Cadwell Park 21st September 2009

Taz - I need to head to Munich and won't return until the 21st mate.

Bugger. That's a shame. :(

Maybe catch you at Knockhill next year then.

Absolutely gutted mate

It's a sod when work gets in the way.

You'll need to get to Cadwell. It's a great track.

That it is

cadwel looks good - watched the SBK's on Monday. Will take some amount of ball's to do that jump

Takes more than just balls. The distance from the corner is much less than it looks on TV and it's a damn sharp corner. You need to be heroic to jump it!

I'll stick to tame

quarter throttle

im going, ive organised a few going from other forums as its the day after the final derby pheonix round and ill be on the blade, i only live in louth 2 minutes from the circuit so if anybody needs a b & b i can recommend a good few...

I've a pal in Lincoln I'm staying with.

Been to Louth once in my life, to spend £800 of the best money I ever spent - on Crowtree leathers. I was heart broken to hear they've finally retired. :(

retired? a mate was in there a month ago buying new ones.

Really? Good news!

I've had a couple of people tell me they'd finally retired, they've been talking about it for years.

I've got a spare place going on this trackday for Monday if anyone's interested?

Thanks.

'Ello ello, you get around.

Good luck finding a taker.

How was it Taz ?

Overall feckin' excellent!

My third visit to Cadwell, roughly speaking my eighth full track day. It was a pretty cold start to the day, overcast too but dry. Met Converted in the paddock, got the usual paperwork out of the way, noise test etc and discovered in the briefing there would be three sighting laps behind an instructor with no passing! The instructors took it really damn slow for those first three laps, and my plans to take it easy to let Graham follow me (his first trip to Cadwell) went up in smoke - once they finally cleared off and let us lap at our own pace I sort of wrung it's neck lol.


There were a lot of red flags in the morning, lots of twits on cold tyres in the early laps but strangely also a lot of people doing it 2/3rds of the way through a session. Our second session was a complete bust because of red flags cutting the session to practically nothing, and what laps we did get were at the back of the pack having been the some of the very few that got out of the pits before the first red flag and being called back in to line up behind everyone else.


Third session was much better. I started getting used to the feel of the 17" front and the Supercorsas and began to crack on a bit. The Supercorsas feel so much better than the 016s on full chat that I was a bit taken aback, took me a while to recalibrate my brain. The engine stuttered coming back onto throttle after braking a couple of times but it seemed to clear so I thought nothing of it.


Mistake!


I managed one flying lap is the fourth session before it died on me and I coasted between the bales at the chicane to park up. Wouldn't restart, although it tried to a couple of times. I did get to watch the cause of another red flag - coming out of the chicane someone managed to highside it big style, got at least head height (and I'm 6'3" tall) before landing flat on his back with a lung emptying thump. Poor sod could barely move and couldn't clear the track, but he was conscious and was talking once he could breathe. He managed to split his helmet up the back!


After a lunch spent fiddling with the tank off, cleaning the filter (grubby but not blocked), checking the fuel tap vacuum diaphragm (fine), and the tap vacuum hose (loose, short and perishing) the bike ran again so I went back out.


God I love Cadwell!


The three sessions after lunch I finally started to find a rhythm and really enjoy it. Even the hated hairpin was causing me less worries (still slow though). Unlike Converted I still didn't get my left knee down, I'm fairly steady through Mansfield. Nor am I as brave as he is on cold tyres - he walked slowly away from me in the first two laps when I was behind him! But once the tyres were hot I got going and I got wheelspin over the top of the Mountain a few times (Arnie and Andy say they saw me get air, which surprised me - must have been all of half an inch I imagine).


I did several 1:54s but I racked up my best time of the day in the last session, also my best time at Cadwell by five seconds: 1:51.7. I'm pretty chuffed with that on my old shonker.

Good write up mate.
1.51 is a great time.

I didnt get to the day because ive invested in this R6, rather than spending a fortune on hire bikes.



Its getting a track prepared over the winter.

That looks a promising track bike!

Thanks for the compliment on the time, I'm hoping next year I can crack the 1:50 as I was getting faster all day and not feeling like I was pushing too hard.

My best is 1.55, but that was on a 16" front and not that good tyres.

