Attitude adjustment

Slow

Before I sold the bikes I did track days, mostly at Fontana. Long time readers have seen the photos already. Track days are supposed to be about doing your fastest lap, not racing the other guys. (Racing laps are usually slightly slower because the racing line leaves less room for you to be outbraked and then blocked in a corner; the fastest way around the track is the 'qualifying line', which is your ideal line for a track day run.) Anyway, that's a good idea in theory but as soon as you get geared up and hit the track for your hot laps it pretty much goes out the window; you end up trying to both go as fast as you can and also catch/pass the guy in front of you.

Some backstory for the n00bs: Most track day organizations break riders into groups. Easiest way to describe this is slow, medium, and fast. They're all probably light-years faster than you, but we're speaking in relative terms here. Anyway, you start out with the slows and then you move up through the groups as your lap times come down. Getting bumped (that's the word you use) feels pretty good. You get waved off and they tell you to get a new number and you ride with the faster group. It can only happen twice at any given track / organization so it's a good feeling.

My last (ever?) track day I started in the slow group and was doing pretty well. I was helped by the fact that I had a great bike, good tires, tire warmers and good gear. My lap times were near the top of the sheet for every session and I was passing fools left and right. Since I started out getting passed by everybody on my first track day last year, it felt really good to feel fast. After several sessions the marshal in charge asked me to move to the next group. Awesome, I thought. I got this.

As I was picking up my number and joining the medium group for the first time the guy in front of me was stopped and they told him he was being demoted to the slow group. I thought, ahh, what a chump, can't keep up with the middle group? That's not even fast! Come on man! Get out of the way! I chuckled knowingly to myself.

When I checked out his bike I realized that he had an artificial leg that started above the knee.

He had set up his motorcycle so that he could race with only one good leg. The artificial limb was wedged into the right side of the bike so that he could hold on when cornering, accelerating and braking. Just FYI: on a track day ride you spend almost all your time doing one of those three things. It is exhausting, both mentally and physically.

You can imagine how I felt, sitting on my shiny bike, with all my fancy equipment and my lame attitude. I was humiliated and ashamed. I am ashamed still.

So: life lessons. 

I ended up going out for my session and doing okay there and the rest of the day. No crashes, no issues. It was a great day for the most part. I didn't see the other guy again, but I'll never forget him. As lame as I was, he was the opposite. x1000