Texas Tornado Boot Camp

[blrmaker]

So I just returned from the 7 day racer camp at the Texas Tornado Boot Camp. I have not witnessed other barfers experience at the camp so I thought I would share mine. Unfortunately for you I am neither a gifted photographer nor writer so you get the pics and grunts from a construction worker. :laughing

First I have to send a huge shout out to my wife who made the arrangements and surprised me with the camp for Christmas. Also I need to thank Merle, Fooch, Bodak, Mike Myers, Joe, Gil, the staff, and Colin himself. These guys made the camp more fun than what should be legal! :cool

This camp was scheduled as a “racer” camp 7 days at a reduced rate. I asked Colin why the reduced rate and he replied “most racers are broke ass” and “since it is the off season maybe they can afford to come” thumbup Thumbs up to that). Nearly every camper was a seasoned racer of some discipline. Surprisingly there was only one dirt rider out of the 28 that attended. He is a European Pro MX racer from England. There was one Moto 2 rider (Swiss), one Moto 3 rider (Belgian), and one British Super Bike rider (English). There were 2 AMA XR racers, one AMA Supersport racer, 2 Canadian club racers, 6 American club racers, one Italian club racer, and one German club racer. Finally there were one father/son team, one Argentinian, and one Belgian that had not raced before but they knew how to ride well. What a great combination of skill levels.

Greetings from the Boot Camp :teeth

 

[blrmaker]

I arrived Sunday afternoon when it was 70 degrees and slightly cloudy. If you fly into Hobby like I did then it is like 90 minutes to the camp. Bush International takes almost ½ of the time to get to camp. When I arrived there were a couple of kids on one of the tracks, we shall meet them later on.

 

[blrmaker]

Kitchen Meeting area

On Sunday night there is no cook onsite so I met a fellow camper that had a car and we went to dinner. I was surprised how close to town/lake the camp actually was.



More to come tomorrow, I am tired tonight. :x

 

[cencalballer]

Cool, looking forward to hearing about it. Would love to do this.

There's only one Belgian Moto2 racer right now. I think the same goes for swiss Moto3 riders. Can't remember though.

 

[blrmaker]

Cool, looking forward to hearing about it. Would love to do this.

There's only one Belgian Moto2 racer right now. I think the same goes for swiss Moto3 riders. Can't remember though.

Sorry. I will edit that in the morning. Switch the nationalities. :laughing

 

[gixxerjeff]

One of the moto mags (Cycle World or Motorcyclist, I forget which) did a feature on several camps. This one sounded like the most fun unless you had to go head to head with Colin on his 'souped-up' ttr125. I want to know more.

 

[Tharkûn]

I hate you

 

[Tydive]

Subscribed for fast dirty goodness opcorn

 

[horsepower]

Subscribed to live vicariously

 

[thedub]

More to come tomorrow, I am tired tonight. :x

Dammit, really looking forward to reading this, why you gotta leave us hangin'?!

 

[blrmaker]

:dunno Can someone remind me how to embed youtube video's?

 

[kiltwearinfool]

use the brackets: [ ] around the words youtube, paste the video ID# (such as E9cLWFAQ-J8) after that, and then end it with the brackets [ ] again around the words /youtube.

So jealous of you, this camp is on my list of things to do.

 

[Blankpage]

Thread overpromised-underdelivered, so far

 

[blrmaker]

When I got checked in I was able to choose which bunk I was going to get since I was earlier than most. Another cost cutting measure is that the bunks can accommodate up to 8 campers per room in 2 rooms. There are like 3 VIP rooms but they are more $. Probably ¾ of the campers showed up on Sunday. The remainder meandered in on Monday.
Monday we start getting our gear in order. Most of the racers brought their own but a few of us opted to use the camps. I chose to bring my own SIDI boots and socks though. The camp provides good equipment for 0$ so can’t beat that.

The majority of bikes are TTR125s with Leo Vince exhausts. I was issued a TTR 230 with stock exhaust since I am 6’1” and 230lbs. :wow

 

[blrmaker]

We were told to “chill” until 3 pm which caused a little of grumbling from some of the riders (we learned later why the wait). There was a cold front moving in so in the morning weather was not bad but got progressively worse throughout the day. At least we were able to shoot some skeet while we waited. Nice having Colin throwing for you. :cool



Colin Coaching

 

[blrmaker]

3 pm riders meeting is introduce the instructors, lay down the ground rules (there are not many) and to give us the schedule for the week. The schedule calls for Thursday being an “off” day. (I did not come all the way to Texas to take a day off) We divided into voluntary groups of Advanced and Intermediate with the respective instructors. Merle leads the Advanced and “Fooch” the Intermediate. We then hit the track for some free ride with our instructors. After some free ride time and familiarization with the 3 tracks it was time for “Super pole”. They connected all three tracks and had us individually timed while the rest of the group watched. Tip: don’t fall down during “Super pole”, it just slows you down.



17 seconds behind the leader. Wow that is humbling, 19th place. Then I looked hard at who the leaders were. Hmm not so bad after all. At the end of the week I used the gap to “James” to judge how I improved over the course of the week. Dinner about 8 at night and the food was delicious! The camp has a real good cook with plenty of food for all.

 

[blrmaker]

One of the few rules of the camp is that once you start drinking there is no more riding. Common sense rule since the beer cooler never ran out of beer. :teeth




After just a few hours of riding I was exhausted. They said they had to limit the first days riding otherwise campers rode themselves into the dirt and could not ride on the second day. I understand that now. After dinner the track under the lights is open until 11:00 pm. Only the young and energetic head back out.

youtu.be/pZ2Dk2-sZZo

Most stay in and watch Baja 1000 footage from Mike Myers leg of the ride and drink beer.

Sorry for the fuzzy pic.

 

[blrmaker]

use the brackets: [ ] around the words youtube, paste the video ID# (such as E9cLWFAQ-J8) after that, and then end it with the brackets [ ] again around the words /youtube.

So jealous of you, this camp is on my list of things to do.

Thank you! :thumbup

 

[blrmaker]

Tuesday

Weather is freezing rain/sleet and 30 degrees. After breakfast we started rider skills curriculum under the pavilion.


We had to stop by the campfire after every 8 laps or so to warm our hands. My favorite skill lesson was called the 90 degree ride. Basically there are tires laid out every 15 ft. or so in a zigzag design. You accelerate hard toward the right of the first tire and use the brakes to slide you around 90 degrees to the left with the intention of pointing at the left of the next tire. Accelerate again and slide right to point at the right of the next tire. Colin did it so flawless that it looked easy. It wasn’t for me. No pics though since I was riding.

Livio Loi is a cool kid and real fast. :teeth He has a new fan to Moto 3 in me! Livio was one of the kids on track when I showed up.

 

[blrmaker]

My gear did not have any pockets hence there are fewer pictures of us riding than I would of liked. We stopped for lunch and to warm up. Then it was time to shoot the .308 Hawes with a silencer out to 201 yards. (Don’t want to bug the neighbors:laughing) We shot from the porch of the second floor to stay warm.



We were back on track for free ride and then fun races around 3:30. I had to opt out of the races Tuesday because I literally could not lift my legs back to the pegs. Prescription Motrin and Spectator for me tonight. They raced TT short track with 3 heats 3 semi’s and 2 mains of 4 laps each. :thumbup


youtu.be/CDLi8ZCL-ME