaints. The open track time was glorious, I got all I wanted. Dan was feeling good by the end of the day, and we both had big ol’ smiles on our mugs as we loaded up for the ride home. I’m so glad we went!
