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 Post subject: CMP 3/19-20
 Post Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 3:02 pm 
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Major 'Ho
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Current TrackWhore(s): 2011 GSXR 750
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As usual, I drove myself crazy watching the forecast leading up to this weekend. It looked good for more than a week out and stayed pretty stable. On Thursday the forecast was showing 85 and sunny with a 10% chance of rain on Sat and 76, partly cloudy with a 10% chance of rain. We all signed up on Thursday and I finished getting the trailer hooked up, and my car packed up. I checked the forecast before I went to bed and it was showing 20% chance of rain for Sat – interesting.

Friday morning didn’t go so well. I checked the forecast and it was showing 76 and 40% chance of rain on Sat and 62 and 30% chance of rain on Sun – Uggg! Then my kids missed the bus so I had to un-hook the trailer and un-pack the car so I could take them to school – Ugggg!

Pat, Kurt and I got on the road by around 9:30 – 10 am. With the exception of RT 19, the drive is usually a pretty easy, set the cruise control deal. Not this time! Traffic sucked! It was the worst drive through PA, WV, and VA, I’ve had since I started heading south in the winter. We hit NC and made great time until we hit rush hour traffic in Charlotte. We stopped to eat to wait out the traffic a bit. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful.

When we got to the track and it appeared that we would get lucky with the weather. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day. I went out for the first session to knock the rust off, I felt tight physically, but felt like I was riding well for a first session.

The cars went back out after our first session and I saw blue smoke coming out of a NASCAR type car. They threw the black flag, but instead of getting off the track the driver stayed on all the way to pit in. The crazy thing was that the team that owned the car had two cars on the track and a few seconds later their other car started blowing oil on the track as well. Whatever the issue was they had it with both of their cars.

CMP shut the track down for clean up. From what I could see of the oil the cars put down in the pits on their way back in and from the bags of oil dry they were dumping on the track – things were not looking good.

The cars put down oil from turn #11 through turn #14. Turn #11, #12 and #14 are places where you carry a lot of lean angle and I do a lot of trail braking into #11. These are not places where you want to be worried about grip.

I really can’t say enough good things about the way CMP handled this situation. It appeared that they had every employee, corner worker, etc, out working to clean up the track. They called a meeting, told everyone what was going on, and shuffled the schedule to make sure we didn’t miss any track time. After the clean up was done, they sent out 2 car groups and then swept the track again before sending the bikes back out.

When we finally went out for our second session, I was pleasantly surprised with the condition of the track. By changing my lines in turns #11-#13 I was able to pretty much avoid the oil dry. There was no missing it in #14, and I spun the rear up there a couple times, but overall the track was pretty good and got better every session.

With having to adjust my lines a bit and having to be a bit more careful in turn # 14, I pretty much just went out there and had fun more than trying to best my lap times. I did put my timer on for the 5th and 6th session on Sat and ran best laps of 1:46.84 and 1:46.41 - about 2.5 - 3 seconds off my best from Feb.

Compared with other Turn 1 CMP days there did seem to be a lot of bikes crashing and running off track. I believe there was only 1 red flag, but it was still distracting to see so many bikes off in the grass. There was one group of 2-3 riders in particular who pretty much spent both days crashing, asking for parts, fixing their bikes up, riding them around the pits to make sure they were OK, going out and crashing again, and repeating the cycle.

Did we ever luck out with the weather on Sat! It was 80-85 degrees, sunny, no wind, no humidity - just perfect! When we were at dinner on Sat the TV was showing Tornado warnings South and West of Kershaw. It was close enough that we saw some of the lightning, but never got a drop of rain. Sunday was cooler with a breeze, but still a nice day. I believe the high was in the mid / upper 60's.

A few fast guys (running 1:34's!!!!) showed on Sunday and they seemed to be pretty much unaffected by Saturday's oil spill. I figured if they could do it, I could pick up the pace as well. I wanted to at least get down into the 1:45's. By the third session I made it down to 1:46.23 when my rear tire really started moving around. I swapped it out for a fresh rear and did a best lap of 1:46.25 in the next session. My brakes were making some noise when I got back to the pits, so I checked the pads and I couldn't believe how bad they were. I had checked them before we left and they looked like they would make the weekend without a problem. CMP is really, really, hard on brakes (and tires). I installed a set of "take off" brake pads I had in my tool box and went out for the last session.

