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What a beaut!!!
First Track Day Questions
- Thread starter BP PanigaleV4S
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Ya right? He had just won the Italian National Championship Race. The winning tire right there.
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Remove the seat and tank,
The tank has 2 screws at the back, 2 screws at the side, remove the earth wire on the l/h side, and the two rubber hoses on the l/h side toward the front, one of the clips you'll need a flat blade screwdriver to pop off, as you life the tank remove the fuel pump connection under the rear.
The covers are screwed in with pretty soft screws with heaps of loctite, my suggestion is to get your soldering iron and apply a bit of heat to make it easier, take your time and they will all come out. The r/h side is easy to remove the left requires wiggling but it comes out without removing the subframe. If you has plenty of time remove the subframe to make it all easier, I didnt bother.
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Think this will allow the engine to run cooler?
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who knows, marginally? But it will look cooler and thats equally important 
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I'm pretty sure the covers are they so people who ride in shorts don't get burned.
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On the track day...
Loading up the bike went easy enough. Of course it was raining which was a bummer. I tied it up and went for a short trip to the gas station to fuel up the SUV and the bike.
We drove about 3.5 hours to the hotel, checked in then went to the track, which is Putnam Park. The track day was $225 with an option to add garage space for $50. Which was well worth it. The facility was very nice. The garage had power and air hookups. In hindsight I should have brought a Keurig.
The event was hosted by Carmoto.
Green for days. Everything seemed very well maintained.
The track.
Garage.
Finally putting heat into the tire. I was surprised it looked this melty...technical term. I never messed with the suspension outside of getting it sprung for my weight, Sport mode with DES on all the standard settings. After the first lap I changed it to EBC 2 and changed Engine to High.
The weather was amazing. Not a cloud in the sky and a high of 85F.
I'll have to have a conversation with my photographer about how to hold an iPhone for a proper picture...
Coming on the turn leading into the straight I wasn't carrying as much speed as I should have. The advanced group guys had to be 175MPH or so at the end of the straight. I never got to more than 150MPH, but I was very early on the brakes. As a new track rider, I think to be fast on these things you have to know and trust the front brake and understand how fast you can slow down. Arguably, I'd say the brakes are more powerful than the engine in terms of energy.
On the experience.
Trip went well, no surprises. Except for the few drips of oil on the U-Haul trailer just about where the airbox drip line is. I got the bike into the garage and checked, there was indeed oil on the outside of the lower fairing. I took them off but everything was dry. No sign of oil anywhere. I theorize maybe with all the bouncing up and down...I was going faster than I should have been probably, maybe since I drove it onto the trailer the oil would have been up in the heads and some got into the crankcase ventilation, and the airbox hose did its job and dripped it outside of the bike. With all of the wind and water from rain it probably made it seem like it was more than there was.
I didn't sleep well at all in the hotel. There was a slight time zone difference and we lost an hour during the trip. By the time we dropped the bike off, dealt with the oil issue and got something to eat, I just wasn't tired. The TV in the hotel sucked. You'd have to turn off all the lights to see the picture because it was so dim. But, there was a Breaking Bad marathon so half a Unisom and a few episodes later I fell asleep. Only that didn't last that long. Eventually I got in a couple of hours and it was time to get up.
Got the track, signed the waiver to enter and went to the garage. A lot of people stored their stuff in the garage, some just left bikes outside of the garage. There was a lot of trust going on but it didn't seem like the place were you'd have to worry. Foolishly, I left my track gear at the garage which meant I didn't have my undersuit to put on before getting to the track.
Its also a one-piece undersuit, which will be getting retired. Having to take a crap in a one-piece undersuit after you've been sweating in it is almost comical. One piece leathers, two piece undersuit from now on.
7AM the track opened.
7:30AM registration starts. After, you bring your bike by tech for an inspection. Which couldn't have went smoother. I was thinking they'd really go all out but it was pretty casual. I suppose if you show up with some mechanical mess you'd draw more scrutiny. He checked the chain tension, that I had everything taped off and away I went.
8:30AM with the safety brief. The usual stuff. How to get on and off the track, flags etc. After was a short riders class for the Novice group, which I was in obviously. They just went into minor detail about line selection, stuff like that.
9:00AM the first group, the advanced riders, start. There were four 15 minute sessions. There was advanced, intermediate 1 and intermediate 2. It may have been A or B, I can't remember. But, this split the biggest group into two smaller ones for less bikes on the track and divided the slower just out of novice riders from the just about advanced riders. Novice was the last group every hour.
