to simplify my experience yesterday as much as possible: HOLY CRAP, WWOOOWWW!!!1!!
i cruised down to sonoma on sunday evening with a good buddy that came along to keep me company, help out and drive my truck and bike back home if i was too tired after the track day... or if i had to be carted away in an ambulance/copter.
temperatures on the way down:
sun evening in reno: 45 (7pm)
truckee: 30 (8pm)
auburn:60 (830pm)
fairfield:77 (930pm)
it was beanie and long sleeve shirt weather from 6:30 to about 9am while going through tech, registration and riders meeting.
made my first session's worth around the track in B group, following one of the instructors to figure out where the track goes, what lines to take, brake markers and reference points for the insane amount of blind corners and aggressive elevation changes- all at a nice slow B group pace.
i chilled out in B group for the 3 morning sessions with my head on a swivel, figuring out what i can and cant do on the track, getting used to lofting the front wheel continuously(more on that in a sec), and starting to understand how the flow of the track works. made a couple mistakes but nothing serious. had an off track excursion coming up after t1, didnt turn left long enough, and instead made a shortcut and deleted t2 from that lap. (OOPS!)
after lunch, i moved back to A group in order to get out from the nutty B group disparity of people who are barely fast for B, people who are too fast for B, people who cant hold a line and people who you have no idea what they're going to do upon exiting a corner.
my first after lunch session was cut short(about 1.5 laps completed) before before dave stanton hit the deck apparently super bad in turn 1 on a new new beemer. the track was red flagged for the rest of the session while they cleaned up and carted him to the top of the hill to hand him off to careflight. last i heard today, he was going to be alright, but its never the thing you want to see!
15 minute sessions for the rest of the day to make up for lost time was good; it allowed me to get on the course then off a little more often so that i can digest and contemplate corners a bit faster.
the pirelli pro slicks treated me right all day. after the first session they retained enough heat to be able to rail on the buell as hard as i cared to do on a foreign track. i didnt push the front tire ONCE and i found it hard to slip the tire out no matter how hard and early i got the throttle grip to its lock coming out of the carousel and coming out of turn 9a onto the back area before slowing up to make turn 11.
i started experiencing brake fade in the later parts of the day from hard brake use for the multiple hard braking corners on this track. i cracked open the bleeder screw and a couple air bubbles came out which helped noticeably. my pads, fluid and brake lines are excellent, but the stock master cylinder needs to be upgraded BADLY. i had to slow down my pace at the last 2 laps of each session in the mid afternoon just to have any lack-of-brake-induced off track excursions.
prior to doing this track day i had heard a number of mixed comments on the track from people who have been there before.. even from people who have just played video games on the track!! it fueled an anxiety about this track that took some time to dispel. the huge facility, the other events that infineon holds, its clout and its deep history as sears point made it an object of curiosity, a rite of passage and made it particularly intimidating.
the track has a certain flow to it thats tough to describe, but you get this feeling of riding on a rollercoaster thats unlike any other track ive been on. there are a lot of dips and rises and heavy G force corners thoughout the whole thing.
wheelies are EASY to come by at this track. the elevation changes, the thick sea level air, sticky pavement and the stoopid amounts of torque that the buell makes created a lot of times where i lofted the front tire throughout the course, and just about every time. i have not been on a track where the front end comes up as much as it did at infineon.
here is my walk through of a lap at infineon:
coming into the hotpits from the pits, the strip is short.. just long enough to do two good accelerations/hard brakes to warm up the fluids and tires. as the flagger signals you to enter, you let out the clutch and click 2 gears off as a long 1st gear wheelie is tough to keep down. i found myself lifting, then letting off then bringing the throttle on and the front end coming up then finally clicking the next gear multiple times. so many times that i got the honor of one of the z2 guys telling me to tone it down coming onto the track in the afternoon.
coming up under the bridge into turn 2 is wild as youre coming up a reverse corkscrew turning left than instantly right all while going up hill. getting to the top of the hill and through turn one, you can see turn 3 and 3a. 2 flows into 3 that flows into 3a really well. cresting over turn 4 will lift a tire just long enough to realize that youve got to slow down for an off camber turn 4.
through 4, it is on camber and i kept hugging the tight inside line to the point where my kneepuck would have been in the grass if i touched down. upon seeing my reference point to aim me into the carousel, the turn in is blind like a reverse t9 at thunderhill.
the carousel is a long sweeper left and it goes FOREVER. i feel like a coin rolling down one of those donation jars at mcdonalds. it took a while to build trust in the carousel to really lean it over deep enough to take it faster and get my knee down. the moment you see the track straighten out, you can wind out 3rd gear into 4th and top out while it comes up to what feels like the longest straight section of the whole track. i really enjoyed gettting a good launch out of the carousel, feeling like a freight train down that straight. a double apex turn 7 was a challenge for me quite a few times, because i never picked a good brake marker to set up for good line.
coming through the esses is a blast, you can power through them pretty easily, and make the track just about perfectly straight with the right line. coming out of the esses into what i called 'the Z' being turn 9a, you can loft the tire for quite a while if you pick 4th gear to pull you through. you have to click down to 2nd or 1st through the Z and i dont really like how slow it is. after t9, you can click up 2 gears and power through the back area with the throttle almost to its lock.
t11 is a lot like 9a in that you need to pick 2nd or 1st gear to make it right. my bike will torque its way through 2nd gear just fine, but 1 gives a better drive exiting each corners. its super tight and then you come on to the short front not-that-straight away. my brake marker and gear click down marker was the start/finish line and it comes QUICK. i REALLY disliked the little concrete bump that makes t1 very challenging. i screwed it up more times than i got it right, and i dont think i did it all that well even when i think i didnt screw it up!!
i squared it off and headed up the hill again under the bridge where it feels like a rocketship launch coming uphill that quickly
i found the section on the front straight away through t2 to be the most difficult section and the part i kept thinking about the most of this track whole track.
my pics got better throughout the day:
4theriders.com/viewpics.php?loc=/pics/trackdays/2010/11.15.10-infineon/994/ thanks for reading! sorry for being a long post!!
