Had another great couple of trackdays at Mid-Ohio. Pat and I had an uneventful drive out on Sunday night. We took the back roads and did manage to run into a huge cloud of bugs somewhere along the way. I just remember my windshield suddenly being covered with dead bugs. We got a great deal on 2 nights at the Travelodge through
www.hotels.com.
We met Carl, Brian, and Frank, at the track and we all got set up and through registration / tech with no issues. It was a hot day, and as a result the track was almost 100% from the first session on. With the AMA races having just been on Sat / Sun, they had a large turnout for Mon’s trackday. The HERO EBR semi was still in the parking lot, and when I noticed Chris Ulrich walk by, I figured he’d be out testing one of the EBR bikes for an article in Road Racing World. I wasn’t wrong, and it was pretty cool to see him come blazing past on Danny Eslick’s bike! I was amazed by how fast he came by me going into turn #1.
The 2 surprising things about the pre-lunch sessions were; #1 how good the track was, and #2 how fast Pat was getting around, considering that he hadn’t been to Mid-Ohio since last year. Unfortunately there were a few guys in the “A” group that should have been in “I”, which made for high closing speeds. Also, along with the large turnout came lots of red flags. It wasn’t terrible, but it was annoying at times. Mid-Ohio seems to be very aggressive about throwing the red flag. I guess that’s a good thing from a safety standpoint. I was able to make it down into the high 1:41’s before lunch.
As has been my recent practice, I started the day with a shagged rear tire and ran it until it really started to move around, which amounted to 4-5 sessions. I put on a newer rear and was able to get down to my beat lap of the year – 1:40.2.
It was really nice not to have to make the drive home when the day was over. Especially since we still had Tuesday’s trackday to look forward to. We grabbed some Mexican chow and hung out at the 5-star Travelodge.
There was a smaller turnout on Tues, but like Mon it was a hot one (even hotter than Mon), and there were once again a few “I” guys in the “A” class, and more red flags than I would have liked. With the heat, the track was once again good from the first lap. Once again Pat was riding really well! I spent both days trying to keep him behind me, or trying to catch up to him. With a decent amount of traffic on both days, we ended up doing a lot of passing. As the sessions wore on, our patience for being behind slower riders (especially the dude on the RC51) decreased, and our passes became more no-nonsense in nature. We had a lot of fun!
I was able to get down to a mid-1:41 before lunch, and was able to slightly better my best lap from Mon, by the 4th session. I wasn’t able to get any clean-ish laps in the 5th and 6th sessions, which left 1 final session. The group had thinned out a bit for the last session, so I went out and tried to pull out all of the stops. I ran my best ever Mid-Ohio lap time on the 2nd lap of the session, and then bettered my time on the 3rd, 5th, and 7th lap, for a best lap of 1:39.4. I hadn’t run a 1:39 all year, and then ran 6 of them in the last session. This was also the first time (X4) that I ran a personal best lap on the 750. I believe Pat ran a personal best lap that session as well. Needless to say we were both pretty psyched!
It was hot both days, and I believe it got up to 97 – 98 degrees on Tuesday. I don’t know if I’ve ever sweat more than I did on Tuesday!!! We packed up and headed home after 2 fantastic track days. I had to get home, unpack, repack, and be up by 4:30 AM to drive out to Cleveland for a 3 day business trip. I guess if you want to play, you gotta pay…