yella600rr said:
Additional Thoughts about my crash:
My key mistake was I boched the entrance/exit of RH T9.
Theresa, I'm glad that the outcome of the T9 crash wasn't too bad, and you're using it as an event from which you can come away learning something to make you an even better rider.
Looking at the photos, tells the story clearly on the root cause of the final "crashing". If you look at the first two photos when you're on the paint, you'll see that you can actually see "air" under your rear tire. That means that you were braking REALLY hard while on the paint.
The real error that put you down, was not your braking most of the time while on the paint, but instead the error in not getting OFF the front brake as your front tire reached the downward/off-camber slope at the last foot or so while leaving the painted berm. If you'd gotten off the front brake for just that 1 second of time that it took for your front tire to complete the downhill ramp of leaving the painted curbing and returning to the normal track surface again, you wouldn't have lost the front end.
The key to such situations, is what I call "interval braking". What's that mean? Well it means actively changing the amount of braking force that a rider is applying, millisecond by millisecond, based upon the traction potential of the exact spot the front tire is on at that precise moment.
To illustrate the concept, here's a visual. Pretend a braking drill was setup at a track school, with the following. On the last 50 yards approaching a turn, in the straight, the drill consisted of having placed 2' x 2' pieces of smooth cardboard on the track surface, spaced 10 feet apart, in this final approach to the turn. The secret for the rider to slow down enough to make the turn, without losing the front on the patches of smooth cardboard, is to do "interval braking".
That means that during the .5 second intervals that the bike's front tire is passing over each of the cardboard patches, the rider consciously gets 100% OFF the front brake just prior to, and while on top of the patch. This is followed by the rider taking full advantage of braking as much as possible immediate thereafter, when the tire returns to normal pavement again. This is a cycle of alternating between total brake release, to maximum braking, precisely timed, to achieve the needed speed reduction to get down to the safe entrance speed for the upcoming turn, without crashing on the dangerous spots (cardboard).
In the case of your Turn 9 incident, in retrospect, if you'd considered the painted curbing you were crossing as one of these "no brake zones", and concentrated on getting down to serious braking in a straight line immediately upon returning to the normal track surface on the other side, I suspect you'd have been well able to scrub off enough speed to not run off the track on the exit of 9a, and would have not crashed as a result.
Overcoming "survival instincts", and "fixation", by mentally (and forcibly) substituting "learned skills" in such unplanned oh-_hit moments, isn't easy, but it is the goal to work torward for all of us; as we strive to be better riders.
I hope the info above may potenitally be of some value as food-for-thought for you Theresa, in making your next trackday experience an even better one. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to stop by the pits at the next trackday where we're both there. Always glad to help, if I can. :thumbup
Gary J
