Did my first track day in April '05. Went to Infineon Raceway at Sears Point near San Francisco. What a track. What a day!

There are two corners (2 and 3) at the crests of hills. You can't see the apex (the inside point of the turn) of the corners because they're a little beyond the crests.

You head up the hill to turn 2, a right hander. You lean over and all you can see is the pavement, the sky, and the alligator strip. You hug the alligator strip as you come over the crest. You're flying blind and you're leaned over so far it feels like you can reach down and touch the pavement! You hope you hit the apex because your speed and the off-camber pitch of the track is already carrying you to the outside of the turn.

You drift out, you drift out and look for the outside edge of the pavement. You check how far and how fast you're drifting. You see you're at a good speed, still on the line, out near the edge of the pavement but not too near, and you're heading downhill for turn 3A, which is a medium-speed left turn at the bottom of a small dip. You clip the apex of 3A, maybe drag your boot or your footpeg on the alligator strip, and you head uphill to 3B, a right turn just like turn 2--flying blind, leaned wa-a-a-a-y over and perfect.

But this time, as you exit the turn, you have to get the bike upright quickly and ease on the brakes, because the next turn is a slow righthander at the end of a short downhill straight.

You go smooth but hard on the brakes, looking for the turn-in point, needing to take the turn properly so you don't lose momentum for the next corner. You make it around 4 and look for the apex of 5, which you want to hit properly so you'll be set up properly for the next turn, the heart stopper, the Carousel.

The Carousel's a full 180º turn, downhill, long and fast. And blind because it sweeps around a hill. It's just plain scary. You lean over and start the turn and the road drops away from you and you keep turning and the road drops away and you keep picking up speed. You swear you're lying flat to the road and that no motorcycle could possibly stick in that attitude, but you keep rolling on the throttle carefully and the bike sticks and the turn opens up and the bike straightens up and you head uphill slightly and it's very very wide and you use the whole width and you're on the fastest part of the course but right away you're checking the flagman at turn 7 and looking for your braking point.

Unbelievable!

Fast corners generally make sense to me. I feel at home on 2 and 3 and the fast sweepers at the end of the lap. On a fast corner, you just sort of lean over and go, and the bike takes care of itself so long as you don't get rough with it. The two wheels are enormous gyroscopes that hold the bike steady.

The slow corners are the ones that give me trouble. I never really "got" them on my first day. I did them so badly, at first, that I was about the slowest rider on the track. By the end of that day, though, I had turn 4 pretty much figured out and was working on 11, but I never got 7, which is a two-apex 180 after the Carousel. It was mainly a mental thing. A bike has less of a gyroscope effect at slow speeds, naturally, and a steep lean angle in a slow turn gave me the willies until I learned to control the lean with the throttle.

On my most recent day at Infineon, I hit turns 4 and 7 really well but still had trouble with 11. The new chicane at the end of the esses gave me trouble, too, but with help from one of the instructors, I began to take it correctly. I was generally hitting the apexes a little late, as well, and my instructor corrected that, too.

Track days have definitely improved my riding. My skills have improved and I'm much more confident of my bike. With the right tires, it's limits are way beyond mine, which means I can relax and enjoy the ride.

The track days were put on by DP Safety School, which is now Red Shift. They do a terrific job. They lay out cones marking the braking points, turn-in points and apex of each corner, station flagmen around the track, and have an instructor for every 5 or 6 riders. As with most track days, the riders are divided into three groups, sorted by experience. While one group is riding, the other two are resting or in classroom and parking lot sessions. If you get tired, you can sit out a cycle.

It's all pretty sane, given that it's totally insane.

After every track day I say to myself, "I gotta do more o' these!"

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Last updated 20 September 2007
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