They divided the novice riders into 6 groups each with an instructor. You'd follow the instructor for one lap where he'd show you the line. At the end of the first lap, you'd follow him off the track so you got to see how that worked. Then you'd line up again, enter from the pit lane when signaled and followed the instructor for the remainder of the session. The pace was quick but not overly intimidating. It became very obvious that I wasn't carry the corner speed the instructor and the guy in front of me was and I wasn't using the whole width of the track. I kept finding myself sticking to the right. I'd start braking too early and turn when I saw the instructor turn and not turning when I got to the same spot on the track where he turned.
The later sessions when progressively better. Body position is so huge. Getting that inside butt cheek off of the seat and turning your chest and shoulders into the turn while getting your upper body low and forward, so your inside arm was very bent with the bike more upright just allowed it to turn with such ease. Every time I had a .... time in a turn and had to scrub off too much speed, it was because my body position was ..... Next more important would have been the line I was holding, at least in my noob opinion.
Coming out of the last turn I wasn't carry too much speed, got on the throttle pretty quick but smoothly. The straight has this odd hill in it where you are flat up until the start line and tower where it starts a slight downhill then a uphill then downhill again. This is when you can see the rumble strip and braking markers. The instructor said he starts braking at the end of the rumble strips, whereas I'd start braking when I saw the rumble strips which was right when you crested the little hill. Way too early on the brakes and scrubbed off too much speed. The advanced guys do the first corner north of 100MPH, we were doing it around 50MPH. Corners aside, I need to working on braking confidence.
After lunch I rode one session. I was tired AF. This is when I wished I would have brought a Keurig so I could have a nice caffeine jolt. I started making some dumb mistakes. On the straight I just forgot to shift into 3rd and hit the rev limiter in 2nd. Then on the next lap I got passed on both sides due to my early braking stupidity and downshifted all the way into first. Didn't screw anything up luckily, but a light turned on. I was done. Finished the session being very chill and called it a day.
Everyone I talked too was super chill and cool. I was surprised how much of a family thing it was. I could go on and on but I don't want to bore anyone to death. If you are new to track days and want advice or have many years of them under your belt and want to give advice I'm all ears.
I think next time I'll do two days for sure and really work out the arriving and sleeping so I can be better rested. Instead of going out to eat with the in-laws the night before, I'd elect to chill at the hotel and maybe use the pool or workout room and burn off some energy in an easy workout.
Loading up the bike went easy enough. Of course it was raining which was a bummer. I tied it up and went for a short trip to the gas station to fuel up the SUV and the bike.
We drove about 3.5 hours to the hotel, checked in then went to the track, which is Putnam Park. The track day was $225 with an option to add garage space for $50. Which was well worth it. The facility was very nice. The garage had power and air hookups. In hindsight I should have brought a Keurig.
The event was hosted by Carmoto.
Green for days. Everything seemed very well maintained.
The track.
Garage.
Finally putting heat into the tire. I was surprised it looked this melty...technical term. I never messed with the suspension outside of getting it sprung for my weight, Sport mode with DES on all the standard settings. After the first lap I changed it to EBC 2 and changed Engine to High.
The weather was amazing. Not a cloud in the sky and a high of 85F.
I'll have to have a conversation with my photographer about how to hold an iPhone for a proper picture...
Coming on the turn leading into the straight I wasn't carrying as much speed as I should have. The advanced group guys had to be 175MPH or so at the end of the straight. I never got to more than 150MPH, but I was very early on the brakes. As a new track rider, I think to be fast on these things you have to know and trust the front brake and understand how fast you can slow down. Arguably, I'd say the brakes are more powerful than the engine in terms of energy.
On the experience.
Trip went well, no surprises. Except for the few drips of oil on the U-Haul trailer just about where the airbox drip line is. I got the bike into the garage and checked, there was indeed oil on the outside of the lower fairing. I took them off but everything was dry. No sign of oil anywhere. I theorize maybe with all the bouncing up and down...I was going faster than I should have been probably, maybe since I drove it onto the trailer the oil would have been up in the heads and some got into the crankcase ventilation, and the airbox hose did its job and dripped it outside of the bike. With all of the wind and water from rain it probably made it seem like it was more than there was.
I didn't sleep well at all in the hotel. There was a slight time zone difference and we lost an hour during the trip. By the time we dropped the bike off, dealt with the oil issue and got something to eat, I just wasn't tired. The TV in the hotel sucked. You'd have to turn off all the lights to see the picture because it was so dim. But, there was a Breaking Bad marathon so half a Unisom and a few episodes later I fell asleep. Only that didn't last that long. Eventually I got in a couple of hours and it was time to get up.
