Penguin School/ Ducati trackday, July 13th NJMP

[asphaltscraper]

:party:
Kat bought me a trackday for my birthday.
It's a 1 day event at NJMP Thunderbolt with the Duc Truck showing up loaded with bikes to demo and the Wood Brothers there representing the Penguin School and Larry Pegram also slated to be there. :cool2:
It was a Ducati only event but there were low sign up's so they opened it to all brands. It might be nice to romp a Duc Superbike around but I think I'd sooner spend the day on my 675 and get as much tuition from the pro's as possible. :grin:
I'll take the S3 along in case it rains and the Power Race's on the 675 end up being a bad idea.

Thanks Kat....I might have been cranky all day:tomato: but I am super stoked about this!!!!!! :ooh: :ooh::ooh: :ooh: :yeehaw: :yeehaw: :yeehaw: :yeehaw:

[Budo]

Yay... congrats :)

[asphaltscraper]

Yay... congrats :)


Thanks man.




Oh, BTW........TAT....was talking to Kat and she is all for it, so I am going to try and squirrel cash here and there for year or two and save for a DRZ400S (the suspension and tires might be better for some of the terrain unless the 400SM can handle some knobbier tires?). I am intent on making it happen. :thumbup:

[cintron.ben]

Congrats :cool2: How nice of her :thumbup:

[Budo]

Oh, BTW........TAT....was talking to Kat and she is all for it, so I am going to try and squirrel cash here and there for year or two and save for a DRZ400S (the suspension and tires might be better for some of the terrain unless the 400SM can handle some knobbier tires?). I am intent on making it happen. :thumbup:

SAHWEET!!!

You think we should invite Noles? God knows that ho can't hold on to a bike to save his life... :rofl:

Good point on the S/SM differences. I know that some recent year 400S models sell used on advrider for about $2.5 - $3.5 depending on how nicely "farkled" it is. Maybe get a hold of an auxiliary tank, or get the tank that expands into the fairing shrouds and we'll be set :)

[Fsnoles1984]

SAHWEET!!!

You think we should invite Noles? God knows that ho can't hold on to a bike to save his life... :rofl:


I hate you. LOL :nana:

[Budo]

I hate you. LOL :nana:

But I still love you noles... I am quite magnanimous...





P.s. that is the big word of the day :P

[Budo]

I could also go with a cheaper solution like this:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=469667

or a DR650 for $2K as well:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=469684


there's a 400S on there too $2800:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=469100


I surf advrider classifieds when I'm bored :P, lots of cool stuff come up in the gear and other sections.

[asphaltscraper]

I could also go with a cheaper solution like this:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=469667

or a DR650 for $2K as well:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=469684


there's a 400S on there too $2800:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=469100


I surf advrider classifieds when I'm bored :P, lots of cool stuff come up in the gear and other sections.


I read that a 650 might be a little heavy and cumbersome vs the 400 in some of the rougher stuff???

[Budo]

I wasn't really considering the 650 for myself... I'm too short to be able to maneuver on it with confidence. I was just throwing it up there for you to see :P

[Scooter Scott]

The Penguin schools are very good. I did two of them at Homestead. The advanced class is great if you keep Jeff talking about riding and not his old race stories. Wood Sr. is a very cool guy to talk to and fast as hell for an old fart. Ask him where the Penguin name came from.

[Brian675]

Congratulations. You sir have a cool wife. :coolgleamA:

[Marko]

^^^ Ditto.

M

[DoubleApexx]

Congratulations. You sir have a cool wife. :coolgleamA:


^^^ Ditto.

M

Thanks men. I try.:icon_thank:

I also don't want Chip to trade me in for two 21 year olds...

[ShnikeJSB]

Thanks men. I try.:icon_thank:

I also don't want Chip to trade me in for two 21 year olds...

Yuck... I can't even stand 21-year-olds now, and I am 26!!! :rofl3:

[Wbkelso]

Yuck... I can't even stand 21-year-olds now, and I am 26!!! :rofl3:

Your an OLD FART Josh!!! How much longer till you breakout the walker???:FIREdevil:

[ShnikeJSB]

Your an OLD FART Josh!!! How much longer till you breakout the walker???:FIREdevil:

Ooooh, just about the same time you start knowing the difference between "your" and "you're"... :nana:


:ooh:

[asphaltscraper]

Woo Hoo Woo Hoo. Less than a week to go now. 675 is ready then I just have to tape up the S3 and load 'em both up. :grin:

[asphaltscraper]

S3 is taped and stripped down a lot more than I originally intended. Drove myself (and Kat) nuts last night by misplacing the key...when in actuality I had put it away where I always do.....but seeing as I was working on it on and off I didn't consider that I could have put it there. I'm losing the plot I think. :keepquiet: :angry: :nomore: :tothemoon:

S3 ready to rock.

http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w243/asphaltscraper/DSC01311sized.jpg

http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w243/asphaltscraper/DSC01318sized.jpg

Stupid as this may sound, after all that I spent on the 675 I hope I don't like the S3 on the track more. :smug:

[Brian675]

:chained: Me likes alot!

