We had a wonderful day up in Willows at Thunderhill today! A whole bunch of MSMC'ers made it up there on a day without a cloud in the sky, and a temperature in the high 80's to low 90's. Present and accounted for were Colin & Vicki, Mark Eastwood, Ben Swiggett, myself and Ann, along with Joseph Brooke and Mark's brother Jonathan:

http://aciurczak.smugmug.com/photos/22916431-L.jpg

This was only my 3rd trackday, but I can see how motorcyclists refer to them as crackdays, because I wanna go back tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that... This was Colin & Vicki's first time on a track, and they both had a great time!

Ann was nice enough to take lap times for me and Ben throughout the day, which was at once inspiring as well as depressing. (Ben's fast!) From a baseline of over 2:30's for my first session, my best lap later in the day was a 2:21.9, and my average sessions for the last part of the day were all in the 2:26 range. Ben got faster throughout the day as well, especially after he put on some new Pirelli SuperCorsas, and his last session was an average of 2:20, with a hot lap of 2:17 flat.

This was one of the only times that I was in front of Ben: :D

http://aciurczak.smugmug.com/photos/22916448-L.jpg

Here's a neat pic that shows me, Mark, and Ben all in the same shot: (Mark and Ben are hidden at the top and left of the frame)

http://aciurczak.smugmug.com/photos/22916460-L.jpg


However, all that paled to our buddy Joseph, who was comfortably lapping under 2:07, and had a lap or two at 2:04 (which is blindingly fast, btw). Unfortunately, while he was trying to set a new world record during the last session (or at least get a 2:00 flat), he had a getoff between turn 5 & turn 6. Scared the heck out of us when they scrambled the ambulance, but he turned out to be just fine. His Ducati was somewhat worse for wear:

http://aciurczak.smugmug.com/photos/22916432-L.jpg

Ann was also kind enough to enter all the lap times into a spreadsheet, so for those folks with way too much time on their hands, I uploaded that spreadsheet here as well... Also, the full picture gallery can be seen if you click right here... (http://aciurczak.smugmug.com/gallery/552014)

Here's my version of the day:
The day started early - left the AmeriHost Inn at 7am to get ice at the Walmart. We were at the gates of Thunderhill by 7:15 and setting up "camp" by 7:30. We had a great spot, not too far from the main building (restrooms and food!) and just a short stroll over to turn 13, where I spent a good majority of the day recording lap times for Alex, Ben, and Joseph.

Since this was my first track day event, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had suspected a bit of chaos, but to my surprise everything was quite organized - from registration to tech inspection to lunch service to how the groups/sessions on the track were conducted to pictures (gotbluemilk.com (http://www.gotbluemilk.com)).

The big drama of the day for me was when Joseph "went off track". I was recording lap times for him. He was riding about 2:04/lap, so when he didn't show on lap 4 after 3 minutes, I wondered if perhpas I missed him going by since he's screaming fast! I kept asking Mark if I had missed him somehow... then the track folks began waving the yellow and black flags. I knew something had gone wrong, so I kind of lost it. Tears were shed... OK, I bawled/cried/got very upset. :( In the end, Joseph was fine - his bike was a bit worn and Joseph's rear end had a good bump with the pavement, but all was fine. :o Sorry, for the drama, but I was worried!

All in all, it was a good day... and no, I did not tell Alex that he could not do another track day. I'm actually looking forward to the next one - recording track times is actually fun! Although, we need a better way of collecting the data, which I'm sure Alex will find me some cool gadget I can use for the next time. :)

Vicki and I had a great time, we'll post more later...but I wanted to show a neat series of 3 pics of alex, vicki and i in the same position on the track...(note vicki showing off club stripes!)

Alex:

http://aciurczak.smugmug.com/photos/22916463-S.jpg

Colin:

http://CV.smugmug.com/photos/22916279-S.jpg

Vicki:

http://CV.smugmug.com/photos/22917940-S.jpg

A great day was had by all! It was really nice having the whole crew there. Colin and Vicki brought the canopy to protect us from the beaming sun, and Ann was the official timing gal. I would recommend a track day to anyone who enjoys motorcycling on any level! :D

Hey! How do I attach images to show up in the body of the text? It will only give me these thumbnails.

As I predicted, Alex has found a neato-keen gadget to buy for recording lap times. Here's a link to a website that describes it in detail:

http://www.cc-2000.com/xtracing/en/x4/

You can time up to 4 riders at a time and all the data is downloadable to a computer. No more worksheets, although, weren't they cute? The racing motorcycle watermark was my idea :rolleyes: . Also, no more tedious data entry, which was what I was doing on my laptop in the car on the way home from Thunderhill. The device allows you to enter in a list of riders, up to 50 names, which means I could enter in all the MSMC member names and do stats on everyone in the club! OK, maybe that's taking it too far.:p

Good thing you're essentially a rocket scientist, 'cause it looks like you need an engineering degree to use that thing. I was kind of hoping you'd get one of those multi-stopwatch clipboards:

http://www.longacreracing.com/catalog/item.asp?id=263&catid=10

Then you could still use the watermark worksheets!

Good thing you're essentially a rocket scientist, 'cause it

Essentially! I'd say 'better than'...;)

Hmmmm.....
http://aciurczak.smugmug.com/photos/23214229-L.jpg

Well, it looks like Alex bought the stuff. We got both the on-bike timer with beacon as well as the X4 manual timer for up to 4 riders. Both are downloadable to a computer via USB. I guess no more cute worksheets :( .

Here's a link that shows pictures of both:
http://www.cc-2000.com/xtracing/en/products.html

Why both? Well, the in situ timer is more accurate if the beacon is set up correctly and eliminates the requirement of a timer (that would be me!), making Alex self-sufficient (well, at least in this one case). I won't be attending Alex's June trackday, so I guess this is a good thing. Also, Alex plans to mount the on-bike timer somewhere in front of him so he can get instant disappointment (OK, gratification) :p . The X4 will be good if others want to be timed and/or the on-bike timer is not working. If all any of the above turns out to be crap, I'll guess we'll go back to the old fashioned stopwatch method with worksheets.