That went...reasonably well, I suppose. Feeling that I really ought to take the R1 on track at least once before I flog it, and thinking that Snetterton would be a good place for it, I booked an evening session with Focused Events. The weather miraculously cleared so I was reasonably optimistic, well in a 'this is the last track day I'll ever do. I mean it this time.' sort of way. The fact that the R1 is the prettiest bike of my fleet made me even more worried about dropping it - especially as I was toying with the idea of selling it. There were only two groups, Fast and Slow. I chose the Not Fast group. We had three sighting laps, then the sessions proper started. First session: OK, I guess. I generally got passed more than I overtook myself, so speed-wise about a third of the riders were slower than me. I was too busy trying to get used to riding on a track again, so the only thing I really picked up was that I seemed to be hitting apexes just where some thoughtful soul had placed cones, apart from the Russels chicane left-hander, where I was apexing too early and running wide, almost into the pit lane entrance. Worse, I was tending to roll off the throttle too early on the straights. Second session: I seemed to have lost it completely. Much slower. I tried different gears out of corners, but the problem was that I either used a higher gear, and had a smooth throttle take-up but no grunt for a few seconds out of the corner, or a lower gear - especially at Russels - where touching the throttle caused the bike - and my sphincter - to twitch badly as the power cut in. I was rolling off, if anything, even earlier on the straights, so bikes were flying past into the corners. I found that whenever a rider I was close behind rolled off too early, instead of just nipping round, I'd roll off too. I finally realized this when, approaching the Esses, I suddenly thought: "the corner's fucking miles away" and rolled the power on again. The R1 surged forward and the other bike was history. I'll say this about the R1: it doesn't feel as exciting on the power as my Tuono, but it is bloody quick. A few riders ran wide and I saw about three bikes off the track on this session. The session was red flagged but really only with a couple of minutes left, at a guess. I was seriously thinking of giving up but decided to do a few laps of the third session, then pack up. Well, I'm glad I did. Because of an admonition by the organizers to take it a bit easier in light of the recent offs, several riders too it too much to heart and I passed a few in the first couple of laps, then later out braked a couple more into the Esses on successive laps. With clear track ahead, I was suddenly much more confident. Faster bikes did eventually come past but I reckon it was about an even taken/overtaken ratio at the end. I'd begun to get a handle on Russels, but I still had a problem with the right-left transition. I also felt that I didn't have as much confidence on the brakes as I've had with other bikes; dunno why. The session ended full time and I was pleased with my progress. Mulling over the sessions I'd done as I packed, I realized what my problem was: I was rolling off and aiming slightly off-line whenever there were groups of bikes less than about 100m in front of me: basically my road instincts were taking over. Whenever the track was clear I'd blast up to the corners well over to the outside and brake relatively hard and late. I've not had this problem on track before and can only put it down to the higher speeds at Snetterton: seeing those clusters of brake lights ahead while barrelling along at high speed was really unsettling and I realized that I was worried about shunting someone. It was a good feeling to figure out what the problem was. There was a fourth session but as I'd started packing up (we were told we should get three sessions) I decided I'd give it a miss and leave on a high note. Last track day? Err, no. I'm already thinking of booking another one. I probably won't take the R1 again but will use the Tuono, which came pre-disastered. I fancy somewhere a bit twistier next time.
