Velocity Racing's 'Honey Badger' Blog

Reno-Fernley Raceway. Let’s see: porta-potties, wild horses (dodge the horse apples on the track), bunnies and tumbleweeds. Oh, ya, and a racetrack with a ton of corners, elevation changes, rough pavement that feels like your bike made love to a jackhammer and the first track where a fair number of my reference points ended up being tar snakes. I trailer pooled up with another one of my Curve Unit sisters, and we met up with our Prez in Sacramento and drove the rest of the way in a mini caravan. Around 7pm Friday night we rolled into RFR and I got my first glimpse of this rustic track. Dropped the trailers, and then got a pre-trackday Suburban tour of the track courtesy of Shawn and Kathy Reilly. My biggest impression? There’s a lot of freaking track to try to remember. After our little ride we headed into town for some (surprisingly rather good) all-you-can-eat sushi at Sushi Moto before heading to our hotel to crash for the night. Saturday dawned bright and early, if not ...

June 1st 2012 - my second Z2 Women's VIP day, and my second time up at Thunderhill this summer, and my second time out on the R6. 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 ...

After picking up the new-to-me trackbike, I sent the fairings off to my friend to start working on, and got myself going on the fuel tank and arranging for Sean aka Elskipador on BARF to do my fork seals. Things made it down to a last minute rush on Sunday morning, but by 3:00pm I had the bike back together and ready to load up and head off to Willows, CA and Thunderhill Raceway. A couple of other girls were truck-pooling up with me, including another Curve Unit member. We were crashing the night in her friend’s RV, so after making the drive (with only 3 death wobble incidents – that’s a whole ‘nuther story) we went to dinner at Casa Ramos then over to the track to spend the night. Met a few other BARFers hanging out that evening, then off to bed to (hopefully) get some sleep before the next day. Monday dawned sunny and bright, with an expected high in the mid-upper 80’s. After unloading our stuff and getting through registration and tech, I headed over to JP Suspension...

Sunday morning - I wake up bright and early, thankfully it looks like the sun intends to peek out. I've got a long day ahead of me, but one that I'm rather excited for - for starters, it's our monthly Curve Unit ride, so I get to see my sisters. Secondly, I'll be picking up my new-to-me but it-has-plenty-of-experience track bike, the final plunge for me on this path vs horses. This didn't just happen on a whim. Along with selling off my horse trailer and other horse stuff, I had been reluctant to let my saddle go - I love my saddle, and it fit me great. Thing is, I was busy hanging onto something that I was only using on other people's horses (when I could just be using their tack) and even at that was hardly ever using myself. With no new horse in my foreseeable future, it was a little silly. Add in the fact that a simple low-side at the track on my street bike could cost me an awful lot of money, besides putting a big problem on getting to work the next day...

In the spirit of getting my fat, out of shape ass whipped into shape, I laid out a workout plan that is proving to be tough, but sustainable...but also accomplish some quick results since I only have a month between these trackdays, and I don't want a physical repeat of March's ride. So, here's the plan: 3 days a week I am doing a home-made version of Cross Fit . Granted, not as great as having an actual trainer or class (since I don't have the equipment), but intense none the less. I've got a list of about 25 different exercises I can do, and I rotate through them in sets of 4, being sure to hit several body areas each day. Warm up, followed by 20 minutes of butt-kicking rotations, then cool down and stretch. Another 3 days a week I'm doing basic cardio - taking the dog for a run, doing the 30 minute express workout at my gym, Planet Fitness , or something else along that line. One day a week I take off from actually working out - may still go ride a horse ...

March 26th 2012.  My first trackday of the summer, on a track I've only done one parade lap on - Sear's Point Raceway , aka Infineon. But I had shiny new slicks on my ZX10R, and was hyped up and ready to go. Since I didn't know the track at all I signed up for Z2's Novice Class C group. Missed 1/2 my first session because I had to get my tires back on the bike, and between the orientation class and waiting for them to get mounted, I ran out of time. But got out there for a bit anyways. Second session, 2nd lap in I'm getting black flagged...okay, well I knew I hadn't done anything that bad, and since I had just had my bike apart, was thinking maybe I missed something and had some random bit flapping in the breeze so I pull off the track at a safe spot. And sit out the entire session....only to find that they had been flagging my friend who was behind me with her vest flapping wide open. GRRRRR. Two sessions down, and I've not even warmed up my tire...

Okay, less of a party and more like a huge expenditure, some hard decisions, and a lot of sweat with a little bit of blood. So here's the back story: I've been riding sportbikes since I bought my first bike - a '99 ZX6R, used, but it got me going. Unfortunately, it also played to a lot of my "stupid," but we both survived and are both still here to tell the tale, although the bike's life is getting short having rolled over 78,000 miles on the odometer lately. Since then I've had other bikes, up to and including my current street bike, a '05 ZX10R. Nasty little piece of motorcycling heaven, and I love it. I've been riding for about 7 years. Although I always wanted to try track days, I never got around to it due to financial reasons. Last year, I won a hosted spot at Zoom Zoom Trackday's  Women's VIP event in June. I learned a ton, had a blast, and went from slow to less slow (although probably shouldn't have been playing in C group by...