We drove the 370 km to Valencia in good spirits all be it quit stiff.. a reminder that riding bikes in a spirited way is pretty physical. And perhaps should be left to the young..
Pondering the possibilities I was really looking forward to a shorter straight and the technical aspect of the track. The low down pull should give me an edge there .. I vowed to get flatter on the tank as well. The chance of no longer being the slowest of our little pack seemed feasible.
The more we drove, the cloudier it became at the temp dropped to a mere 9°c .. apparently Valencia was the only place in West Europe to suffer a depression and it was wet. Really wet.. I did take the 999 but decided that the chance of having to ride Spa in the wet was also very real and opted to ride the Pani on wets. Practice would be helpful.. and what was there to fear.. Steve had mapped a wet setting on full HP but with an ultra-smooth delivery.. DTC at 5/6 would solve the grip issues at the rear. As the pro's we dropped 2 mm ( 2 ful turns) of preload and 3 clicks on Comp and Rebound. A 2 minute job that would make quite a bit of difference. The softer front would accommodate more gentler braking and take away pressure from the front tire. So all was well even when the weather wasn't .
Stef and especially Luc were flying in the wet dropping lap times with whole seconds and I must admit that the cool in the wet I normally have on the 999 evaded me.. for some reason I couldn't find the balance and we kept off the pace. Then the DTC dropped away without me seeing it and going deep on a right hander and getting on the gas coming out of it , the grunt did its job and the bike had a full go at spitting me of .. the back stepped out big time and I ended up checking whether my headlamp was on over the handlebars , cracking the bubble on the way"¦ miraculously, I managed to stay on but needless to say that the spirit to go for better times was gone. We solved the issue by putting some bits between brake disk and the sensor-ring. After that, all was well again, but it took the rest of the day to get the confidence back.. when the rain stopped, I had another go and eventually I managed to do an Alstare Phillip Island qualifier : Waiting the right moment to put in the best time of the bunch of the day.. 2:03.. it needs to be said that the track was drying up by then..
Fiddling with the AIM software in the meantime revealed the lean angles that were modest.. The gps that hadn't worked on top of the carbon sub frame was put on top of the steering-damper and now did its work. So we could now see the track and the data together. Bit by bit we were finding out about this rather complicated
We were all hopefull that the next day would be dry so we could get on with focussing on why we were here for : mastering that bike on a technical track.. setup was brought back to basic with 4MM PL and 13 Comp and 15 REB.
The rain went away but the cold kept the damp patches alive and kicking. It would take till midday and some wind and sun for them to disappear. And at 8°C track temp , some patience was a good thing. Still , the first full session showed that I could keep up with the rest of our pack at 1:56.00 .. and at the midday session, those time dropped to 1:53.00
The setup revealed some pronounced weaving at the back upsetting the front on the long fast sweeper at the back before the straight. Luc advised on 3 clicks Comp and Reb and that actually did solve that. The heavier spring ( 101 measured kg) did it's job wonderfully and is def the way to go.
The pace was picking up and eventually times were running in a steady low 1:52. Valencia has some nice braking areas coming from 180/210 kph. This is less daunting that having to do a 90° turn coming from 270.. so confidence grew and we got used to getting on the brakes later and harder. Some of that braking was under slight lean and it felt good to feel the front digging in and the bike keeping nimble and still steady..
It must be said that here the Proshift did a top job . Allowing the do an ultra-smooth clutchless downshift from 3rd to 2nd under braking and lean.. not something I would have done manually. Especially with the 15/42 gearing that proved to be just a tad too short.
Another thing that became obvious is the impact of it all on overtaking. It now was easy to put the bike up for an overtake and shoot out of the corner. Again, this is where the extra pounds an bulk did come very costly before the makeover as it is very hard to get back the 10 meters you loose coming out of each corner.
There were quit some well setup Panis on the track and to me the difference was very much clear. As to elasticity, Stef - 15 kg lighter and 1 foot shorter on his PRO prepped R is the norm. No one seems to be better in place on a Pani than Stef. Even coming out of the corners together , I would be able to keep uppish till 210 kph but then the aerodynamics would give him a 20kph advantage by the end of the straight.. or 20 meters. Before , that was 60 meters"¦
The AIM was showing the right stuff as now the gap between Throttle and braking was reduced drastically.. I also discovered the general truth that keeping on the gas would have the bike turn shorter. Another thing learned.
Then fatigue sort of took the edge off it. At that moment I was 4th fastest in the 30 riders group with Stef second , Rik 5th and Luc 6th. I felt the concentration slipping and called it a day at improving the lap times. Stef dropped below the 1:52 to 1:51:9"¦ and Rik beat us all eventually by dropping to 1:51:28.. the funny thing is that Rik did this in the last session and on a pretty stock Base with a blown Marzocci without any rebound damping"¦
So he put in the best performance of us all by a wide margin"¦ I t was nice to see that that all 4 off us ended up within 1:2 seconds off each other.
Looking back at the week, I was utterly pleased with the result of the winter build. All aspects came together is I had imagined and hoped they would. Every part was implemented as close to perfection as possible and did it's job wonderfully. Even the eyebrow raising odd ball parts, the PS3, brought me exactly what I expected from it. Mainly more time to move around on the bike, simplifying the things I am notoriously bad at and assisting me in handling what surely must be one of the fastest Panis around. As rideablity is the key to performance and safety..
So no wonder its hard to take the grin off my face"¦ Next step : changing the broken bubble for the bigger 2014 race version and still hoping to figure out how to put a shorter throttle on it. As that last 7° turn does seem to cost a lot of time still"¦ also a set of 14 and 40 and 41 sprockets to compliment the 15/42-43 set..
Can't wait to put her on Brands and Donington "¦
Still : to put everything in perspective : Werner Daemen - BMW factory IDM team manager and still record holder at Spa - hadn't ridden a bike in 3 years . When he jumped on a customers Beemer, he hit a 2:42 within 1 session. .. ouch"¦