Greggers
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My name is Greg, and until last Thursday I was a Trackday Virgin.
I was lured into it by my friend Tim who'd been trying to tease me into sharing a track experience with him for the last year. At one time it got close, very close, but then I had to sell my beloved and very trick TRX850 to help fund my Mrs's college course. This year though finances improved, I made a decent profit on my NSR400R and Tim had been desperate enough to do a trackday on his Thruxton - we got gassing one night and decided we could share a bike or maybe set a budget to buy a bike each just to have fun on. I thought he was serious (ha ha) so I went out and found this little puppy on Ebay
It's a GSXR750K1, and despite its battered exterior it ran as sweet as the proverbial nut, had all the right bits in the suspension department and tyres that were properly ragged to the edges and clean oil in the sight glass.... lots of good signs! I got it for £2k in the end, and was quite chuffed. Tim saw it and laughed - then went out and spent almost twice as much on a 600 K7. Bollocks.
Sometimes I should listen to my little voice of reason. I didn't and went with his suggestion that we book Silverstone "Because it's the full GP circuit" which sounded quite plausible to me at the time, especially considering the last time I was at Silverstone was when Mick Grant won the 500GP and the Angels burnt the beer tent. The mastercard took another hammering as I booked places for us both - I had to book his 'cos he still hadn't told his Missus! Then a couple of days later the little bugger pulled the sneaky trick... "Greg .... I was thinking we should do a shake-down on the bikes before Silverstone - I've booked us for an evening session at Brands." Fait accomplis!
Truth be told I didn't mind so much (although my wife wasn't too pleased though!) and started to look forward to the day. Finally it arrived, the bikes were loaded and off we went Kentward on a gloriously sunny day. When we arrived at the circuit there was still an hour or so of the day group to go, the fast riders were mentally quick (from a mere mortal's perspective) and one guy was so fast and so inch perfect with his lines you could hear the 'braaapppp' his sliders made as they dragged over the kerbing. That was when I started to think that it was quite fast. We watched for 2o minutes or so, had a cup of tea and talked complete bollocks until it was our turn to get going - the briefing came and went and then all of a sudden we were all leathered up and riding out of the garage lining up for the track!
Now, bear in mind I'd never ridden this bike before and never on a track either.. I was quite apprehensive about what was unfolding in front of me -I pootled out of the pits and did the obligatory 3 sighting laps .. hmmmm this was going to be interesting! With each lap I did I started to get a little more brave, the bike seemed to be behaving itself, I thought I was going quickly enough .. haha Who needs to go over 7500rpm anyway? Well, I thought about that for just over a nanosecond and decided to open the throttle a bit more to see what it was like... the rush was bl@@dy amazing! I tried again and the bike lunged a little more but then the clutch started to slip ... aaaargh fukfukfuk ... it got worse with each lap until I decided to pull in early. To say I was p!ssed off was an understatement, but I wasn't about to throw £75.00 into the can. I pulled the fairing off, found the adjustment screw and had a little fiddle - was there anything to lose? Tim rolled in after his next lap and was as perplexed as I was about the problem, but we're British and our pragmatism carried us through, well me anyway 'cos Tim's bike was quite predictably as right as ninepence.
The next session came. Fingers, toes and testicles crossed as I exited onto the track and waited for the clutch to slip ... no slip! I got to the short straight after Druids and opened the throttle cautiously ... still no slip .. Bonus!! Then I started to get a little more brave, exploring lean angles greater than I've ever experienced before - not counting the times I've ended up on my arse though! The single hardest thing for me was turning my 'road head' off and not hitting the brakes at the first feeling of panic! I lost count of the number of times I told myself "the bike can do it, you won't fall off!...the bike can do it, you won't fall off!".
The third session came and I was grinning like a Loon waiting for his meds. I started to explore different lines, started to feel how the bike worked and moved in the corners, started to feel how much difference moving your bodyweight around made to the way the bike felt as it changed direction... It was about halfway into the third session that I realised I'd been saying "come on, you can go faster..." more than I'd been saying "you're going to crash ...!" At about this point I stopped being polite to a girl in pink leathers and just blasted past her instead of letting her go first. A bloke on an old Exup who'd pissed past me in the first session started to get in my way, he was braking in all the wrong places, slowing too soon and not getting on the gas early enough. I realised that there were guys determined to get round clearways as close to the kerbing as possible... but I was faster round the outside of them and better onto the start/finish straight. Damn, I was beginning to enjoy this ... a lot! The 750 is an animal, visciously fast - faster and more powerful than anything I've ever ridden before -the brakes ...
fekking good! I passed the girl in pink again - no manners 
.
The last session came and things started to make sense. I was understanding more about lines, realising that the bike wouldn't spit me off 'just because', and I was relaxing more. Before I knew it I was losing the toe of my right boot and just kissed the tiniest part on my knee slider ... Then, all too soon the chequered flags were out and it was time to come in. Bugger.
Back to the pits, sweating, laughing and aching, the bike stinking hot and the tyres sticky and balled up to the edges. A fucking great day.
My name is Greg, I am 52 years old and I want to be a trackday whore ...!