Got the track, signed the waiver to enter and went to the garage. A lot of people stored their stuff in the garage, some just left bikes outside of the garage. There was a lot of trust going on but it didn't seem like the place were you'd have to worry. Foolishly, I left my track gear at the garage which meant I didn't have my undersuit to put on before getting to the track.
Its also a one-piece undersuit, which will be getting retired. Having to take a crap in a one-piece undersuit after you've been sweating in it is almost comical. One piece leathers, two piece undersuit from now on.
7AM the track opened.
7:30AM registration starts. After, you bring your bike by tech for an inspection. Which couldn't have went smoother. I was thinking they'd really go all out but it was pretty casual. I suppose if you show up with some mechanical mess you'd draw more scrutiny. He checked the chain tension, that I had everything taped off and away I went.
8:30AM with the safety brief. The usual stuff. How to get on and off the track, flags etc. After was a short riders class for the Novice group, which I was in obviously. They just went into minor detail about line selection, stuff like that.
9:00AM the first group, the advanced riders, start. There were four 15 minute sessions. There was advanced, intermediate 1 and intermediate 2. It may have been A or B, I can't remember. But, this split the biggest group into two smaller ones for less bikes on the track and divided the slower just out of novice riders from the just about advanced riders. Novice was the last group every hour.
They divided the novice riders into 6 groups each with an instructor. You'd follow the instructor for one lap where he'd show you the line. At the end of the first lap, you'd follow him off the track so you got to see how that worked. Then you'd line up again, enter from the pit lane when signaled and followed the instructor for the remainder of the session. The pace was quick but not overly intimidating. It became very obvious that I wasn't carry the corner speed the instructor and the guy in front of me was and I wasn't using the whole width of the track. I kept finding myself sticking to the right. I'd start braking too early and turn when I saw the instructor turn and not turning when I got to the same spot on the track where he turned.
The later sessions when progressively better. Body position is so huge. Getting that inside butt cheek off of the seat and turning your chest and shoulders into the turn while getting your upper body low and forward, so your inside arm was very bent with the bike more upright just allowed it to turn with such ease. Every time I had a .... time in a turn and had to scrub off too much speed, it was because my body position was ..... Next more important would have been the line I was holding, at least in my noob opinion.
Coming out of the last turn I wasn't carry too much speed, got on the throttle pretty quick but smoothly. The straight has this odd hill in it where you are flat up until the start line and tower where it starts a slight downhill then a uphill then downhill again. This is when you can see the rumble strip and braking markers. The instructor said he starts braking at the end of the rumble strips, whereas I'd start braking when I saw the rumble strips which was right when you crested the little hill. Way too early on the brakes and scrubbed off too much speed. The advanced guys do the first corner north of 100MPH, we were doing it around 50MPH. Corners aside, I need to working on braking confidence.
After lunch I rode one session. I was tired AF. This is when I wished I would have brought a Keurig so I could have a nice caffeine jolt. I started making some dumb mistakes. On the straight I just forgot to shift into 3rd and hit the rev limiter in 2nd. Then on the next lap I got passed on both sides due to my early braking stupidity and downshifted all the way into first. Didn't screw anything up luckily, but a light turned on. I was done. Finished the session being very chill and called it a day.
Everyone I talked too was super chill and cool. I was surprised how much of a family thing it was. I could go on and on but I don't want to bore anyone to death. If you are new to track days and want advice or have many years of them under your belt and want to give advice I'm all ears.
I think next time I'll do two days for sure and really work out the arriving and sleeping so I can be better rested. Instead of going out to eat with the in-laws the night before, I'd elect to chill at the hotel and maybe use the pool or workout room and burn off some energy in an easy workout.
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Very cool and detailed breakdown. I always wanted to hit up the track and even got an 07 cbr600 a few years ago to convert to a track only bike but never got around to it and sold it after a couple of years. I wouldn't dare track either of my current bikes, regardless if that's where they really shine or not. I guess I'll get my track rocks off at a Superbike school one of these days or somethin instead. Also, props to you for admitting your noobish beginnings. Sometimes folks ego n pride get in the way of honesty and they don't want to feel embarrassed even though there's nothing to be embarrassed about since the advanced riders even have to start somewhere. I used to care about not wanting to be slow when i was younger but now that I'm in my 40s and still slow, I've learned over time to just enjoy the ride and be safe.
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If I was going again tomorrow I'd still ride the novice group. I want to get some formal education before bumping up a group.
There was another guy there who I kept talking to who was on a Ducati Speciale. Him and his son would alternate on it. We'd talk between sessions and more or less reached the same conclusion about body position and how important it was to getting the bike to turn how you wanted.
