I was just going to do a quick Facebook post about the
opening weekend with Pacific Track Time here in Northern California, but it
started to get rather long and I was barely into the write up, so turned it
into a blog post instead.
I’m going to start
with a spoiler though. If you’ve followed me at all, you know last year was
tough with the whole situation with my leg. Most don’t know the real extent of
it, and that’s fine, but the reality is even at the end of last year, when the
scare was gone, my leg was still giving me a lot of trouble. I worked pretty
darn hard this winter to keep at rehabbing my leg and body, while making sure I
didn’t cause a new injury or aggravate an old one.
At the end of last
year, I still couldn’t tolerate wearing my race boots between sessions, and my
leg would swell up like a balloon at night, and was cranky for days afterwards.
I’m stoked to report that I got home after the weekend, and my leg felt like it
did on any normal day! No extra cranky, no unusual swelling, and nothing more
than it typically does. Seems the winter work, the time, the pain, the
stretching-to-the-edge-of-tears on a daily basis has paid off in a VERY
measurable way. Oh, and I kept my boots on all day (unless I was completely out
of my suit LOL).
This weekend was scheduled for our most local track, Sonoma
Raceway. The weather was looking okay – cold, actually pretty darn cold at
night, but warming up a bit during the day. Rain was threatened, but looked
like it would hold off until Sunday night long after we’d be gone.
In a last minute rush I managed to get all the parts for my
bike collected, assembled, and on the bike, and thankfully Viserion fired right
up after sitting there mostly disassembled for the better part of 3 months. I headed
to the track right after work on Friday, and got there at a decent time
thinking I’d get unloaded, say my hellos, and then have some time that evening
to relax. Unfortunately, the track had other plans, and instead we all got
diverted to Lot 2 while a car group took their sweet time clearing out of the
paddock. This gave some time to catch up with some friends, and finally, long
after it was dark (and we were all starving), we were allowed in to get set up
for the next day.
The chill in the air was obvious, and once unloaded and
mostly organized for the morning, with my bike tucked under its cover, I headed
to the hotel, some delivery pizza, and to get some sleep in a warmer spot.
The next morning I arrived to the track to find everything
covered with a nice touch of frost – proving the chill of the night before. I
finished setting up and helping get everything ready for the trackday to kick
off, then go ready to head out for the first C group lead-follow session. The
track was cold and slick, but most people were being pretty reasonable with
their pace and the day moved forward. I had a couple of customers that
requested some coaching, so spent some time working with them in addition to
general control riding.
During all of this I was also just trying to feel out my
bike. I had changed a lot over the winter, some of it pretty major (like
completely different suspension). I was also finding some small adjustments
that needed to be made, such as the angle of my clip-ons. The footpeg position
on the bike had been a problem since I started riding it, and after getting my
street bike, which had a different brand of aftermarket rearsets, I was really
not happy with these. My fellow instructor, Greg, was getting to hear about my
complaints, and he takes a look at the rearsets and pointed out that I could
simpley swap the base plate to the opposite side and have them angled up
instead of down. Duh!! Never even occurred to me, and that was an instant
problem solver. Now the only issue was going to be retraining my body as I had
found a “work around” that wasn’t great, but helped, and had ridden that way
for over 10 months by that point.
The track stayed slightly slick the rest of the day on
Saturday, and being the first day of the year and all the changes, I took it
easy and just worked on feeling everything out. The new suspension was HUGE.
Suddenly my bike did what I felt like it should be doing under braking. I
finally felt like I could be confident on the brakes, although a year of
fighting was still in the back of my mind/habits, the difference in how the
bike responded was massive. I was really starting to look forward to Sunday and
my chance to work with Tyler O’Hara and get some on-track dedicated coaching
for myself the next day to kick off the season on a good foot.
Saturday evening was a chance to hang out with the crew and
catch up after a winter away from the track family, and then I headed back to
the hotel a bit early to get a good night’s sleep as I was exhausted.
Sunday morning, once I had worked through some stuff for
PTT, Tyler arrived and we sat down and went over the plan for the day and in
general. Then, at the second session of the day, we headed out to get things
started.
Throughout the day we worked on a wide variety of things
from topics I already knew I needed to work on, to things he picked up on and
saw as we were riding. Getting the immediate feedback, and having the
lead-follow options were great as we could discuss lines or how to handle a
certain corner, I could follow, then apply, and tweak all in a session. We
ended up discussing pretty much every corner on the track, lots of little
tweaks here and there, plus a few changes in how I was riding up to and
including body position, and using the pegs a lot more.
The track heated up nicely through the day, and grip was
significantly better than it had been the day before. Some people were really
rolling! Overall, I was having a lot more fun on my bike. The suspension, even
without so much as a baseline sag, was such a massive improvement (along with
fixing my footpegs) that I was feeling FAR more confident on the bike than I
had since I bought it. Having Tyler there to keep my head in the right place
was rather helpful too, as at one point I was getting to the “trying too hard
and getting frustrated” point, and it was pretty obvious and he made it a point
to get the focus back on the important things.
By the time I had to head out to manage the grid, I had a
full day. My brain was starting to go into overload, and I had a lot of things
to think about and process through. I knew I’d be spending the next couple days
processing all the information and how best to apply it to my riding in
general, to other tracks, and just making sure I “recorded” everything so I
could remind myself of it as needed.
I went out a couple times the last hour – track was cooling
off, so I just chilled and repeated what we had been working on earlier in the
day at a more relaxed pace. The shiny side had stayed up, and I wanted to
finish the day that way, so just reiterated to my mind and muscles the lessons
from earlier.
Overall, it was a terrific weekend, and I’m really glad with
a lot of my choices and decisions over the winter in terms of my off-season
training, the bike upgrades/changes, and overall outlook. I know I had fun –
and in fact, I’m fairly certain that I had a lot more fun than I’ve yet to
realize since my mind is still processing all the information. I think in
another 24-48 hours I’ll realize just how much fun I actually had this weekend 😊
Huge shout outs to my 2018 sponsors – you support of the
sport, this gal, and motorcycle racing in general is invaluable! I’ve got a
great group of partners this year, and I’m looking forward to continuing to
improve as a rider, racer, and representative!
See you at Round 1 in a few weeks!!
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