Trogdor
Well-known member
So today we were all packed up and on our way to Thunderhill when the first rain started falling; a couple of hours earlier than inaccuweather predicted.
After the NRS meeting, we break out into groups with our instructors. Everybody says 'don't worry about speed. Just worry about technique. Nobody is going fast today!' As we get out onto the track, it starts raining pretty hard. I follow my instructor around for a couple of laps till he waves me past going up to 9. So I do another lap and occassionally look back for the instructor, but don't see him at all anymore. I pull into the hot pits and wait for a while. When Pete comes over and asks who I am waiting for I tell him, and he says 'I think he crashed in 12.' Um. OK. It was close to the end of the session anyway. Plus I was cold at this point. So I go in and hang out till the classroom portion of NRS starts.
Midway through the classroom session Sean announces that there will be no on-course evaluation today. With good reason. It is pretty much a downpour at this point. We all elect to just sit out all our sessions and work through all the classroom material with the hopes that the weather will be nicer later in the afternoon. And that seemed like a good plan.
So 3pm rolls around. The track is completely empty, and we all get out of the classroom. The rain has stopped, but the pavement is still drenched. Blaise convinces me to get back into my leathers. And it is damn cold!
About six of us hit the track. I am taking it really slow since it is wet and I have cold tires now. Coming out of 13 I feel my rear spin up. I thought 'wow, I didn't realize I gave it that much throttle'. But this is also where some of the other people high-sided today. I pat myself on my back for recovering and continue on. Going into 14 my bike is all over the place. I end up going really wide to maintain control, and I think this can't be right. The bike is sliding all over the place. I look around to make sure nobody is following then make a bee line to the hot pits, after raising my hand, of course. As soon as I can I pull over to the wall and look at the bike. My lower fairing is full of frothy oil. Ummmm, that is bad.
So Blaise comes by, and I wave him over. I say 'I just dropped all my oil'. He says 'yeah, I crashed in it.' Oh, that sucks. At this point I can see the track is red-flagged. I push my bike in to try and figure out what happened.
The bike has oil all over. I actually had it on my left leg and boot. It is on the outside of the upper fairing, my rear tire, the undertail, the rear set, just all over. It looked like something just exploded. This is a brand new GSXR 750 with sharkskins. The lower fairing is doing its job holding about 2 quarts of oil. We pull that off and start looking for things that might be leaking. Finally we find a busted gasket on the new oil filter. We speculate about all sorts of reasons that might of happened, but I am sure it is something that I did wrong.
Then word comes in that three more people went down in my mess. I say 'At least there were only four people on the track.' Blaise says 'yes, but they all went down.'
So, today I was that guy, the one who oiled the track and ruined it for everbody else. It was the end of the day and most people had left, so we didn't really lose track time. But four people went down in my oil, and that really sucks.
After the NRS meeting, we break out into groups with our instructors. Everybody says 'don't worry about speed. Just worry about technique. Nobody is going fast today!' As we get out onto the track, it starts raining pretty hard. I follow my instructor around for a couple of laps till he waves me past going up to 9. So I do another lap and occassionally look back for the instructor, but don't see him at all anymore. I pull into the hot pits and wait for a while. When Pete comes over and asks who I am waiting for I tell him, and he says 'I think he crashed in 12.' Um. OK. It was close to the end of the session anyway. Plus I was cold at this point. So I go in and hang out till the classroom portion of NRS starts.
Midway through the classroom session Sean announces that there will be no on-course evaluation today. With good reason. It is pretty much a downpour at this point. We all elect to just sit out all our sessions and work through all the classroom material with the hopes that the weather will be nicer later in the afternoon. And that seemed like a good plan.
So 3pm rolls around. The track is completely empty, and we all get out of the classroom. The rain has stopped, but the pavement is still drenched. Blaise convinces me to get back into my leathers. And it is damn cold!
About six of us hit the track. I am taking it really slow since it is wet and I have cold tires now. Coming out of 13 I feel my rear spin up. I thought 'wow, I didn't realize I gave it that much throttle'. But this is also where some of the other people high-sided today. I pat myself on my back for recovering and continue on. Going into 14 my bike is all over the place. I end up going really wide to maintain control, and I think this can't be right. The bike is sliding all over the place. I look around to make sure nobody is following then make a bee line to the hot pits, after raising my hand, of course. As soon as I can I pull over to the wall and look at the bike. My lower fairing is full of frothy oil. Ummmm, that is bad.
So Blaise comes by, and I wave him over. I say 'I just dropped all my oil'. He says 'yeah, I crashed in it.' Oh, that sucks. At this point I can see the track is red-flagged. I push my bike in to try and figure out what happened.
The bike has oil all over. I actually had it on my left leg and boot. It is on the outside of the upper fairing, my rear tire, the undertail, the rear set, just all over. It looked like something just exploded. This is a brand new GSXR 750 with sharkskins. The lower fairing is doing its job holding about 2 quarts of oil. We pull that off and start looking for things that might be leaking. Finally we find a busted gasket on the new oil filter. We speculate about all sorts of reasons that might of happened, but I am sure it is something that I did wrong.
Then word comes in that three more people went down in my mess. I say 'At least there were only four people on the track.' Blaise says 'yes, but they all went down.'
So, today I was that guy, the one who oiled the track and ruined it for everbody else. It was the end of the day and most people had left, so we didn't really lose track time. But four people went down in my oil, and that really sucks.
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