Adult Education - Level 3

 

I am a bit behind with my blog posts the last few months, as you can see from my Part 2 of our Japan MotoGP trip, which went up almost eleven weeks after the fact. I have a good reason and I may blog about it at some point, but not here or yet.

No, this one is about getting back to Morgan Park to attend Level 3 of California Superbike School back at the end of October. To add to the fun my young bloke, Will, had booked in for Level 1 on the same day. About a week before the day CSS emailed to say that they had secured the track for another day and would anyone like to book more levels. I would have liked to but I had only put in for the one day off work but Will already had the day off so booked in for Level 2 as well. I must say, I am really pleased with his desire to learn how to ride better. While he wants to do it to be faster, I know it will also make him safer as he has quite good situational awareness when on the road (for a young fella).

I was keen to use my GSXR750 for the day but rain was predicted and the Gixxer is on slicks. Another issue is that there is no time to put warmers on after each session as you need to quickly attend a debrief on arrival back at the pits. This would put the slicks through multiple heat cycles in one day, effectively wearing them out.

With this in mind I decided to use my R1 as it had treaded Michelin Power GP tyres on it. Will was going to use his Daytona come hell or high water - not his CBR500 road bike - so we needed to swap the CBR’s near new front Michelin Road 6 onto the Daytona and then purchase a rear Road 6 for it. All for the same reasons I just gave above.

As usual we drove up the afternoon before so as to get a good sleep before the early start. It is nice to have a support driver these days so ‘ol Dad can stare out the window.

We got interrupted sleep as a massive thunderstorm rolled over Warwick that night and proceeded to pound us for about two hours.

The morning dawned clear and calm.

 The Daytona had a belly pan absolutely full to the brim with water though. I had told Will to drill a drain hole and install a bung months ago. 

Now we would need to pull it off and drill a drain hole under the pressure of getting our bikes scrutineered and signed in for the day. I’ve lost count of the number of “told you so” moments over the last couple of years….. either way, I was still pretty much the first through scrutineering and parked up near the instructor’s bikes.

There had clearly been a lot of rain overnight and the volunteer marshals were busy cleaning up the track where run off had dragged mud aross a few corners.

After a introductory briefing we split up into our respective groups and went to class.

The day progressed as expected…well, with one unexpected mishap. One of the instructors was from the US and for some reason seemed to be carving up our combined Level 3 and 4 on track class. As we were taking it easy and following the drills which required the use of only two gears and minimal braking, it made no sense for him to be carving us up. Well, it ended badly for him after he went up the inside of a long train of us into Turn 4 and had a massive high side right in front of all of us. He fcuked himself up pretty badly and was eventually carted off in an ambulance. Chatting to the owner of this Aussie CSS franchise at lunch, he was pretty pissed off at this.

The rest of the day progressed well and I feel I learnt a lot of new little techniques on how to move around the bike without upsetting its balance and feel more “locked on” in corners.

 There were some “light bulb” moments where I realised why the bike was behaving the way it did in certain corners  - it was me upsetting it. Now I know how to make it smoother which will equal faster and safer!

Will was having a good day as well. I was hoping he was making notes in the booklet we were given. I think it helped when I told him that one of the fast riders told me she re-reads her notes before every track day to remind herself what she needs to be mindful of.

The day was hot and predictably it built up into an afternoon of thunderstorms. A couple drifted past and just missed during the mid afternoon but one hit us square on, right before our last session.

 The rain came down so hard that water was 50mm deep in our pit in about ten minutes. Needless to say we didn’t go out for that last session  - even with treaded tyres fitted. It just wasn’t safe.

No problem though, as I was very satisfied with what I had learnt. It is always good to quit while you are ahead, especially when it comes to roaring around at high speeds on a motorcycle.

We grabbed a feed that night at the Horse and Jockey Hotel which is right near our motel. Will needed to hit the hay for his Day 2.

There had been three days of track days prior to CSS and apparently three guys went off in one incident on the high speed Turn 8. This Gixxer belonged to one of the guys in the incident. 

Will has seen the MotoGP riders come off and jump up, run back to the pits and grab another bike so often that he probably has an unrealistic idea of what will happen if he has a decent bingle.

It was a sobering reminder of what happens in the real world when you come off..... but in the mean time,  shit its fun!😁

Cheers.

*** I didn't take many photos as it is a busy day,  so I pinched some from others on the day.  They are watermarked by the various photographers. I'm publishing hoping for forgiveness in lieu of permission.😉

Adult Education - Level 2

 

Well, I did say in the last line of THIS post that I would be lining up again as soon as CSS were back in Queensland. 

🫤 

So, throw a worldwide pandemic in there plus a couple of years with shakey income and I did miss their coaching days last year but I am pleased to say that I finally got around to attending California Superbike School Level 2!

I have done a couple of track days in those intervening three and a half years but didn’t feel like I rode very well at all. I was trying too hard to go fast so I didn’t get in anyone’s way and ended up getting tied in knots as a result. I definitely needed help and CSS are definitely here to help!

