CLASS

I was pretty nervous about taking my streetbike to CLASS. Partly, I'm not thrilled with the crash worthiness of the naked t5 -- seeing how expensive it would have been to repair the previous speed triple, I'm fairly nervous about dropping this bike.

Anyway, I made the decision this week that I *was* going to take CLASS, and I was going to take it on my streetbike. Huckleberry and I had a long, long talk about this: What was I looking to learn at CLASS? What did I want Huckleberry to do?

I promised Huckleberry to keep everything reined in -- something I've never promised the trackbike, and to keep it slow and under control. Heck, its never about speed, its always about control -- could I control a bike that often frightened me? My goals were to really pay attention and _learn_ what Reg had to say, not get out on a new track and go banzai...

That was the rub. You see, I've had this bike for more than a year, put almost 15,000 miles on it, and it still scared me, knowing how much MORE there was to learn. Its an odd love/hate relationship -- other bikes never scared me this way, but many of them also never sang to me when I rode them.

Anyway, since I sleep better in my own bed with my favorite cats and people, I tried to go to bed early Thursday night, but nerves kept waking me up. Yeah, nerves! Me, who'd already gone to FasTrack, New Racer School, had gone through three Novice races and even had a couple of expert weekends under my belt... I was nervous about taking a school on my streetbike, nervous about being at a track with a lot of people I really respect both on and off their bikes, nervous about knowing I was going to be the suckiest rider out there, that I might not learn anything, that I was making an expensive mistake, and finally, nervous about doing this _alone_.

Good thing I was driving the truck as it was gonna be a long day for me. I decided to prep the bike a couple of days before, load it up into the truck and drive the truck to the track, then find some nice male-type person with better upper body strength then me to unload it. My friend Russ said, "Aww, cute chick needing help at the track, you'll be swamped!"

I snerked.

Good music to calm my nervous head and a couple of antacids for the nervous stomach, and I was on my way. We do this trek to Willow once a month and I'm usually asleep during most of it. I still hate the ride up, the 14 is so completely boring.

I get to Rosamond, and go to the Chevron station to fill up my gas can and see that the Devonshire Inn has a lot of bikes parked out in front. I also notice that Russ is wandering around, looking quite dashing in his bicycle tights and long socks. I drive over to offer to carry any gear/luggage so he and Jane don't have to pack up the bikes to ride the 5 miles to the track. Lorraine and Steve Aledort are also there and I say hello. Everyone had thought I'd bailed, since I wasn't staying at the Inn. I told 'em that I'd wanted to sleep at home, so getting up really early worked out better for me.

Head over to the track, and get to the Streets. I've never been here before, and I discovered you have a nice view of turn 8 from the parking lot. Pull the truck into the dirt next to a trailer with two Ducatis (996 and 748). Turns out they are instructors, a father-and-son team that owns a Ducati/Triumph dealership in Medford, Oregon. I run around trying to figure out what to do, but decide to calm down and get into my street leathers. I notice a guy with a YZF750 in a truck having trouble getting it unloaded, and offer assistance and my ramp. We successfully get his bike down, and then I ask the two from Oregon to help get my bike out of my truck. They laugh and say, "No problem!" since they do this all the time :) Guess Russ was right.

Sign in, and get teched. No problems passing tech, though I was worried they would actually check my rear brakes. We'd ordered pads _months_ ago from EBC and they had shown up made backwards (another story involving much colourful language as poor Squidboy figured out the brake pads were just _wrong_) The new pads had still not shown up, but it turns out the bike was over-prepped and the rear brake was fine.

I'd brought food, but was having trouble swallowing anything. I dig around for some food, and then CLASS begins!

Reg went over the track rules, which were fairly simple, and then introduced himself and the other instructors. He stressed keeping things slow and keeping everyone safe. He went over the basic premise of what he was trying to teach -- relaxing, looking thru turns, pointing the shoulder, body steering, smooth throttle control and prolly a bunch of others I've missed. He had this great board with lot of concepts and pictures that he refer'd to all day.

