Guess I'll do my official write up for my Summit Main weekend...
My last TD was back in July when it ended in a lowside at Beaver. Since then, I've spent a decent amount of money and time putting the bike back together to get ready for Summit Main. Fortunately Thursday night I got back my painted body work and finished putting everything back together just in time.
So the wife and I packed up Friday night and left Saturday morning at 5 AM to head to the track. Without incident we got to the track at around 6:40 AM and found a pit spot. I pitted next to a brother of a coworker of mine that is a CR for NESBA. Due to bike problems he has not CRed much in the past few years. Got everything unloaded and setup and got through tech by 7:30 with no problems. The tech on Saturday was the easiest tech I've ever seen. The guy looked at my front tire, felt my front brake lever, and made sure my throttle returned to close. He didn't check my rear tire, chain tension, or anything else that is fairly standard.
I signed up for Yamaha demo rides, so I stopped by the Yamaha/NESBA trailer to check in for the demo ride on the way back from tech. Got back to the pit and had to immediately walk back up for the demo ride meeting. Wasn't too bad considering I got to skip the general riders meeting.
When I signed up for demos, all the R1s and R6s were taken, so I signed up for the FZ1 and FZ6. When I got up to the trailer for my demo ride, I asked if there were any extra R6s available and there were, so I got to switch to that. Due to not being able to pass during demo rides, I didn't get a chance to open it up much since I was behind an extremely slow rider. I will say the bike is more narrow and lighter than my '03 636. I didn't notice a ton of extra power, but the higher redline was throwing me off because i kept shifting early. However the slipper clutch was awesome, being able to just bang down through the gears in braking zones. Overall, it is a really nice bike and I'm sure if would be awesome once it was set up for me, but I think for now I'll stick with my '03 636.
Anyways, we went out for the first session and my main goal was to make sure all the new stuff on the bike was working properly. Had no major issues except my clip ons needed re-adjusted as they were out too wide. The day was overcast but had no rain, so it was really nice.
I spent the morning working on body positioning as I put new clip ons and new rearsets which seemed to change my whole posture. There was 45-50 riders in "I" group and not enough CRs, so it was really hard to get open track. Was still running 1:28/9's, so not too bad I guess.
The afternoon was better, especially the second to last session. The CR friend I pitted next to got permission to go out with me in "I" group. It was basically a full 20 mins of having my own CR. He had some great lines to show me and some really good insight.
Overall Saturday was great and I had a blast. The bike ran well and the weather held out. There was a little frustration with all the traffic in "I" group and some of the guys making some sketchy passes, but no major incidents.
Sunday rolled around and got through tech again. It was going to be sunnier and warmer Sunday, and it turned out to be just a beautiful day. I did another demo ride (to skip the riders meeting
) and this time got to ride an FZ1. I was really impressed with the smoothness of the power delivery. I was keeping up with the guy in front of me who was on an R1, but eventually he and the CR got away since i started dragging the FZ1 pegs in corners, so I backed off.
Sunday was pretty much the same as Saturday. Tons of traffic and some shady passes. I tried to focus on the lines Ryan (CR friend) showed me the day before and body positioning, and began running the same lap times but with more comfort. My fastest time was a 1:25.02. I got passed on the inside of T10 by a guy on an R1. I was really pissed, so I put my head down and ran him down having to get by a CBR1000RR along the way. Guess I just needed a little motivation.
Only major incident all weekend for me happened on the 3rd to last lap of the final session on Sunday. I caught a slower rider going into T1 and carried more speed as I started to go outside of them to setup a pass coming through T2. Well the slower rider cut T1 too tight and caught the inside curbing. They spooked themselves and stood the bike straight up in the corner. I was on their outside, so when they checked up it caused me to push wide right into the bumps on the outside of T1. I washed the front end and lowsided out.
Considering all the money and time I just spent fixing the bike, I was really pissed. I do not blame the other rider as my passing on the outside mid corner takes the risk of things like that happening, it was just really frustrating. I was able to ride the bike back to the pits and the extent of the damage was a bust foot peg, scratched up fairings, the exhaust pipe clamp broke where the pipe meets the headers and the slider was ground down. Just need to replace the peg, slider, helmet face shield, and re-attach the exhaust. Probably less than $100 in repairs. I was real sore today as I hit the ground pretty hard, but did not break anything and walked away.
Want to say thanks to Mike and Bill for driving down and helping me load up afterwards. Overall, even though I wrecked I had a great weekend. See some pics below that the wife took.
Rest of the photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nate.klined ... directlink
No go for me
