Closing out 2023 - maybe

[justjoe]

2023 has been a very busy year for me in regards to trackdays. I was going to say motorcycling but I realized I have not ridden any other motorcycle besides knocking the dust off of any of my other bikes that isn't setup for running the track. While I have had an amazing time, after a little reflection I find that I am missing longer trips and riding the best damn motorcycle ever made, the R1200GSA, with my friends at rallies. Riding will be remedied over the winter months when all the tracks (outside of Florida) are closed.

So I got to work getting my other bikes squared away.




But first, let's talk about track days and then talk about what's coming up. Last year I ended my track season a little early. I had a get-off at Bruce's private event held at New York Safety Track. I really thought I did some damage to my bike because it was leaking oil and smoking really badly. I brought it home and wondered what I was going to do if it was destroyed. No sense worrying too much, I took it to my mechanic and found out that the damage was very minimal being oil in the airbox while it was upside down. But since it is an Aprilia, getting the parts meant many weeks of backorder. The total cost of the damage from the wreck was about $500 in parts. I did upgrade some other items. Unfortunately, the end of 2022 happened there.

NYST pit


Aftermath of the get off


The real damage


A little road rash



But that was last year and this year started early in March. I got the bike ready by doing a bit of maintenance, taping off the lights, safety wiring again. General stuff.

2023 saw several new tracks for me. I began the season at one of the best tracks in the country, Barber Motorsports Park. It was chilly in April and rained overnight. When it is chilly I put my gloves on the tire warmers to heat them up as well!


After Barber, I went to Atlanta Motorsport Park which may become my "go-to" track. It is moderately technical and the track amenities are pretty dang nice. I did six track days there this year with some crazy stories. It all started with my number creating a monster, JoeBoo!



Many track day organizations require you to put a number on your bike for identification. Just in case they need to call you off the track for any reason, the number makes it easier for them especially if you are running a very common bike like an R6, Gixxer, or similar. So I put an 8 on my bike in red tape. But my wife and I got to laughing and decided to create JoeBoo with eyes and teeth. We laughed until weird things started happening. In the first session with JoeBoo a rider drives straight off the track about 100 meters in front of me. The next session a rider goes off the track in the same spot 15 meters in front of me. In the very next session, a rider two bikes in front of me crashed out and got hit by the rider in front of me and I barely had time to slow down and avoid both of them. I mentioned to my wife that if anything else happens, JoeBoo must go. He is too angry on the track and is causing issues. And then this happens.

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxBDJBEEq...dLoXotq n22fy9

Oh boy! The rider was okay but it damaged my right side plastics. Nothing a screw won't fix!

JoeBoo in action


After effects of JoeBoo

[justjoe]

Atlanta Motorsports Park


I missed a track day. I went to VIR after Barber and ran the Patriot Course the first day, North Course the second. VIR has a special place for me because that is where I did my first track day ever. I love the North Course and have decided that Patriot is not the place for my bike. It is short, tight, and not designed for fat guys on a fat bike. It is also a place where I had a low speed lowside. I came over a blind left and the corner worker was staring down into part of the track that was lower elevation, lets call it a bowl. As I crest the hill I see a bike smoking on the side of the track in the bowl. No flags but I put a hand up to signal that I am slowing down and do so. As I get closer, a second corner worker is staring at the smoking bike, no flag. At this point I am doing 25/30 miles per hour. As I get near the bike slightly leaned over my bike low sides. There was a large oil slick where the kid did not safety wire his oil drain plug and it let loose spilling oil across the track. A quick repair in the pits and I am back on the bike. But that cost me a new screen, a broken shifter, and some duct tape.

AMP without my wind screen the following weekend.


In May I did one track event, National Corvette Museum. It is a fun track but I didn't take any pictures. Back to AMP and then to another new track for me, Roebling Road.

More AMP photos

When you make the fat kid go round the outside




Roebling Road Raceway was also an excellent track. I had two great days.


Notice my plastics missing. That happened after I hit the guy at AMP.


I met this guy Ryan at AMP and he was a witness to JoeBoo's antics. At Roebling, we continued to run hard together. He hustles that 600 around the track pretty well! After this session, we were chatting and he said that he was planning on taking it easy until I passed him and then it was on! I bet there were 5 or six passes in that one session alone.


Roebling Road Raceway was a great event but on the way home I had a mishap. When I left RRR for breakfast on Saturday morning I heard a brake squeal. No problem but it got bad pretty quickly. On Sunday morning going to breakfast it was noticeably worse, grinding actually. I knew that I had an 8-hour drive home so I planned to be really careful. Everything went fine until it was time to stop for my last fuel stop roughly an hour from my house. Getting off the interstate it was really bad. Almost bad enough for me to call AAA. But I managed to stop by manually downshifting and leaving plenty of room between myself and other vehicles. When I rolled into my neighborhood I let gravity help (my road is a 12% incline). I stopped, put my truck into reverse to back into my driveway, and that was it. Brakes were totally gone. I ended up jackknifing the trailer causing a bit of damage.






$12,000 later, everything is fixed and looking brand new again. The cause of the brake failure was a defective brake pad. The pad material on one pad came loose and the caliper pistons pushed the metal portion of the pad against the rotor (grinding). Eventually what was left of the pad slipped between the rotor and a shroud allowing the caliper pistons to grind against the rotor. With the pistons fully extended, I did not have enough hydraulic pressure from the master cylinder to exert pressure against the other three rotors losing all stopping power. I call myself lucky on this one.




