100 degree temperatures, a slight breeze and plenty of sun awaited me and the bike Friday morning. Heading out I had a couple things in mind I wanted to work on: for starters, basic steering and being careful not to sit there fighting myself on inputs; secondly, making sure my body position was consistent.
First few sessions went well, finally got some feedback from a couple of the instructors on a few things to work on, including making sure my positioning-throttle roll off-braking-turn in sequence was correct and consistency between laps needing some work. Fixing my pre-corner order proved to be huge later that afternoon. Of course, it allowed the bike to be a lot more stable going into corners - which meant I could stay on the throttle longer, start braking later and go in just that touch bit faster. By the last few sessions I was seeing a huge difference, and actually had to adjust my visual references further out because I was carrying enough of a speed difference that my "old" visual lines were simply too short. I'm sure that did a bit to open the track up more as well.
Add on the fact that for the most part I got my shifting where I'm happy with it, was a lot more confident on the bike and it's handling, got most of my turn in, apex and exit points, and started to get a feel for most of my throttle roll off and braking points and by the end of the day I was feeling pretty good. I was relaxed on the bike, confident and again saw a world of improvement.
Next on my list of things I need to tackle is passing, ESPECIALLY the bigger displacement bikes - but passing in general needs work and confidence on my part. Most of the time I feel like I can get around people (following group rules) in a semi-reasonable time as long as they are on a same or smaller displacement bike...but sometimes those liter bikes give me a challenge because my favorite place to overtake people is coming out of the corner, and they simply have the horsepower to make that extremely difficult even though I'm riding their rear the entire rest of track (other than maybe the long straights) and could definitely be going faster in the corners.
And a shout out to Tech Spec tank pads - made a HUGE difference on how much work I had to do in order to hold myself in position. I got a set of their snake skin grips, and they made my life SO much easier! Managed to ride the entire day, didn't skip any sessions!
Either way, I think this whole thing is more fun than ought to be allowed :D
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