Have fun.

I think I would almost hump anything with a single sided swing arm.

[asphaltscraper]

:chained: Me likes alot!

Have fun.

I think I would almost hump anything with a single sided swing arm.

Thanks Brian. Yeah, I am really looking forward to it. I will use the 675 most of the day and try the S3 later in the day, or if it rains and the 675's Power Races are no longer an option on track.

[Brian675]

So how was it?

[DoubleApexx]

So how was it?

It was so good, he didn't call me once to let me know he was OK, after receiving only about 3 hours of sleep the night before the track day.

[asphaltscraper]

Alright, let’s tell this tale. :wave:
So my day started out kind of shitty. I was on call for work until 7:30am on Monday and I got called in at 11:45 on Sunday night. Thankfully I’d hit the hay early so I got a little sleep before being disturbed. I had arranged for one of the other guys to cover late night if a rare call came in, but I couldn’t reach him so I had to go in. Work is kind of on the way to the track so at midnight I hooked the trailer to the car and rolled out.
I took care of the power outage issues at work, made sure the data center and all the other sensitive shit was still running okay and got out of there by 2:30am. Went directly from there to the track, parked up at the gate at 4am and figured I’d get a few hours sleep and not really be out too much sleep overall. Do you think I could sleep?? Heck no, so I ended up watching the sunrise outside of NJMP. :hatback:
The gates opened at 6am, an hour earlier than expected, a welcome relief as I had been aimlessly wandering around outside with nobody else there.
I got the bikes unloaded and again wandered around until my buddy Doug showed up and then got my canopy up and unloaded his stuff.
Then I saw the owner of my dealership, he told me he’d got 3 garages set aside for myself and the few others he knew would be there from his store, so I swiftly moved my bikes over to the garage which was very conveniently placed right by pit in and I took my canopy down and relocated everything. A funny moment came out of this move as a guy claimed to have paid the track to use garage # 104 (we had # 101,102 and 103) and he wanted to know what we’d paid. When he heard we (neither our dealer or us personally) had not paid a cent he got kind of pissy and started telling us that the track would probably come around and kick us out. Well, it was priceless when the Penguin guys came over the p.a system telling people to claim an open spot if they could find one, that any and all (including the VIP ones) spare garages were open season. Childishly I could not resist stating to our new found friend, “Well, I guess you should go and get your money back now huh?” He sheepishly lost his attitude and skulked away.
Registration and tech came and went, then at 8:45 we had the riders meeting and immediately following that we all split into our respective groups. Beginner (A Group) went into a class room and Intermediate (B Group) and Advanced (C Group) went for a track walk. It was nice to get this perspective of the track especially as I’d had concerns over the patching when I was there in the cold of last November. I found it was a lot grippier than it appeared to be. The lines Eric Wood explained to us all made sense and were what I had kind of thought myself until we came to Turn 10. When I was there with Nesba last year they told us to run it deep and turn in late to square the turn off, I never really got this to work for me so I was happy to try Eric’s line which was to run in kind of in the middle of the track but instead of turning late, turn in half way out to the edge and then apex towards the end of the curbing on the right side. The turn was not as square, the drive out maybe not as hard but as Eric explained, squaring a turn for a hard charge out makes sense if you have a big straight ahead of you but seeing as the run between the right to the next left is relatively short it made little sense to square it and to instead give up a little time there and to make it up in the faster corners. I preferred this line if for no reason other than it allows a little more room for error. IMO if you blow Nesba’s line in you can be off the track before you know it, with Eric’s there is a tad more leeway to make it through if you have a brain fart, I had one of these in this turn and was happy to have the extra room to tighten my line and make it through without grass tracking it. :laugh:
The format after the track walk was 15 minute sessions interspersed with a classroom session until a little after lunch, then it was an open session format with instructors there to observe and help out if needed or requested.
I went into the day already knowing what I needed to work on, to improve body position and to overcome my left turn phobia (I had been just fine until I had a few rear slides this time last year at Pocono and it all worked on me a little too much and it still haunts me).
So, after I spoke to Eric and Mike Himmelsbach (whom I know well and who remembers only too well my slides from last year as it happened whilst I tried chasing him down….yeah, average rider trying to chase down a multi time national champ doesn’t work haha) I came away knowing that it was all a mental block and only I can fix it.
The schooling itself was nothing that I don’t already know about but it was certainly all about things that I definitely need to work on to perfect.

