Tony's Track Days 08/03/09

Had a great time meeting up with Bryan for the event, we both had a great time! :excited

Initially was planning on putting a hitch on my car and tow my bike up, but things didn’t really worked out last minute, so I decided to take a bit of a risk, strap a large duffel bag on the back of my bike and ride there on Sunday…in the rain :retardclap. At least Monday was nice!

I decided to bump myself into the intermediate group this time, not because I think I have mad skillz, but getting stuck behind large cc bikes at the corners that you can’t pass on the straights on my 250 is really no fun…At least in the intermediate group people can easily pass me and have more passing areas. So, I basically have no traffic all day and at one point I actually was chasing another 250 from the same group.

Tracking my small EX250 (in the dry) really gave me the chance to test the bike’s limitations. The lack of power is a given at track speed when compare to other large cc bikes, but it is more than enough to give me a banging good time especially when the brake is (at track speed) under power and have people with 4 times the braking power on racing compound squeeze in front of me at the last minute before the hair pin…:ahh:lol. Well I learned to avoid that scenario as the track day proceeds. Right from the get go, I am dragging kick stands and feelers left and right; even when I am hanging out a far as I can (or think I already did) to keep the bike from leaning. I did eventually managed to work it out quick, which also helped with my lines.

It was a great fun day. I finished the entire day and ride another 3.5 hrs back; I am not as tired I thought I would be, but it was freaking cold riding at night through the mountains coming back…:lol

Here are some of the pictures I took and will have some on-board videos to follow:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2107742&l=d10d867ac0&id=544884293

It was a great day all a round, even more so than the first day which I still can’t say enough good things about. The day was amazing, I started out the day as basically a free pass, also in the intermediate group, and ended up being maybe middle of the pack and able to stay up with most of the group if I pushed it.
By the end of the day at any given point on the track I was a gear above what I was running in the morning, that is how much faster I got.

Even managed to drag my knee… once, but thats all that matters right? :lol

Videos will be up once I figure out how to edit them, Aaron post the videos up in the picture section as well. With direct links to the pictures rather than to facebook.

http://shift518.gom-host.com/showthread.php?p=394816#post394816

one of the videos posted. Still running through the rest.

I’m still in awe of you actually riding out there. It was one thing for me to want to ride while you followed me in a van with all the tools and being my safety and a whole another world for you to just ride out there with a duffel bag.

Glad to hear you’re improving drastically and I foresee a 600cc in 2010.

If you need help editing the video’s let me know, I got the software for it.

Glad you had fun!

We had two perfect days as far as weather.

If you can swing it, you should consider the NJ trackdays. Not better than New Hampshire…just different.

If the forum can get a decent group together, I’d be willing to give a little break… especially if you can swing both days. :thumbup

How many people would you need to swing the discount? Next year looks like there could be five or more of us looking to do multiple days.

I can’t commit to anything for next year.

My comments were directed at the NJ trackdays that are coming up this year.

If there’s only 5 or so, however, your best bet is going to be our “pre buy” deals.

I’ll send out mass emails about it around November (to everyone on our mailing list). In general, you save about $35 per trackday by pre-buying a block before the end of the year… to be used next year.

I understand, was more seeing if five people would even be enough to qualify for any discounts.

I will deff. keep an eye out for that come November and of course try to see if I can make it to NJ though my budget wasn’t planning for one track day this summer let alone three :lol

For the record, if you’re going to to buy any more days this year or next, show your support and buy somebodys track day bucks first, especially if you’re happy with an Instructor. I certainly know an instructor who’s bucks I’ll be buying.

:thumb

Agreed… and you can find all the staff photos and email addy’s on my website… under STAFF. :thumbup

I did a quick video after I got the files from Bryan yesterday, I put it in the video section.

Not that I am “improving drastically”, but to be honest…I foresee a 600 in 2009…:ninja…:ninja…:ninja

Looks like you were right behind everybody in turns, keeping up with them, while they had at least 6x the power and this is your first year riding.

Staring small :thumb