Then it was time for our first time on the track. The A group went out with the instructors and followed like ducks in a row to find the line. We rode around the outside edge of the track, stopping at various points and watching the A group come into turns. That was fun, though a lot of dirtbike riding ensued, as we kept out of the line, tried to stay on the edge of the track and followed Reg (who was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers) and Gigi (who was wearing full leathers and helmet), who was carrying the megaphone and riding on the back.

The day itself progressed with a track session followed by a class session. I figured out the line in most of the turns fairly quickly after our ducks in a row session, except for turns 4 and 9. Body steering is not a new concept for me as the Daytona seems to really like it, so I concentrated on smooth throttle control -- keeping the revs up certainly helped. The one time I scraped any hard parts was coming into turn 8. I unsettled the suspension by rolling off the throttle, and felt my boot and SOMETHING ELSE hit the ground. EEEK!!!

I checked afterwards and found my exhaust headerpipe had touched down. (I'm sorry, Huckleberry!) I didn't touch anything else down the rest of the day, though I did scrape my toes a couple of times. Each time I went out, one of the two instructors on the Ducatis would come by and tap the back of their bike. I'd hook up behind them and follow as closely as I could. For some reason, turn 4 and I would NOT get along, all day. But I started to pick up some speed, and just for fun, got it into fourth gear and over 100 down the front straight and slowed down to about 90 indicated to enter turn 1. I found that the double downshift required for 2 at that point was too hard to do and stay smooth. I stayed only in third gear down the front straight after that, and just kept the revs up coming into turn 1.

Getting smooth on the downshifts was the next thing to work on, as I'm still having trouble 'blipping' the throttle and getting down the gears quickly (more to practice next month at Willow!)

I saw that someone was using the big track to test motorcycles. I'm not sure who, but right after what seemed to be the only off-track experience for anyone in CLASS that day, I noticed a HUGE dust cloud, and our ambulance rolled over to the big track. Someone had blown turn 7... which is odd, since its a kink in the track, and not really a turn per se. I hope they are ok, since the ambulance was deep in the infield near turn 8 for for a long time.

I also got to ride on the back with Reg -- whoa. Its just about everything everyone has ever said. And right after, I'm out there and my speed went up, the smoothness went up, and I was flying for the rest of the day...

In the last classroom session, Reg singled me out for a compliment on my increase in speed/smoothness, and how he noticed I was taking turn 1 deeper and faster. *Puff*

The two Ducati guys also came over to tell me that they noticed a marked improvement during the day -- I wasn't the fastest out there, but I was certainly one of the smoothest. I smiled and said, "With smoothness, speed will come," and they both laughed as they helped me load the bike back into the truck. The funny part is, until I rode on the back with Reg, I didn't _feel_ smooth -- it felt like I was working too hard and was still too choppy, abrupt and harsh... Someone else had complimented me earlier with, "Looking good, as usual." I wondered if they or anyone else realized just how _hard_ I've got to work to get any better at this. Its depressing not to find myself moving quickly up the learning curve and sometimes I get pretty angry. But small baby steps is what I've got to do. (Reg said this too -- small incremental steps, one at a time.)

I really enjoyed the personal attention from the instructors -- they sort of adopt a couple of people each -- and the two fellows from Oregon were awfully sweet. The ride on the back with Reg was fantastic -- I asked him to take it as fast as he would like, and I'm thinking, "Damn, THIS is 5/10ths for HIM?!?" (It was, of course, closer to 10/10ths for me!) But I really enjoyed the chance to get onto the Streets of Willow and enjoyed the school, especially sitting with Jane during our classroom sessions and teasing Russ about his HUGE grin when our session was leaving and his was coming back off the track, as well as getting to see Lorraine and Steve. We all ended up having dinner afterwards at the local Mexican resturant, The Golden Cantina. I was so glad I had the truck, as the drive home was sleep inducing -- I was tired and happy.

I couldn't wait to go riding this weekend. Squidboy kindly put the bike back together for me after helping me unload it off the truck.

Big thanks, as usual, for squidboy, who was there in spirit, for getting the bike prepped, and for loading and unloading it at home for me, and for lending me his truck. Thanks to Jane and Russ for helping out, and encouraging me to take the course.