Cadwell Park 4th October 2010

Well that's my final track day of the year done and dusted. A long drive down and back (and early for work the following day), but worth it.

I've some mixed feelings about my day. I had a great time, really enjoyed myself, but I didn't improve quite so much as I'd hoped. My times were consistently better, but my best didn't improve by much (need to double check but I think it was a 1:50.00). I have firmed up in my mind the areas I need to improve though - stop turning in too early and trust the tyres to allow me to carry more corner speed.

On the plus side the switch over the race pattern gear shift went far more smoothly than I expected. I made one up shift when I intended to shift down in the first session and once tried to shift down from first leaving the pits and that was it. Other than that it went really well and felt very good.

Scored a gennie for £80 that can run three sets of warmers so Graham, Lori and I were less than £30 each. It would have cost us that much to hire one so we're ahead of the game already.

Still having tyre troubles. Part of it was erroneous advice from someone I trust to go back to 30psi cold in the rear - tore up in the first two sessions. Dropped to 34psi hot (from 38! ) and the tyre started to heal up but the damage was done. I may try dropping lower but Lori and Graham are both sl*gging my standard (if rebuilt) 12 year old technology shock.

Think I'll be buying a few from Mr Wileman this time.

Sounds like a good day and love the pictures, especially the first one

Good pictures mate.

I run 30 hot in my racetecs.

Now then Tazfiend

Glad you had a good day Mate and agree with CBR Monkey that first pic is a beaut

Thanks guys.

shadow wrote:I run 30 hot in my racetecs.

I've heard people quoting all sorts of pressures. 30 hot sounds a bit on the low side, although I'm beginning to wonder. Do the Racetecs run lower pressures than the Supercorsas or do you think I should be heading that way?

Great pix mate.

Tazfiend wrote:Thanks guys.

shadow wrote:I run 30 hot in my racetecs.

I've heard people quoting all sorts of pressures. 30 hot sounds a bit on the low side, although I'm beginning to wonder. Do the Racetecs run lower pressures than the Supercorsas or do you think I should be heading that way?

I run that in both super corsa's and racetecs, i tried it in a set of rennsports, but they needed to be 32, maybe because its a older design.

I was told by the actiforce suspension guy (Pete Clifford), to run the pressures that low, i wasn't sure, so he said run it for one session and see how you go.

I did and haven't looked back since.

Thanks Megawatt.

Might give that a try in the new year then Shadow. See how it goes.

22-23 cold, 26'ish hot, I kid yee not lol
Road pressures and track pressures.... b i i g difference.
Not saying I know more than anyone else or owt like that, but I think you'll be pleasantly delighted with running pressures more akin to the temps reached on much faster, repeated track riding.
I'll say no more, but DO give this line of thinking a try

I'm certainly going to try going lower. Not sure I'm quite ready to go as low as 26 hot, but I'll move in that direction and see how it goes. My road brain is fighting it.

Some video, from my point of view and from my mate's.

My point of view:


Graham's point of view:

Very nice footage, what system were you using?
One thing I will add to my earlier bit, is that setting is for me at just under 11st in full kit, quarter tank of fuel, hot and dry day on an R6 with maxton shock and Ohlins inners on the front with short gearing on 520 pitch, 190 rear SC1/K1 and 120 front SC0/K0, tyres on warmers and then pressure taken just before going out, and again on return to pit about 8-9 laps later at Mallory.
Phew lol
For Cadwell I'd probably go a bit firmer, maybe up to 28 hot as it's longer and more windswept (more time for tyre to loose heat on straights and more left-right combo's) so I'd not want the pressure on the tyre walls to diminish on the faster turns, if you see what I mean.
Do you use full wets at all??

I have full wets but I've never used them yet.

I'm 19 stone fully kitted (it's the Crowtree leathers, honest ), and I tend to keep my tank fairly full 'cause I find switching to reserve mid-corner a little awkward.

I use a 560TVL bullet cam from www.rfconcepts.co.uk on the front, mounted under the headlight. It feeds into a good old fashioned camcorder in the boot. On the back I have an AEE MD80 recording straight onto microSD card. It's one of the slightly more expensive ones (about £35 without a memory card) as they seem more reliable and give better results than the £15 ones.

The speedo and timing overly is provided by RaceChrono (a free program) running on an old N95 phone I keep in the boot, hooked by bluetooth to a Qstarz BT-Q818eXtreme 5Hz GPS (£40 or so) taped to the solo cowl. RaceChrono2AVI (also free) converts the data to video and Adobe Premiere CS3 to edit it together.

lol yeah them Crowtrees are awful heavy.
I wouldn't have a clue about someone your weight etc so please ignore what I've said re pressures mate, with your, err...... statistics I'd stick to what the setup guys said, but you know that already eh?
That's an awful lot of tech for somene like me to have on a bike, the number of times I err.... fall off, it'd be money wasted lol
Re the wets, I was gonna say stick 'em up around another 2-3 psi than your inters as they work really great when turgid; if those treads (of a totally different rubber) don't get fully bogged into the tarmac then you're not getting anywhere near their grip potential.
Ok, bedtime.
Night all.

Well the advice I've had has been conflicting. One set up guy, who's been great about suspension, said 30 cold. My rear tyre was almost destroyed after three sessions - two of them really slow because it was damp!

Dropped to 34 hot and it's better, turns out that's 27 cold. I think I'm going to go another couple of psi down and see how that works.

First of all, thanks for the fantastic videos, looks a really good set up you have there. Now all it needs is someone to combine all the elements on one easy to use package, that would fit under the rear seat of a Fireblade and I would be first in line for one! Also is it me or did you have the track almost entirely to yourselves?

Im 14.5 stone in kit.
Mr R6 is completely standard, it is running a 190 now, but when i was on track it had a 180.

ooowww maxton shock you say, if that gets sold, me me me me.

I haven't tried it lower than 30 hot, but being in the middle of the inter group, i don't think i put the same energy into the tyre as Iggy does.

@Tyfio: All that stuff easily fits in the boot of an RRX, a more modern Blade might need a solid state recorder for the bullet cam though - practicality went out the window! We did have a pretty empty day. We'd booked into the Fast group but when we got there we discovered it was full and there were half as many in Inters so we dropped down as we're only just in the Fast group anyway. Was bloody great.

@Shadow: 30 hot? Christ I really am running them hard it seems.