Same bike but new car and more bikes in the shed. Lucy doing a “Where’s Wally” working on her Z650.

 As per last time I decided to head out to Warwick the night before as it is a two and a half hour drive and the training day starts at 0700. Only thing is Warwick accomodation was completely booked out. Thinking outside the box I grabbed a pub room in Killarney, which is only 30 kilometres from Morgan Park raceway.

I was glad I came up the night before as there were many sections of roadworks where traffic was stopped. Most notably on the climb over the Scenic Rim at Cunninghams Gap. The cloud was on the hilltops here and the temperature dropped nicely as we climbed.

Once I was on the back roads to Killarney there were plenty more roadworks sections but a least it was just me and a big late afternoon sky to contend with.

The Killarney hotel is a cracker, serving great meals in a pretty location. I can’t believe I haven’t stayed here before but it will definitely be on the cards from now on. 

Good clean facilities.

And always crackingly great food!

I turned in early to try to catch up on reading Keith Code’s “A Twist Of The Wrist II” so I would know what we were aiming for tomorrow but I only managed to get a bit over half way through before fading to sleep. Oh, well. Hopefully I got far enough through to cover the Level 2 stuff.

I was up early and on the road by 0545. Despite some big patches of fog, this put me in Warwick in plenty of time to grab a coffee and head to the track. We had to wait until 0700 for the gates to open.

Once in I quickly unloaded the bike and pushed it over to scrutineering. I had pre set the tyre pressures to the 30psi that CSS ask students to run and had taped over my speedo, so it was a super quick job for the scrutineers with my bike.

I bumped into Paul and his beautiful Triumph Daytona at scrutineering. He had been at the last track day I did with my kids. He was doing Level 1 and 2 over the two days. He was already a fast rider who was about to get quicker!

That done, the bike was moved to pit lane and I attached my student number for the day. White for fear? No, but I was a little nervous about the day as I hadn’t done any motorcycling in a few months because it has been so horribly hot here in Queensland. How scratchy would I be?

Instructor bikes lined up.

First up was a briefing on the rules of the day. All pretty standard stuff. Interestingly, as I wrote in my Level 1 post, they must have spelt out the time schedule for the day back then. This time around I had no idea what the schedule was. Maybe I missed it in an email? Maybe they don’t tell us any more? Anyway, it would have been nice to know. We relied on the p.a. announcements during the day to know where we were meant to be.

First up was a classroom session. Level 2’s focus was on vision. Namely, how the eyes actually function and armed with this knowledge, the general gist of the day was on how to look, where to look and where or how NOT to look. 

After the first session on track I felt much more at ease. My new leathers weren’t a distraction (yes, I finally retired my trusty old 1993 Rivet suit!) and I felt comfortable enough on the bike to concentrate on the task at hand. Case, our on track coach, was easy going and helped highlight what was going well and what needed attention during our post ride debriefing session. Only having three students per coach gave them more time to lead then observe during each session.

 After each track session we hustled upstairs into the air conditioned classroom for the next whiteboard session. We hustled because it was HOT today! It was a 34C day and standing around in full leathers for a debrief after each track session had us melting - including the coach. Yep, as soon as they were done with us White group, the coaches were straight back out on track with their Level 1 and 3 students (Level 4 were White group as well) 

No rest for the wicked, as they say.😆

Debriefing with Case - sorry, wasn’t going to pay $20 for that photo!

I must admit it got harder to concentrate as the day wore on due to the heat. I had been guzzling plenty of water and electrolyte all morning. So much so that I really struggled to squeeze lunch in…..but I managed! Lunch was exactly the same as in 2019 - light and healthy.

I felt I was riding much better by the last session after applying the drills we were taught during the day. Actually, probably the best I have ridden for over twenty years in fact! However, I was cooked and was praying for the chequered flag those last few laps of the last session. I did actually consider coming in myself and was therefore mightily relieved when it finally went out! 

My legs were trashed from what turned out to be 170 kilometres of climbing over the bike. That is roughly 56 laps of the full Morgan Park circuit.

My tyres haven’t looked this cooked in over two decades and I felt like I was riding smoothly!

I will definitely be back for Level 3. Hopefully I can bring my kids along for Level 1. I think the Level 1 training is incredibly beneficial to help newer riders have a sound grounding in cornering skills. The higher level increase those skills but are possibly more track focussed.

Anyway, roll on to October!

Cheers.

Adult Education

Now, with such a catchy title you may be wondering what I am banging on about this time around? Well, as this blog is pretty much PG - with a little MA15+ from time to time you can rest assured that it isn't anything racey........

As I get back into some motorcycling, I have been thinking that I really should do some rider (re)training to freshen up my base skills. Heck, the last training I did was back in '93 or '94 when I completed a few training days at Eastern Creek, Oran Park and Amaroo Park raceways with Stay Upright and Roadsense. I got a lot out of those sessions and blind Freddy could see that I would benefit from a freshen up.