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Track stories...

2K views 31 replies 13 participants last post by  SVS 
#1 ·
Anyone who has gone to a track day, roadrace weekend, or drag strip eventually winds up with some funny/crazy stories. Could be something like what you had to do/sacrifice to get there, or something that happened on track while you were there, or something that happened at night if you camped/hung out at the track.

So tell us!
 
#2 · (Edited)
There was this one time I took a close friend and championship winning roadracer to the drag strip for a private rental. He was never at a drag strip before.....he ended up 2-3ths behind my quickest ET's which was phenomenal,however....he cost me a rear tire(John Force burn-outs) and an entire clutch pack(steels were black and warped). He started off with a 16sec 1/4mi which was slower then your typical Prius:lmao and ended up in 9.7-9.8sec range at 140-145mph

You know who you are,Mr.Roadracer.I shall mention no names..But,stay the fuck off my bikes at the drag strip asshole!:flipoff :lmao
 
#3 ·
Wow, that guy sounds like an asshole!

:shifty
 
#5 ·
:biggrin
Yeah,and Mr.Asshole/squid never replaced the tire or the clutch :banghead
 
#8 ·
The first time I went down to VIR (w/ 7 other GDC members) for a TD weekend was a real barrel of laughs but I can't recall enough of it to tell a good story about it :D


So lets see, last CCS race at NJMP at the end of the 2013 season. Bob was doing pretty well during the weekend and was trying to rack up enough points to win F40 and make Expert for 2014. I had a decent Saturday but was dragging ass on Sunday. So like Bob is prone to do, crashes on Sunday and tears a few things up pretty good (on himself and the bike). I have 1 race left but given the circumstances I say fuck it and decide to skip it and help Bob get his bike back together so he can get back out there. We dive into it, duct tape here, zip tie there, bend this back and that back, replace a lever or two, etc etc. Manage to get things workable enough to ride. He just barely makes it to the grid for his next race and amazingly podiums after banging not only his bike but his body pretty well too. We bust his chops that maybe he should crash more often as it seems to have made him faster. Low and behold goes out for his last race of the day, crashes and bike comes back to the pits on the crash truck, we look at and I make the observations that he RE-broke exactly everything we fixed. Like a carbon copy of carnage from the first crash. Good way to end the 2013 season (he did get his white plates for 2014).
 
#10 ·
I overshot a turn once and ended up in a swamp roughly ankle deep. I didn't go down but was literally stuck. A corner worked came up to push me and just as he got me out, I hit a bunch of mud and plastered the poor guy from head to toe. I felt bad but he got me going and for that I was grateful. :)

Then there was the time a buddy who jumped on his bike in the pits and snapped a spool and down he went. It was great because it was the first race of the season with brand new body work and he kept saying how he was intent on keeping it pristine for as long as possible and never even turned a lap and crashed it in the pits. :lol He actually crashed it multiple times in the pit that season. It was crazy. Even the announcer started having fun with him and mentioning his pit antics over the loud speaker. :lmao

A last one which was strange almost upon disbelief. My buddy had a trailer and he would trailer our bikes to the track and we would drop it off there and we would go to the hotel and whatnot. When we were getting ready to leave for the weekend, we went to hook up the trailer and found that the ball off his trailer hitch was gone! We assumed it was stolen at the hotel and ended up finding someone at the track who had a spare. Upon getting home, he backs the trailer up in his driveway to offload the bikes, and the ball/hitch is just sitting right on the rear bumper! :dunno He said it was definitely his original one. To this day we bring that up and still never discovered how it got there and how it stayed on that bumper for a 2.5 hour road trip back from the track! :wacko
 
#14 ·
Upon getting home, he backs the trailer up in his driveway to offload the bikes, and the ball/hitch is just sitting right on the rear bumper! :dunno He said it was definitely his original one. To this day we bring that up and still never discovered how it got there and how it stayed on that bumper for a 2.5 hour road trip back from the track! :wacko
I'm betting one of your t-day buddies 'tried' to pull a practical joke on you guys at the hotel. It didn't go to plan (they slept-in or something) and since it caused aggravation instead of lulz, anonymously returning it back at home was the only exit strategy they could think of. Joke's on them :lol
 
#13 ·
Checkmate
 

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#15 · (Edited)
Ok, so since people have jokes and stories about me, I should tell one of mine.

