Was back at Thunderhill over the weekend (October 8th) with a gang of my good friends, including my ever-present buddy Trung, who's coming back from his last outing at Thunderhill that resulted in yet another tumble.
Man, that last crash really did a mental number on Trung; he's otherwise healthy and his bike supposedly runs just as well as it did before he binned it, but for some reason, Trung just could not get back in the groove. Pre-crash, he was probably one of the faster Intermediate riders around a track, but post-crash, he says he couldn't even pass one person on track, let alone our friend Jeff, who's only back in Thunderhill for the third time, first time out in the Intermediate group. He says he's, "going backwards."
The poor guy. I say if he really is going backwards, then let's start from the bottom; put the street fairings back on his bike and let's start riding the streets again. Less stress, less time away from his now burgeoning family, and ultimately cheaper.
That was bitter.
For myself, I haven't been back to Thunderhill for as long as Trung, and the last time I did any kind of track riding was late in May, during Yamaha's appreciation days in Laguna Seca. All in keeping with my self-imposed tradition of doing less and less track days in the last couple of years or so. After this past weekend, I've only racked up four track days in total this year, which is a far cry from the height of my addiction, I think having done up to fourteen track days in one season.
Yet somehow, I'm still getting quicker.
I've never ran a lap timer. The one time I ever owned one came with the purchase of one of my track bikes, and I promptly turned around and sold it. The closest thing to a lap timer I use is my ContourHD; a lot of people use their videos to gauge their lap times, marking the time marker when they crossed the checkered line, and again the next time out - the difference between two marks make up your lap time. I never made a habit of doing this though. Recording sessions were done solely for the purposes of compiling fun little videos as a side hobby of mine. Nevertheless, I had an idea of how fast I could go, because I needed to know whether I could move up to a particular group; from Novice to Intermediate, to Intermediate to Advanced. Track day providers post their guidelines of cut-off times to meet to be able to safely run with each group, particularly the Intermediate and Advanced.
In the example of Keigwins@TheTrack, their guideline cut-off lap time for Thunderhill Raceway is 2:15 for the Advanced Group, so back when I decided to move to the Advanced Group, this was the time that I knew I had to meet. I can't remember how I figured I could meet this time, but I did, as I've been an Advanced rider since, but still I did not keep a lap timer. Since becoming an Advanced Rider, I figured I must be doing 2:12's at best around Thunderhill.
This past weekend, my footages marked me at having done 2:08's consecutively. I had no idea I was even doing sub-2:10's, or for how long now. My warm-up lap alone out of the hot pits was at 2:15!
Color me genuinely surprised. How could I be going faster when I've been hardly going to the track?
That was sweet.
I paid the price though, because the day after my body was sore all over. Thunderhill is a physical track in that it is high-speed, so you are hanging on for dear life against wind-blasts and high-speed braking, fighting to turn the front wheel at triple digit speeds. I guess going that much faster raised these same challenges as well. That, or maybe it's cause I hardly do this kind of riding anymore, so my body's just not up to par than before. Even 48-hours after that track day, I was still residually sore.
That was bitter.
It was all worth it though, despite my buddy Trung now starting from square one, and me being DOA coming home from that day. It's nice to know that I somehow have the aptitude to retain particular skills or abilities, and improve upon them, even when the frequency of practice is seldom. A good number of friends I've come to know over the years were also there, so the company was just as awesome as the weather itself was. To cap it off, despite the high number of people that showed up and the people that I know that also rode, not one of us had any incident. Everybody went home the same way they arrived at the track.
That was very sweet. :)