I went to Polecat Training Center in July without getting pictures except for my pit crew.


She was interested in what I was doing so much that she was considering flying as well.It is definitely hot in middle Tennessee in July.


There was a guy there who races in the King of the Baggers series with the AMA. His bike was definitely interesting and while he wasn't keeping up with the fast sportbikes, he was definitely running well.


His friends did not have a high appreciation for the bike. Or maybe it was the rider. Needless to say, he went to tech with that thing flopping around. Kind of funny.


Here is a good time to plug ChefEatz. Chef Jeff Servin prepares these meals and sells them online and sometimes brings them to sell at the track. Absolutely delicious. I ordered a weekend track package and have everything ready to eat in minutes.

Pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes, carrots.

[Loggiebone]

Sorry about the truck, trailer oops. But your track form is looking much better. Way to go!

[justjoe]

My next track day was at PittRace August. I love this track and it compares favorably with Barber and National Corvette Museum. I don't have many pictures of the event but I do have a few pictures of the aftermath of a few serious get-offs. It's common to have wrecks and even red-flagged sessions (red flags are when they shut down the session to get out to a downed rider). Very rare to have someone taken to the hospital by ambulance. At this event, there were three life flights in two days. Very, very rare indeed. I heard there was another helicopter ride on Monday after I left (it was a three-day event).

??????


If you've ever wondered what my sleeping accommodation looks like, here it is. Taking a nap after setting up my pit and watching the Porsche club tear it up on the track.


After PittRace it was off to New York Safety Track. One year after my get-off.



I really hope BruceV puts another one of these together. It was brutal yet really a lot of fun. The track is open to ride at anytime. I found that I could ride two 20 minute sessions per hour in the early part of the day but by the end of the day I was lucky to get 15 minutes per hour. I left at noon on the second day because I had a 14 hour drive home.

After NYST I went back to PTC and AMP. All in all, 25 days at the track this year between April and October with one month down with my truck and one month down due to the heat of summer. I averaged two track events a month for 4 months which is kind of nuts. I went through twenty rear tires and 11 front tires, countless gallons of fuel, many cases of water and gatorade, and one or two beers. Looking forward to next year but I think I will spend more time riding the street.

My crew chief and I thank you for following along.

[Susan]

What's the name of this pretty little crew chief? Do you still have Chaos/Khaos, your pit bull? (Think that was the name)

[justjoe]

That is Cody (Commander Cody, Stinky, old lady, etc). She is a 20 year old dachsund. I do still have my pitties.

This is Kaos being judgmental!


This is Maihem

[cabnfvr]

"setting a place holder" .... Great idea. I should have thought of that years ago.

Good to hear from you! Track days sound like a lot of fun but we're still doing cross country trips and enjoying those. (Texas next April, then a meandering route to Oregon in June). I did ride on the Daytona road course track a few years ago. For the next three days I'd redline our little K75s because it was so much fun. (Oval turn 3 at Daytona, I look up and see the bottom of a guys tire. I look down and see the top of a guys helmet! I was doing 80mph and barely leaned (if at all). The banking is that steep.)

[justjoe]

I ran the Daytona track in a car way back when. The organizer said to run the bank a car had to be doing 100mph or it would slide to the bottom! I don't know if that was true because I was going over 100mph. LOL

[Lee]

When I saw the title I was afraid you were closing the forum.

[justjoe]

I've considered banning you, but then I wouldn't be able to mess with you online so I decided against that! No, I'm not going to shut down the website. As long as people are posting I will keep it going. Now I may pass it off to someone else, but for now you are stuck with me.

[802Mike]

Thanks Joe, great recap.
Hope to see you in the spring.

[Doctor350]

Great stuff Joe. What a weapon head you are. That's a term of endearment here

[justjoe]

I've been called worse. I know you enjoy the track as well, it has really become an addiction.

[802Mike]

Adrenaline junkie !!

[Capnrip]

Makes me jealous but glad you're enjoying it and can do it. Good to hear you might be hanging out with the lame kids some next year.

[955i]

Thanks, Joe, for the great report and photos. I know you spend a lot of travel time, but it must be nice to have several really good tracks reasonably close. Let's you spend time and money better on race tires and fees. I'm too old for this shit, but it doesn't mean I'm not envious. Blessings to you.

[justjoe]

Yes, indeed. Right now my two favorite tracks are about 3 hours away. Atlanta Motorsports Park and Polecat Training Center. You can add National Corvette Museum to the close tracks as well at just over 3 hours. Summit, Carolina Motorsports Park, Barber, VIR, Road Atlanta, and Putnam Park are about 5 hours away. NCBike, Jennings, Roebling Road, Pitt Race, Grattan are 8 - 9 hours. Then you have Palmer and New York Safety Track which are a hike but definitely fun. Plenty of tracks to attend.

[Pete_Tallahassee]

Thanks for the write up. It's nice to see you youngins having some good clean fun.

[ZATO]

JooBoo takes no prisoners! Truck and trailer damage sucks, you did a great job getting it home. Nice to see you are squeezing every rpm out of your riding at this time in your life. Keep it up.