Tim is in the YELLOW helmet haha...
I was lured into it by my friend Tim who'd been trying to tease me into sharing a track experience with him for the last year. At one time it got close, very close, but then I had to sell my beloved and very trick TRX850 to help fund my Mrs's college course. This year though finances improved, I made a decent profit on my NSR400R and Tim had been desperate enough to do a trackday on his Thruxton - we got gassing one night and decided we could share a bike or maybe set a budget to buy a bike each just to have fun on. I thought he was serious (ha ha) so I went out and found this little puppy on Ebay
It's a GSXR750K1, and despite its battered exterior it ran as sweet as the proverbial nut, had all the right bits in the suspension department and tyres that were properly ragged to the edges and clean oil in the sight glass.... lots of good signs! I got it for £2k in the end, and was quite chuffed. Tim saw it and laughed - then went out and spent almost twice as much on a 600 K7. Bollocks.
Sometimes I should listen to my little voice of reason. I didn't and went with his suggestion that we book Silverstone "Because it's the full GP circuit" which sounded quite plausible to me at the time, especially considering the last time I was at Silverstone was when Mick Grant won the 500GP and the Angels burnt the beer tent. The mastercard took another hammering as I booked places for us both - I had to book his 'cos he still hadn't told his Missus! Then a couple of days later the little bugger pulled the sneaky trick... "Greg .... I was thinking we should do a shake-down on the bikes before Silverstone - I've booked us for an evening session at Brands." Fait accomplis!
Truth be told I didn't mind so much (although my wife wasn't too pleased though!) and started to look forward to the day. Finally it arrived, the bikes were loaded and off we went Kentward on a gloriously sunny day. When we arrived at the circuit there was still an hour or so of the day group to go, the fast riders were mentally quick (from a mere mortal's perspective) and one guy was so fast and so inch perfect with his lines you could hear the 'braaapppp' his sliders made as they dragged over the kerbing. That was when I started to think that it was quite fast. We watched for 2o minutes or so, had a cup of tea and talked complete bollocks until it was our turn to get going - the briefing came and went and then all of a sudden we were all leathered up and riding out of the garage lining up for the track!
Now, bear in mind I'd never ridden this bike before and never on a track either.. I was quite apprehensive about what was unfolding in front of me -I pootled out of the pits and did the obligatory 3 sighting laps .. hmmmm this was going to be interesting! With each lap I did I started to get a little more brave, the bike seemed to be behaving itself, I thought I was going quickly enough .. haha Who needs to go over 7500rpm anyway? Well, I thought about that for just over a nanosecond and decided to open the throttle a bit more to see what it was like... the rush was bl@@dy amazing! I tried again and the bike lunged a little more but then the clutch started to slip ... aaaargh fukfukfuk ... it got worse with each lap until I decided to pull in early. To say I was p!ssed off was an understatement, but I wasn't about to throw £75.00 into the can. I pulled the fairing off, found the adjustment screw and had a little fiddle - was there anything to lose? Tim rolled in after his next lap and was as perplexed as I was about the problem, but we're British and our pragmatism carried us through, well me anyway 'cos Tim's bike was quite predictably as right as ninepence.
The next session came. Fingers, toes and testicles crossed as I exited onto the track and waited for the clutch to slip ... no slip! I got to the short straight after Druids and opened the throttle cautiously ... still no slip .. Bonus!! Then I started to get a little more brave, exploring lean angles greater than I've ever experienced before - not counting the times I've ended up on my arse though! The single hardest thing for me was turning my 'road head' off and not hitting the brakes at the first feeling of panic! I lost count of the number of times I told myself "the bike can do it, you won't fall off!...the bike can do it, you won't fall off!".
The third session came and I was grinning like a Loon waiting for his meds. I started to explore different lines, started to feel how the bike worked and moved in the corners, started to feel how much difference moving your bodyweight around made to the way the bike felt as it changed direction... It was about halfway into the third session that I realised I'd been saying "come on, you can go faster..." more than I'd been saying "you're going to crash ...!" At about this point I stopped being polite to a girl in pink leathers and just blasted past her instead of letting her go first. A bloke on an old Exup who'd pissed past me in the first session started to get in my way, he was braking in all the wrong places, slowing too soon and not getting on the gas early enough. I realised that there were guys determined to get round clearways as close to the kerbing as possible... but I was faster round the outside of them and better onto the start/finish straight. Damn, I was beginning to enjoy this ... a lot! The 750 is an animal, visciously fast - faster and more powerful than anything I've ever ridden before -the brakes ...
fekking good! I passed the girl in pink again - no manners .The last session came and things started to make sense. I was understanding more about lines, realising that the bike wouldn't spit me off 'just because', and I was relaxing more. Before I knew it I was losing the toe of my right boot and just kissed the tiniest part on my knee slider ... Then, all too soon the chequered flags were out and it was time to come in. Bugger.
Back to the pits, sweating, laughing and aching, the bike stinking hot and the tyres sticky and balled up to the edges. A fucking great day.
My name is Greg, I am 52 years old and I want to be a trackday whore ...!
Tim is in the YELLOW helmet haha...
)
.
and was as green as grass...
