Adamanda's KRC @ Donington 98 Page

Last Trackday of the Year

(not counting the Nürburgring in Oktober!)

23rd September 1998, and another KRC trackday on the full circuit at Donington. This time Amanda & I enjoyed the company of fellow Ixion subscribers Richard Bailey, Richard Seabert, James Dening, Patrick Kelly, Andrew Gebhardt, Jason Howe, Dave Green, Martin Bennett & Ian Burbridge. (Dave Lippett unfortunately couldn't attend due to bad planning involving an R1, an accident with a trailer and an insurance assessor).

And unseasonably good weather

After suffering the wettest summer on record, and having such a good day at Cadwell ten days previously, it was amazing that the days leading up to the trackday were warm and dry. I was even able to pack the dark visors and consider leaving the waterproofs at home, although Amanda wanted to take them as a talisman. On the morning of the trackday it looked like she'd been right, as it was cool and misty at the track. From 10am though, it was a glorious sunny, warm day. A warm, dry track and a set of Hi-Sport Race 3s ... what more could you ask? :-)

Last Trackday on the ZXR

The ZXR750 loves Donington, it's weight is little handicap, and the utterly solid handling makes it a dream on the fast sweeping bends. Added to that, the front-heavy weight distribution helps make it a demon braker on the GP circuit's Melbourne Loop.

However, this was my last trackday on the ZXR - by the time the '99 trackday season gets underway it will be traded in for another bike (probably a Yamaha YZF R6). And it's about time for a change: although it's much torquier and a bit more powerful than the ZX-6R, the 600 feels like a much quicker bike. The ZXR is from an earlier generation, and it shows.

Same time as last time

In the last few trackdays, my riding - at least in terms of laptimes - has stagnated somewhat. My best laps this time (at 1:57.2) were only a couple of tenths quicker than my best from last time, although if I haven't been getting any faster, I've at least been getting more comfortable at those speeds.

It's not that I don't know where the weaknesses lie. I've got a lot of room for improvement (a popular euphemism for being crap) in corner entry speed, speed of turn-in and the drive out of the corner. Why can't I make myself go faster? Beats me: Apart from cold-tyre wriggles I've never approached the limit of front-tyre grip, yet there's some invisible force that clamps my fingers to the brake lever until the speed's reduced; I know I can flick the bike into the turn faster than I do, yet I can't make myself really shove that inside bar; The rear has only slid a couple of times, yet it feels so hard to really lay that power down!

Meanwhile, people like Dave Green are doing times of 1:55, on a similar bike, and are disgusted with themselves!

Ah well, if there was nothing to improve, I'd have nothing to look forward to next year ...

Amanda

Amanda's continued to make progress with hard acceleration and braking, but she, like me, has a maximum speed she's prepared to corner at. With her small size and light weight there's very little that can stay with her on a straight, but the corner speeds are disproportionately low. She's now well into re-engineering her riding style to incorporate a bit of hanging off, so I confidently predict her first scuffed knee slider for Spring 99 :-)

Another couple of scary moments!

This was the first visit to Donington where I managed to avoid outbraking myself at the Esses. Instead, I got a couple of other frights ... The first was a bit of clumsy footwork. Accelerating around Hollywood, banked well over to the right, I was at something over 100mph, nearing the top of 4th gear when I went for 5th before the exhilarating drop into Craner Curves. Unfortunately my foot just grazed the gearlever. Now at the redline in 4th, I moved my foot down for another attempt ... only to catch the lever on the way down, and change into 3rd!

The engine alternately screamed and gurgled as it banged off the rev limiter, and the rear tyre lost grip and started snaking around. Dislodged, I felt the ground approach and reached out with my right foot, but luckily the bike came back and lifted up slightly so my foot just skimmed the ground. Luckily, because a foot doing 100mph inside a boot which has suddenly decellerated to 0 can make for seriously bruised toes!

My second soiled undergarment experience was completely stupid. Coming up the short straight from the Melbourne hairpin, I looked back for a moment to see where a friend had got to. When I looked forward again, I was heading for the grass at 80mph! Thankfully the grass was dry and not too bumpy and so, using only light buttock pressure, I eased the bike back on to the track. Meanwhile Andrew, following behind, had quickly shut his throttle so he didn't overtake me and miss my crash :-)

Huge power's no advantage for normal riders

R1s were everywhere. There must have been 20 at the trackday, and there were 10 in the middle group (where, to our bemusement, most of the fastIxies had been placed).

You might expect all the 180kg, 145bhp R1s to be fastest by far, leaving the normal machines straggling behind ... but these fantastic bikes seemed to give no advantage over bikes like our ZXR and ZX-6R.

The thing is, I don't believe a "normal" rider can take advantage of the potential performance advantage promised by the bike. Most bikes can already turn quicker, lean further, grip better, brake harder and drive faster than we can cope with.

The R1 has some extra drive on a straight, but it's rarely more than a couple of bike lengths in practice. In fact, I often found myself gaining on an R1 on the straight. How could this be? Riding a peaky 600 means you need to make an effort to be in the powerband on the exit, while the R1 seems to encourage riders to be lazy with the revs and surf the wave of torque.