Back in December of 2009 I think it was, myself, my wife, Moto_Joe, Dilly, Toejam, and a few others went to JenningsGP in Florida for a weekend at the track. We arrived Thursday night, and we were gonna ride Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Friday, people start arriving for the weekend, and a brand new tractor trailer pulls in all decked out with race logos and chrome and all sorts of bling factor. The team opens the back of the truck, and pulls a Ducati Desmosedici off the back. So naturally people start to gather around it, looking at it, admiring it, and drooling over it. The owner is a little cocky, and is bragging to people about how much he paid for it, how much HP it has, how much it weighs, etc...

So Saturday morning we are all getting ready to go out of track, and all we hear is this guy revving the piss out of this Desmo. It is annoying as fuck, and is getting people in the pits pretty pissed. A few sessions in, temps have warmed up, and we are all out there running around in the low 1:20's, and we see the guy get suited up, and head towards hot pit on the Desmo. We are all pretty stoked to see that thing on track, and no sooner does he get out of the pits and onto hot pit, he fucking highsides the $70,000 Ducati! Didn't even make it out on the track. Highsided the shit out of that bike before even turning a lap!

So he brings the bike back to the trailer, and pulls out a different Duc, and takes that out onto the track. I guess he had spares in the truck, because they managed to fix the Desmo, and he took it out again, although this time he actually made it onto the track and starts turning laps.

So I follow him around for a bit on my old Kawi ZX-6R race bike, and when I realized what a squid he was, I made it a point to pass him every chance I got, lap him as many times as I could, and outdrive his 200hp bike on my 98hp bike.

Just goes to show that a fancy bike, trailer, team, etc... doesn't mean anything if you don't have the skill to utilize it.

Oh, and just so you don't think I am bragging about my skills, I did a weekend at JenningsGP once with PJ Jacobsen, who now races WSS, and tried to follow him for a lap. By the time I hit T5, he was already by T10. There is always someone faster, even on lesser equipment.

:thumbup
 
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#17 ·
Oh, and just so you don't think I am bragging about my skills, I did a weekend at JenningsGP once with PJ Jacobsen, who now races WSS, and tried to follow him for a lap. By the time I hit T5, he was already by T10. There is always someone faster, even on lesser equipment.

:thumbup
Yeah,I'd lend him one of my bikes but not you :lmao
 
#16 ·
The above has been my experience with every duc on trackdays. They seem to attract (obviously not in all cases but...) squids with deep pockets and no skill.

My very first-ever school/track day, I was riding (don't laugh) a Yamaha FJR1300 touring boat that got me laughed-at a lot in the pits. Before lunch, the marshals moved me up to yellow group and by mid afternoon, that big tub of mine was passing many squids on sportbikes..... but also, lapping this guy who had a gorgeous 1098S, matching leathers / helmet.

Probably $30K of bike and gear being lapped by a shaft-drive touring boat.

I had so much fun that day that I was hooked and rode 2 seasons of t-days on that tub. Being mocked in the pits was a BIG part of the fun for me and my buddy (GDC member buzzertoy - red R1200S below) because most of those haters were soon to be passed by that bone-stock, 500lb tub, over and over again, all day long - good times. (I was around mid-pack of yellow group, scraping footpegs everywhere)

I took off the plastics just in case for the first day. On returning, I actually asked if I could turn laps with my saddlebags but they wouldn't let me :lol

Long story short, 1/2 way through my second season, a buddy 'made' me ride a few sessions on his '02 gsx-r 750 track whore and that was it - no more FJR. I bought my K6 1000 within a week.

EDIT: to continue with Anthony's point, that day - my first time on the track on an old beat-up track whore, I lapped a guy on an S1000RR over and over. Actually, I referred to that day way back when I signed-up here, returning fire (at GV) when people were trying to flame the new french noob :lol click
 

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#21 ·
No, I'm pretty sure he stayed. Although I could have the time frame mixed up. The highside might have come later in the weekend. I don't really remember the exact order of occurance.