I think we got 2 sessions in before lunch, then the after lunch classroom session started late (I guess people were enjoying the socializing and food too much to notice the time) so the class ended right as our on track session started. My friend and office admin at Eurosport's, Karma (yes it’s her real name and don’t make fun of it, she is the nicest person you could ever want to meet) said, “Ya know what, I am not rushing to get out there for maybe 8 minutes after I have geared up, I’m skipping this one.” I thought that was a good idea and we stayed in the class enjoying the air conditioning and it ended up being that her, myself, Bill (owner of Eurosports) and Mike all sat there BS’ing and busting each other’s chops. That was a nice little break in the action as we don’t all get to hang out and really relax in the same place at the same time these days, so IMO that was worth the extra cost of the school over a regular trackday. Thumbsup.

I was really starting to feel good after so long off of the 675 but I had made the effort to prep my Speed Triple for the day as a back up bike primarily, or maybe just to switch for the fun of it. For the last 2 sessions that is what I did.
I felt comfortable immediately seeing as that’s what I have been riding regularly and even though it handled well I could feel where the 675 was handling things better. The S3 would turn in and track well but I could feel it always wanting to move away from me, something the 675 was not doing. Maybe that is due to the heft of the S3 vs the lighter 675 or maybe also a case of the 675 having the Penske stuff vs the S3 being on it’s stock stuff. Dunno, but it was fun anyways to ride them back to back in that environment. There were a lot of 1098’s and although the 675 would gain slowly on them over the course of a lap or two (maybe rider more than bike there as the 1098 is significantly faster) I would always lose out on corner exit, with the S3 they were not getting away the same. The 1050’s torque being more of a match for the big twins. My straight line speed, laying on the tank, head forwards would still get trumped by the end of the straight but it was surprisingly only 3mph down against the 675 (all relative to the drive onto the straight and braking point at the end of course).
They were both better on the top end than the Hypermotard, the 675 didn’t have the same drive out but would reel it in quickly, the S3 was equal in exit and better on the top end which meant I did not look at one wishing I’d actually kept mine. Haha

We had a good chuckle later when we realized that Orlando Bloom (some sort of Hollywood pirate type :pirate2:) was riding out there and the significant other of a sales guy from Eurosports was fawning all over him. Then it got better when I realized that he was the guy in the spiffy Ducati leathers that I had taken a few times on both the 675 and the S3 going into T1. A shallow victory for me, but it was a dumb moment that made me feel a little better about how lame my riding has seemingly become compared to how I used to ride when I would throw caution to the wind.

An instructor that followed me on my last session on the 675 told me the same thing that I have heard at several other days, that my lines are good, that I am smooth on the bike but that I could easily carry more corner speed if I would just trust myself and my bike a little more. He got a bunch of video footage and he said he’d find a way to get the footage to me so I could pick it apart and use it to work on things.
Coming away from this day my biggest issue continues to be my inability to commit properly to a left hand turn, something that is driving me nuts as I know if I can just rip one left hander properly then it’ll all feel good again.


Larry Pegram was scheduled to be there but he bailed……LAME.

There was also supposed to a bunch of Ferrari's showing up for a Ducati/Ferrari showdown at lunch time. Mike had been scurrying around prepping his own 675 race bike and borrowed my tire warmers in case they showed up at the last minute, only to have them bail out too. LAME.

It should also be noted that besides the included lunch there was free Red Bull on hand all day, given my lack of sleep the night before my 4 cans really helped me stay alert, so thanks Ducati for the Red Bull!!

All in all it was a good day, I got to ride the track (sadly the last one for the year as my track credits dried up in a real hurry), I got to play with both of my bikes, got to hang out with great friends at the track and at dinner after we left (can Sonic be considered dinner? :rofl:) , worked on a few things to do with my riding and also was able to put a face to the name of someone whom I have bought so many bike products from (Eric Wood of Woodcraft).
Worth the money? To me it was worth every cent.

I will post pictures later, it's taken me WAAAAYYYY longer to type this report than I expected. Did anybody actually read the entire post? :raspberry: :smug::grin: :chip:

[Scooter Scott]

Did anybody actually read the entire post? :raspberry: :smug::grin: :chip:

Only while deleting the other stuff. :thumbup:

[asphaltscraper]

Only while deleting the other stuff. :thumbup:


I'm happy I made the effort then. :smug: :laugh:

[Brian675]

Nice write up. Glad you got to enjoy both bikes out there. :thumbup:

[Marko]

Nice write up. Glad you got to enjoy both bikes out there. :thumbup:

Nice write up, I'm envious because I know my limitations and I would be a pylon on the track.

Mark

[Scooter Scott]

I'm happy I made the effort then. :smug: :laugh:

Hey, at least I didnt bust on you for the "stuffing it up the inside of Orlando Bloom" line.:rofl:

I did two schools with the Penguins down here at Homestead. Eric and his Dad are great.

[asphaltscraper]

Hey, at least I didnt bust on you for the "stuffing it up the inside of Orlando Bloom" line.:rofl:


...and now the poor bastard got robbed!

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/07/home-of-pirates-star-burglarized.html