(Long) Our umpteenth trackday...Ezno n Belle do Thunderhill (9/14/03)

[datv]

Is that an RD 400?

I ran off on Turn 5 last time then later in the day at Turn 3. I just ended up wide, so I stood it up & ran into the infield.

I'm just going to put this out there.  It is almost never the right thing to do to stand it up and run off track.  90% of the time you can make the turn just by bending it in there.  Running off has to be a last resort - better to lowside trying to make it.  When you run off the track you don't know whats out there - could be a big ditch.  Not to freak anyone out, but at the beginning of last year someone died at THill from running off in turn 1, hitting a ditch and landing really wrong.  Our own Furious George also had a really bad crash as the result of running off at Turn 6.  Anyway, please be careful!!

[mostrobelle]

In my case I wasn't as afraid of lowsiding as I was of running off the track, so I tried to stick with the lean.  Unfortunately I ran outta pavement.  Even then I made the decision to try to ride it out as long as I could and attempt to point the bike sort of where I wanted it--you always hear that but I personally haven't ever found myself in that kind of situation before.  Whenever I've messed up on the bike prior to this I was usually on the ground before I knew it.  Making a conscious choice to stay with the bike as long as possible and control what I could made the whole thing seem a lot less scary.  That little episode actually gave me a lot more confidence, strange as it sounds.  I thought for sure that I was going to eat dirt and I really, really didn't want to ruin my day in only the second session.    That's seriously what was going through my mind.  Had I ran off later in the day I don't think that I would have tried as hard to save it.     I learned a really important lesson that even when things look very, very bad that you shouldn't give up!  I'm glad I got to learn that one at the track... 

[enzo]

That's turn 11.  And yes, you're curling your head back up into the bike.  Not the worst thing I've ever seen...  try looking through the turn a bit more, perhaps?

Whoops, of course that's 11!