After my last session where I started making mistakes, I spoke to him again and told him I was done. He said the last time he was at the track in May he had a similar experience. Felt tired and started goofing up. He had told me a strategy of his is to exit and re-enter the track if he needs a mental break or just to relax for a second or two. You can finish the session early too. You don't have to ride the whole 15 or 20 min, just do a few laps and bring it in.
On the gas thing. I really didn't sort that out as much as I should of before going to the track. I filled the bike up before hitting the road. The track sold gas but only 5 gallons at a time and they'd only put it into a container and not your bike. You'd have less weight in the bike by riding with less gas, its 8lbs per gallon after all, but that's not really the thing which was holding me back. If I were to do it again, I'd make sure the bike was at half a tank or slightly higher and bring a gas can with 5 gallons in it. My bike fuel light didn't turn on until I was getting it off the trailer at home. I could have gotten in a session or two but I wouldn't have had enough to finish the day and that track I ride wasn't huge. I actually checked my fuel consumption on the last session. The bike indicated I was getting 13 MPG.
There was another guy there who I kept talking to who was on a Ducati Speciale. Him and his son would alternate on it. We'd talk between sessions and more or less reached the same conclusion about body position and how important it was to getting the bike to turn how you wanted.
After my last session where I started making mistakes, I spoke to him again and told him I was done. He said the last time he was at the track in May he had a similar experience. Felt tired and started goofing up. He had told me a strategy of his is to exit and re-enter the track if he needs a mental break or just to relax for a second or two. You can finish the session early too. You don't have to ride the whole 15 or 20 min, just do a few laps and bring it in.
On the gas thing. I really didn't sort that out as much as I should of before going to the track. I filled the bike up before hitting the road. The track sold gas but only 5 gallons at a time and they'd only put it into a container and not your bike. You'd have less weight in the bike by riding with less gas, its 8lbs per gallon after all, but that's not really the thing which was holding me back. If I were to do it again, I'd make sure the bike was at half a tank or slightly higher and bring a gas can with 5 gallons in it. My bike fuel light didn't turn on until I was getting it off the trailer at home. I could have gotten in a session or two but I wouldn't have had enough to finish the day and that track I ride wasn't huge. I actually checked my fuel consumption on the last session. The bike indicated I was getting 13 MPG.
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Glad to hear about your experience, especially knowing when to say "when". I allow myself two brain farts before I am done for the day, I always assume it is dehydration and hard to recover the focus needed once I realize I start spacing out a bit.
As to bumping groups, Novice is a great place and don't feel rushed to get a bump. Intermediate is where the .... goes down...more mixed talent than Novice but still with little experience to temper unsound moves. Totally forgot about that when I jumped in with my kid to chase him around when he got his bump to Intermediate this season, wayyyyy more sketch than Novice. Expert looks hairy from the outside but close passes by experienced people is not as bothersome as the random .... that happens in Inter!
As to bumping groups, Novice is a great place and don't feel rushed to get a bump. Intermediate is where the .... goes down...more mixed talent than Novice but still with little experience to temper unsound moves. Totally forgot about that when I jumped in with my kid to chase him around when he got his bump to Intermediate this season, wayyyyy more sketch than Novice. Expert looks hairy from the outside but close passes by experienced people is not as bothersome as the random .... that happens in Inter!
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check out the surecan fuel jugs.
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They’re good?
I’ve had good luck with the Tough Jug.
https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle...MIkPDB1NX0-AIV_WxvBB1VfwDrEAQYASABEgJU5vD_BwE
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I ordered a VP Racing gas can without looking into it too much since I saw so many of them being used. That Tuff Jug Ripper looks pretty cool though. It looks like it would fit the VP Racing can too.
Does is work as described? Fuel hits the end and it shuts off?
Does is work as described? Fuel hits the end and it shuts off?
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I don’t know what they’re trying to say, but it’s just a spring loaded cap - you press it into the tank opening and the spring compresses and fuel flows; you lift it out and it closes. They leak occasionally, so you need to test it before tipping it upside down over the bike, but I haven’t had too much trouble with it - it’s generally trouble free and convenient.
Last edited:
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Less ego. More amigo.
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This whole thread is anti ego. What are you talking about?
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You guys need to get the Ducati gas can, its red has lots of electronics, screws made of cheese, dumps fuel in real fast, leaks everywhere and costs 5 times as much plus you have to wait for 6 months for it to arrive at the dealership.
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It’s my motto in life. I’m concurring with this thread.
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