Rockin' good time

Just come back from a trackday at Rockingham circuit. This was, as
usual, The Last Trackday I'll Ever Do. Ever. I Mean It This Time.

Took the Tuono, because that's what I bought it for and I reconed that
the Rockingham International circuit would suit it well. It did.

The circuit's quite a twisty anti-clocwise loop with a good mix of
left & right-handers. A couple are a bit bumpy: the second infield
righthander and the chicane where one jouns the main banked circuit
had been modified or repaired and the new tarmac was very bumpy.

The weather was good: cool and grey but dry in the morning; sunny and
warm in the afternoon.

My rear tyre is scrubbed off the edge on both sides, butt especially
the left side, where huge bobbles of rubber are still stuck unevenly
on to the edge, giving it a ragged appearance. Stuff yer 190-section
tyres. 180 is where it's at.

As is my habit, I left with a couple of sessions to go. I think I get
a kind of fear fatigue (those early starts don't help) but the
clincher was the fact that I was low on fuel but CBA to go out and get
a top-up. Normally I carry spare fuel but I didn't have a full can
lying around when I packed the car, so I didn't bother filling one up.

All in all, a great day. Rockingham rocks.

 

I don't like the International circuit, the National is where it's at.
The bits where you come off the oval and back on again are shit.
There's no grip in the braking zone coming off because the cars have
left huge streaks of rubber, there's a massive dip that kicks the
suspension as you're in the middle of the turn and the first right
hander is wildly off camber. The second right is ok and so are the
three lefts, but the hairpin by the pits is another grip-less turn and
the chicane before the return to the oval again is a Mickey Mouse
abortion that is needed because the dip coming back onto the outer
circuit is fucking horrendous (enough to launch my CBR into all manner
of shapes).

Give me the National circuit any day.

This post is brought to you courtesy of 3 litres of finest Lozzo-mixed
Black Russian and a dip in a swimming pool.

 

Well, you can always bail by carrying on through Turn 1 if it all goes
pear-shaped. I liked that chicane - faster than it looks, slightly
bumpy but only enough (at my sort of speed) to make the steering
'interesting' without getting frightening.

Yeah, for some reason I found that one difficult to judge - a couple
of times I turned in too early with the concomitant 'oshit' on the
way out. 'Challenging'.

That's a weird one. It's a bit like a tighter Melbourne Loop. I
noticed a *lot* of bikes taking a wide line round it, in all groups.
It does take some effort to keep the bike tight but the Aprilia had no
problems with it, once I got into the habit of making a real effort at
the start of the turn.

Yeah, that camber change is a bugger - I'd forgotten about that.
Personally I like chicanes like that - the Aprilia flicks easily and I
can gain ground on blokes who've passed me on other corners

Not tried that one.

Doesn't that dilute the alcohol?

 

I meant turn 2 - the hairpin with the huge black rubber streaks on the
approach. I quite like the dive down off the banking and onto the
little link between the bits of the oval. You have to cross the white
line about a metre before the end of it to be on the right line
through. I have overshot and gone between the cones and round the oval.

 

OIC. On that one I couldn't find a suitable braking marker; the
closest obvious one was an oblique tyre mark, which was less than
ideal.

Well, I was a turning about a metre later on average, I think. I do
have a habit of turning in slower and later though. I was aiming to
brake just before the ".co.uk" on the RH wall just past the
start/finish line but my braking was a bit variable.

 

And if anyone's interested, my first foray into online pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30173020@N05/2828132383/in/set-72157607114454471

 

Actually, I can see that, but if you can afford a decent lens, is it
worth it? I have always tended to go for the cheaper option, then
regretted it later. Note that I'm advising someone else on how to
spend wodges of their own dosh in a way I probably wouldn't....

The lens sitting beside the guy who was doing the selling in one of
the garages (there was a camera body attached to the lens but it was a
mere appendage) was /huge/ and must have cost a fortune.

I suppose they focus on a section of track and just rapid fire away
when they see a bike - they caught a sequence of a bloke's front tyre
tucking under, him sliding off the track and another bloke taking
avoiding action onto the grass beside him: almost a movie sequence.