I got into a pretty good dice with a couple of guys on GSXR 750's in the last session. I showed the first guy a wheel a few times. I tried to get him on the outside of #11 and almost ran into the back of him because he checked up and ran wide. I finally pulled up the inside of him going into #14. He didn't want to let me past and stayed in the throttle, but I didn't leave him any other option. He of course powered by me on the front straight. I finally got him for good on the outside of turn #11 and his buddy in the same place a lap later. It was a fun session and I managed to get down to a 1:45.40 once I got past them. I didn't make it back into the 1:43's, or even the 1:44's, but I had a lot of fun, and ran my best lap in the last session of my last day at the track.

We packed up as quickly as we could and hit the road for the long drive home. I was having issues with my trailer lights so we decided to try to cover as much ground as we could before it got dark. We made great time through SC and NC and made our first stop for gas and food in VA. A few minutes after we got back on the road I got pulled over for my trailer lights. I got a ticket and the cop told me to pull over at the truck stop at the next exit and fix my lights. I wasn't sure how that was going to work out but Pat rigged it up and we were back on our way. I'm guessing the whole deal cost us about an hour (and $100 for me).

It turned out to be another fun trip to CMP! I'm glad Kurt made the trip down and seemed to have a good time with the exception of his low-side.


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 Post subject: Re: CMP 3/19-20
 Post Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 5:15 pm 
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Nice write up as always - glad you guys had good weather and riding. Too bad you got pinched for trailer lights. They interchange sessions between cars and bikes? How does that work?

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 Post subject: Re: CMP 3/19-20
 Post Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 10:02 pm 
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It ususally isn't too bad Mike although when the cars leak oil it sucks.CMP did a great job cleaning it up though.Even Sunday when there was a lot of rubber on the track they used a sweeper to clean it off.


Matt did a good write up,he was riding really well too.I had a blast as always down there.I just need to make some adjustments on the suspension since I added fork extender's to the gixxer.


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 Post subject: Re: CMP 3/19-20
 Post Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 11:49 pm 
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I guess my question was more along the lines of how they brake up the day between bike and cars?

You guys thinking about the nesba weekend at Beaver (4/30 - 5/1)? I need another opportunity to chase you guys :)

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 Post subject: Re: CMP 3/19-20
 Post Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 11:49 pm 
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I guess my question was more along the lines of how they brake up the day between bike and cars?

You guys thinking about the nesba weekend at Beaver (4/30 - 5/1)? I need another opportunity to chase you guys :)

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 Post subject: Re: CMP 3/19-20
 Post Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 10:19 am 
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Mike the do 20 minute sessions every hour just like a normal track day.Some times you lose or gain time as they go out and check the track before the bikes go out.They really seem to take care of us bike people :toocool: Truly impressed in how well they cleaned up the oil spill.They didn't mess around and brought out a truck full of oil dry bag and have a blower to clean it off.After that mess they combined the two car groups to give the bike group there time bike.


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 Post subject: Re: CMP 3/19-20
 Post Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 10:32 am 
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What I'm wondering Pat is how many bike groups do they run? Are all the riders in a single group or do they do separate skill level groups.

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 Post subject: Re: CMP 3/19-20
 Post Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:46 am 
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Major 'Ho
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madski wrote:
What I'm wondering Pat is how many bike groups do they run? Are all the riders in a single group or do they do separate skill level groups.


Mike,

There's only 1 bike group. It's basically upper I and A riders. They usually have a light turnout so it works out well. There were a total of 5 riders (including 2 CR's) in Feb. I believe there were 15 - 20 riders on Sat, but there was a ton of open track...


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 Post subject: Re: CMP 3/19-20
 Post Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:54 am 
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cool - that's what I was trying to sort out - seems like a sweet deal!

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 Post subject: Re: CMP 3/19-20
 Post Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 7:21 pm 
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It is Mike and never really had a issue with the different riders.


Here is me following Matt last session on Sunday :toocool:


http://vimeo.com/21375931


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