Morgan Park Raceway With A Daytona 675R

 

Following on from the last post, we managed to track down some Metzeler TD Slicks from Motorcycle Tyre Warehouse - where I got a 1 hour lecture on all things tyres from the owner - and got those fitted up.

I also managed to get the new bike trailer better set up with a tool box, new spare tyre mount and deleted the silly centre channel and replaced it with the tyre chock we were given with the purchase of the Daytona. Not as awesome as my preferred enclosed trailer but a much more affordable and quite adequately usable setup!

I had to work the weekend of Will's first track day, so couldn't stay but I managed to ride out to Warwick for the Saturday to lend a hand with him settling in. The bike passed scrutineering straight up, so it was on with the tyre warmers and waiting for his first session. We were very glad of the warmers as well because the weekend only topped out at about 16C.

He decided on doing the Red Group which is the slowest group, just to get a feel for it.

It seemed to be going well and as he felt more comfortable he moved himself to the Green Group (second slowest). His lap times were getting better, initially being in the high 1:40s then slowly dropping to the low 1:30s according to his SpeedAngle.

He got down to 1:28 for the weekend. ASBK SuperSports do 1:15 around here.

He was having such a good time that he decided to stay for the Sunday session! I had to go home for work so left him to it. By all accounts he had a great day and learnt a lot from the other riders around him in the pits. He moved up a level again to Blue Group (2nd fastest) on the advice of those around him. 

He did have some trouble with the generator for the tyre warmers. It cut out randomly a few times on the Saturday then wouldn't start at all on the Sunday.** Luckily those awesome folks around him sorted him out with power for his warmers! 

Thanks Mike!

I must say, I have found everyone at these track days to be super friendly and helpful, which makes for a great day out. 

Here are some of the photos from the pro photographers over the weekend.

They certainly make him look fast.....and he probably is for his experience level. 

It must nearly be my turn to have a go on it?

Cheers.

** The following week I went to work on the generator, draining the tank to find lots of small rust particles in the fuel. More particles came from the fuel tap strainer so I bit the bullet and pulled the carby off, pulling all of the jets and cleaning them with a wire, then blowing the whole carby out. I finished it off with a new spark plug and a fuel filter. Thankfully, she fired straight up and ran sweetly.

Rusty crap.

Little filter.

New spark.

Pre - clean up.

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.

Morgan Park Track Day

It has been a couple of years since I last did a track day here. So when I noticed that Champions had a Monday ride day AND that you could bring a "buddy" along for free, I decided to jump on it! That "buddy" would be my daughter, Lucy.

This led to some frantic hunting around for tyres on both of our bikes. Mine because I wanted something more track oriented than the Michelin Road 4 and 5 that I was running on the R1 and for Lucy because her tyres were the OEM hoops that came with the Z400. She also had a plug in her rear tyre which is a no-no for track days. 

Of course, I ripped the tyres out of the bikes as my local bike shop will work minor miracles to change your tyres if they just get the wheels. Book in weeks ahead if you want them to take the wheels out of your bike though. (No Andrew, I'm not going to do my own changes...yet.)

Lucy went for a Michelin Road 6 rear and as they only had a 5 in stock, she went a Road 5 front. They will be great all round tyres for her style of riding/commuting.

I went for some Michelin Power GPs. They are touted as 50/50 road track as opposed to the GP Cup track weapons that had a ridiculously steep profile on the rear tyre. I also had 90 degree valve stems installed which is something I have wanted to do for years but with so little use, I just don't change tyres on the R1 very often.

While we were at it we changed Will's CBR500R over to a Michelin Road 6 on the rear and he took my Road 5 front which had done under 1000km on my R1. This was due to the fact his OEM Dunlops felt like rubbish with no feel when I had a ride of it. Steve backed this up on a recent visit when we rode the R1, CBR and my Desert X back to back to back on a twisty bit of road near home. I saw it as a safety improvement for Will and hence helped cover some of the cost of the new Road 6 (have you seen how much Michelin tyres are these days?!!) 

So, the $200 track day with a free buddy had turned into an ~$1500 affair once new tyres, hiring of leathers, motels, food etc etc was carried out! 