Your bike has good suspension, with the good tyres, so getting into the 1.40 odd bracket can be done.

See you there next year

On the 16" front with road tyres I was doing 1:56. I'm not sure I'll see myself getting that much faster than the high 1:40s, I'll be very happy just to dip under 1:50. At the end of the day it's my road bike so I don't want to start pushing too hard.

Sounds great Taz. sadly I don't think I'm going to catch another track day this year

Were the Supercorsas that much better than the 016's, good to get feedback from someone who has tried both.

Do you have a timer on your bike or do Cadwell provide you with your times ?

I really, really want to crack Knockhill next year, once I've gained some much needed confidence. If I hadn't had that little off I'm positive I could have been able to get in to the intermediate's. I don't think I'll ever wish to proceed in to the advanced

I've got a trailor and am getting a friend to weld up some stay's for me so I can place four bikes on it so next year, if there are any "dan sarf", your welcome to chuck it on the back.

I'll be trying to organise an FBR day, venue to be voted next year.

I'm going to see if I can get a new set of wheels & use the existing ones which have a couple of marks from the garage changing the tyres for track day's & get some barely used slicks from a friend who runs the academy at KH as well as Polini mini bikes

Fancy doing the Nial MacKenzie day to help me re-build some confidence & get the best from my bike. I'll be taking the bike to Bob Grant for a full custom map and got the brakes done. Just need the tyres now

Glad you enjoyed Cadwell, looks some track, not for the faint hearted.

The Supercorsas are a revelation after the 016s. I love the 016s on the road, but on the track once you start pushing on I find them a little vague and they're upset easily on the limit. The Supercorsas just stuck and stuck - the bike didn't move around at all despite taking five seconds off my previous best lap. I'm not at all convinced I'd like to try them on the road on a Scottish spring day though!

If you're making mods to your trailer and you've a friend who can weld make some of the roll-in front wheel cups. The trailer I borrowed has one and it made loading and unloading by myself a breeze! I'll take some measurements for you. (Or you can buy them on ebay for about £60).

Cadwell is a stunning track, I love it. You do need to be accurate, but it isn't as daunting as it looks.

Got a few pics from a friend.

Are you riding your bike all year round ?

I would like to get some sticky rubber for the next time I'm at KH.

Ye, if you could fire over some measurements I'll get my friend to fabricate them

Nice pic's as well to add to album

Can't wait to get back in to the tracks next year, hopefully time away & then get back might help me forget about my front end issues. No matter what I do now, I always think I'm going to lose the front, I tense up, don't move across the bike which is probably the catalyst of my troubles

Being tense and rigid on the bike will always make the front feel bad. I'd suggest slowing down to a point where you know 100% you can trust the bike, getting all the right movements in place while you're relaxed, and then slowly starting to build the pace while concentrating on them.

I ride any time the roads aren't filthy with salt. I used to ride through that too but it ate my 600 alive. :(

eeeerrrr using slicks in the novice group is a terrible idea.
They need warmers to work at there best and if your not going fast enough to keep the heat in them, they will have less grip than a road tyre.

At cadwell the stock 1000 record is 1.32 i think, using supercorsa's, exactly the same as Taz is using.
If it was me, id go for them or the metzler racetec's, they both come out the same mould in germany.

Ye I can feel it. Every bump I tense up.

Trying o get out as much as I can just now but the weather has been pretty grim.

Ye - your probably right although they are not out & out slicks, they do have a small amount of tread, not sure what they are.

What's the diff between the S'Corsas & the Racetec's ?

Kaiser wrote:What's the diff between the S'Corsas & the Racetec's ?

Not alot, one has metzler on the side the other has pirelli.
Most people like one or the other, but ive used both and cant tell a difference between them.

Saying that, racetec's are usually cheaper, when buying new.

Cool - I'll have a look at both of them soon

Kaiser wrote:Do you have a timer on your bike or do Cadwell provide you with your times ?

I forgot to answer this bit. I'm using RaceChrono. Free software (you need a smartphone and GPS to run it - I had the phone and it's £40 for a 5Hz GPS for accurate timing). It will also produce speedo and timing video overlays.

Here's the wheel cup thing:





Edit: If some of the measurements at the right hand side are getting cut off on your screen right click and hit View Image to get the full pic.