Three days at VIR
Well, I just got back from three days of coaching for the California Superbike School at VIR. What a trip that was.
The first day was almost a rain-out. To check the condition of the track, Lonnie - the Deputy Chief Instructor, Trevor - Course Control, and I went out in a mini-van with Lonnie driving. The first thing Lonnie does is floor it out of the pit lane and gets the van up to about 80mph before braking hard for the right hand turn 1.
As soon as Lonnie turned in, the van started understeering. Lonnie was frantically making steering corrections - turning the wheels straight and then back into the turn - while reducing brake pressure and calmly stating, "Yeah, it's a definately sketchy there."
After making it through turn 1 by the skin of our teeth, Lonnie apparently had temporary memory loss and charged into left hand turn 2 without a care in the world. Turn 2 required no braking and Lonnie aimed directly for the obviously deep puddle at the apex of 2. In a blinding splash, the van hydoplaned on impact. A few short feet from the edge of the track, the van regained traction and we were off to the sharper left hand turn 3.
After each turn Lonnie had the same odd memory loss problem and continued to understeer the car to the edge of the track in each successive turn. The van hydroplaned on streams of water running down turns 7, 10 and 13a. There were huge puddles at 7, 9 and 15 that caused temporary blindness as we splashed through them.
On hearing Lonnie describe the trip to Keith and others back in the pits there were numerous statements of, "I thought oh ***, we're in the grass," and, "I was blinded and couldn't see a thing," and, "I'll take you for a lap and show you..."
There were no further laps in the van.
The rain stopped at about 10:00 and we were on track at about 11 and I had the pleasure riding a ZX-10 for the first time. What a monster motor. The tires, Dunlop 208 GP-As, though had been used and abused well past their intended lifetime and gave no feeling from the front. It wasn't until the third day after new tires had been put on and some preload taken out of the front that I started to feel comfortable.
What a rocket though. There were several times when it would power wheelie in 2nd and then carry it through 3rd to 4th while accelerating down the front straight.
I did find that you cannot hold onto the bars when accelerating though. You have to be relaxed and light on the bars or this bike will punish you hard. I was accelerating hard down the front straight and as I shifted from 2nd to 3rd, the bike went into a violent tank slapper - the worst I've ever been in.
For the briefest of moments, I thought I was going down. My feet had been knocked off the pegs but I was still able to clamp the tank with my knees and relax my arms. As soon as I relaxed my arms and let the bars move, the bike stabilized itself and I was back on my way having only slowed to 100mph.
As I came across the start/finish line at 120mph, I thought I should check and see if the brake pads had been pushed back in their calipers. I squeezed on the front brakes and sure enough there was nothing there. So I pumped the brakes a few times until I could feel the start to bite and then slowed for the fast approaching turn 1. Then it was back to work - catch the student which I did at turn 3.
Later on in 6th student session(12th for me) of day three, the second day of a 2-day camp, I had gotten with my students early in the session and kicked it up a notch for a few laps. I'm guessing I turned laps no faster than a 1:38 due to the care required in passing students but it did give me a chance to really check out the performance of the ZX-10.
First let me just say that an indicated 165mph on the front straight is damn fast. Second the bike is very stable when cranked over to knee, boot, and peg dragging lean angles. The bike likes to be flicked into a corner and just have the throttle cracked open to a neutral throttle then when it gets pointed in the right direction, you open her up and hold on with your knees, not your arms!
This is definately not a forgiving bike like the ZX-6. This is a bike that demands that you know how to ride and the moment you get cocky with it, it will slap you down and say, "Now, do it RIGHT!"
Before riding the ZX-10R for 800 track miles in three days I didn't want one. Now I do. What an awesome bike for the track. For the street, I want something less demanding. The new 2007 Z1000 is catching my eye currently.