:dunno
 
#24 ·
I watched a friend of mine high side his bike in the pits on the way to tech inspection. Cold tires, too much throttle and brand new freshly painted bodywork. At least he got the first crash out of the way on that bodywork. I always say to kick the bike over and get it over with it because it's not going to be perfect forever.

I bought a brand new 2013 CBR 250 and built it into a track bike. I had it ready by the first race weekend of the season at NJMP. Friday practice was going to be my time to get accustomed to the new bike and find any bugs with it. I rode it around the pits and to tech inspection and shifted through some of the gears in the paddock. I get the bike on pit road and they wave us out for our first practice session of the morning. I get about half way down pit road and go to shift to second and I'm stuck on the rev limiter. I pull over kill the engine and look down to see my shift linkage hanging from my rear set. :facepalm Whoops. So I'm stuck in first and I can only start the bike in neutral since I disconnected the clutch switch. I pulled the clutch in and jogged with the bike back to the paddock. It was a long jog. Turns out I didn't have my shift linkage rod threaded in far enough. I never thought to try to bump start the bike.

I was at that December 2010 Jennings weekend. I drove it straight through, 20 hours to Jennings, rode Saturday and Sunday, then drove 20 hours straight back. I was taking some college classes and I just made it in time to class Monday morning with the bike and trailer still in tow. Then I had to still go to work that afternoon. :twitch

I drove to Barber solo and straight through too. Rode two days and on the way back at about 2am in the middle of no where Virginia I started to hear a noise from my truck. I stop at a gas station and I hear clicking and popping noises from the truck pulling up to a pump. I get out and look around and there's gear oil all over my right rear wheel and all over the trailer and bike. Huge mess. Bike's tires and brake pads got wet too. An axle bearing failed. I had my truck packed and no where to stretch out or sleep. I curled up on the driver seat and waited until the nearest shop opened and got towed in for repairs. I was back on the road later that afternoon. Talk about exhausted. :sleep

I was at CMP for a track day with some members here in 2011. I watched a guy spin up the rear tire and high side right in front of me on pit out. He went down pretty hard for going so slow.

Another weekend at CMP it started to rain during the rider's meeting. Small turn out and it was 2 groups in 30 minute rotations. I put on my rain tires and I had the track to myself for 30 minutes. I was the only one that went out.
 
#26 ·
I have seen that on more than one occasion... You can basically throw your warmers in the trash after you ride even a few feet on them.
 
#27 ·
Had a transgender person at the track who talked in a high pitched but still male sounding voice. Spent six hours debating with my friend whether She was a man or not. She said that she rides hard and really got it "low".... Sandbagged the entire time. When she was about to leave, she dropped the high pitched voice and just said "alright, see ya later guys" in the manliest voice ever. I was like damnit Sandy you really had me going here. Cool lady, hope she tracks some more.

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk
 
#28 ·
I was at a 5-day track camp in Hungary while I still lived in Denmark with six friends and my Sister, drove the 800 or so miles down there in a convoy of 3 vans with a trailer behind mine.

Lots of hilarity ensured during the week but the best part involved my buddy Rob who had never been to a track before. The first couple of days he did well, then crashed his '91 CBR600F2 after going into T1 faster than he was comfortable with.

He was fine and the bike just had plastic damage (those F2s were fucking tanks). We told him to either just duct tape the plastics or take them off and keep riding but he insisted in replacing them...

He spent a day and a half driving all over the Hungarian countryside to bike and salvage shops and actually managed to find all the panels albeit in a variety of colors.

He put them on, went out and promptly crashed in the same damn corner :lmao To top it off, another of our group was target fixating on him and crashed right next to him :lmao
 
#29 ·
:thumbup

So this one time, a guy we all knew was starting a new track day organization, and flew a bunch of us out to Buttonwillow for a weekend at the track.

It was me, Moto_Joe, Dilly, SVS, GixxerVixxen, Grrl, and a few others from the site who are all friends IRL.

He provided bikes for all of us, and we had a blast out on the track.

However, the real fun that weekend came the last night, when the whole crew went out to Saddle Ranch and got fucking hammered.

And after everyone else had gone back to the hotel to get some sleep before the flights out, SVS and myself decided in our drunken stupor to go get pancakes and wax philosophical about life and our experiences until it was time to leave for the airport.

:biggrin

Good times.
 
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