Oh well.

Lucy and I were going to head up to Warwick the night before so we didn't have to be up at 3am to do the two and a bit hour drive out there on the Monday morning. This led to Will suffering major jealousy and him pleading to come along. He wanted to chuck a "sicky" but I told him being sick on a Monday as a 1st year apprentice wasn't a good look at all. Instead, I reminded him that most of his workmates and his boss all ride. I suggested he call his boss and ask for an annual leave day. He did and his boss said "yeah, sure!" so it was the three musketeers for the track day then. Bloody glad I got Will's tyres sorted while we were doing ours!

Not a great photo but the sunset coming into Warwick was spectacular.

We were up early but not as early as if we were coming from home. I filled the jerry can while the kids got some breakfast and coffees, then we headed out to the track. It was a cold morning with quite a brisk wind blowing. I didn't mind as most times I have been to Morgan park I have sweated my proverbial off!

We unloaded and set up, then headed around to scrutineering. That done it was back to the pit. When Lucy arrived she looked like someone had pinched her puppy. She had failed scrutineering because her throttle wouldn't spring closed. She normally has bar end mirrors and when we removed them we also removed a spacer that kept them from jamming the throttle tube. Now, the original bar ends that we had refitted were jamming it. Bugger!

I had no spares but some limited tools - what to do? I know, "hey kids, look around on the ground for washers" I suggested. After five minutes of doing this we had found two suitable washers that spaced out the bar end weight enough for her throttle to work properly. She took off to scrutineering again and was back two minutes later with the all clear. 

Crisis averted!

 

We were ready nice and early so I thought it prudent to give the kids a bit of a pep talk as I could see they were nervous. I reminded them that they only have to ride around at their own pace and you could use all of the road. If they ran off I told them to just ride straight and use a little bit of rear brake to slow down, then get back on the track. Don't panic as there is nothing to hit. I also put a bit of tape over their speedo readout so that they wouldn't be distracted by looking at their speed. They used their Strava cycling app on their phones to record the top speeds that they could then look at while sitting safely in the pit.

I was pleased that when we attended the riders briefing the Champions people emphasised exactly the same points as I had. They also had an extra briefing for the first timers too, which they kept low key and was very welcoming. 

Nice.

I was in the second slowest group so went out just before the kids. It was cold, only about 14 Celsius so I took a few laps to warm the tyres but our group was so small that by going last onto the track I didn't get passed all session and basically had a clear track in front at all times. Just like a private test day!

By the time I got off my bike the kids were out there, ripping it. Well, not quite - I was pleased to see that they were taking it easy and feeling their way into it. I had been especially concerned for Will as he has only had his provisional licence for about six weeks and hence doesn't have much experience.

Will.

Lucy

As they rode back into the pit after that first session, I think I actually teared up a little. I'm not sure if it was from pride or from relief that I was going to be able to go home that night. A little of both I guess?

Anyway, they both had huge grins on their faces and I was as proud as a Dad can be of them.

The day didn't warm up much. I think it got to 18C but that was great as it wasn't hot in the leathers which made for a more enjoyable day. 

As per usual, Champions had a photographer roaming around the track and I decided to fork out for some decent photos as a memento of the day. These are all by Motothing photography.

Just checking in - yes, still having fun here.......

I changed to the kids group for two session so that I could take some video of them and see how they were going. That was bloody good fun and I must say I was surprised at their mid corner speed on the tight corners. If I'm honest it was faster than mine!

Done and dusted! We had ridden every session and outstayed a lot of people as the last sessions were almost private track days. There were only three of us in my last session! The kids had had a great time and were still in one piece, as were the bikes. 

Hell yeah!

Lucy had uni the next day, so once loaded up we headed for home. 

The only downer for the whole day is that my bike and Will's bike had a bit of a coming together on the way home with his pillion footpeg coming into contact with my pristine Staintune exhaust can and scratching it up a bit. I will see if I can get it polished out but if that is the worst that happened on the day, then I am sort of ok with it...but I really do need to buy a proper motorcycle trailer.

Cheers.