Jester_

Going to get the GSXR a new paint job over the winter as well as a dyno tune. 

 

And some stiffer springs for my fat ass. 

I have 2 as well Jeff, everybody is just mad that they dont have a rain bike. 

Would be frustrating to be in nice weather and not be able to hit up a track.

There was some procedure to go through I just can't remember what it was. A guy blew a head gasket running 25 lbs of boost and got his engine warrantied.

The tow tunes are pretty conservative/ low risk but I guess anything can happen.

We have a '13 F150 w/ EB and max tow...we can get 17-18 with the performance tune.  Usually get about high 7's-8 towing on the tow tune with our Work and Play 21UL toy hauler on even terrain.

Everything I've read and seen says the max tow is worse mpg wise due to gearing.  I've seen non-max F150's pulling shit I know is over the stated rating but I didn't want to take a chance.

 

I get roughly 9 towing an 18ft enclosed that it pretty freaking tall. I have a 5 star tune and leave it on most of the time.

Way to void your warranty.

 Dealers have a hard time seeing that it was tuned if you throw your stock one back on before going to the dealer. The power difference is night and day.

Ryan tows his bike around with his saturn. There are very economical ways to get bikes to the track, but I find it nice to not need to unload/reload everything every track day. Also the ability to sleep in the trailer with a heater on it pretty legit as well. 

Average, I don't usually take the highway unless it's a long trip with the trailer. I run the 3.55 gears but honestly there shouldn't be a 4-5 mpg difference with gearing.

Alot of that can be attributed to topography and how the commute is, I have alot of hills in mine, everyone has different results.

 

I do wish I got better MPG towing the enclosed trailer, its just so tall it sucks up any mpg. But its also not mine and I can use it whenever so meh... 

On the highway or average? I have never taken it on the highway without towing something.

 

I also have the max tow package with 3.73 gears. 

I have the ecoboost and normally average 16ish which seems to be the norm on the f150 forums. I didnt buy it for MPG though, I put a tow tune on and it makes crazy tq for a gas motor. Use it to tow the enclosed trailer or my car on an open trailer, would like to pick up a toy hauler in the next year or two as well. 

Congratulations Nivin!!!

I could maybe even go for 2 trips this winter, would like to try barber out but il go anywhere. 

 

That being said it is nice in the winter to recoup the track day fund. 

Its in the works for this winter, new paint job and number plates. Bike looks good from a distance but has alot of clean issues and paint is peeling off some. 

 

How does one get a number for motoseries? Buy the license and put it in at that point?

F... should have bought this. 

 

Have some good pictures getting uploaded now, pretty excited to see the rest.

I have heard that COTA is expensive, 500+ for a track day. 

 

I would like to try out barber, or anywhere else anyone wants to hit up. Doesnt matter to me as long as we can get out of the cold weather and ride. Il go to jennings, road atlanta or anywhere else thats open. 

Who is planning on going where and when?

 

Would like to make a trip or two before spring. 

I would like to go back again. It is not spectator friendly yet either, only a couple good places to see anything. However they are trying to get money so that they can put 3 or 4 pedestrian bridges over the track and put stands up in the infield. 

There were spots where runoff could be an issue but it was a fairly smooth weekend in terms of crashes. One red flag on Saturday that didn't need medical and I think 2 on Sunday that did. One of the people who was involved with the design of the place stopped to see what we thought of it. We mentioned the run off issues and he said they were planning on moving alot of the guardrail to make it more bike friendly and also the track would buy air fence for the places that they couldn't relocate. Will see if any of that comes to fruition I guess.

I tried blipping but when I did I kept hitting the brake harder. The throttle doesn't seem as snappy or free moving as my cbr was so I gave up and just let it out between shifts. It might be because of the safety wire on the grips, not sure.

It wasent to crowded, just needed a group with a little more pace, I think the fastest lap of the weekend was a 1:56 or something like that as I said I think I could have gotten into the low 2 minute range with a tow and the ability to learn the track at a higher pace. 

 

One thing I forgot to mention is that all of the control riders had numbers assigned to them and those were put on the back of their shirts they wore over their leathers. That way after a session you could come back and look for that specific control rider rather than "the one on the black bike".  

Only where cars had crashed and drug mud onto the track from earlier events, but they went over the track with a sweeper to clean everything off. Turn 8 has a "weeper", which I guess is water that the sun draws out which then runs down the track. I between every session they went out with brooms to sweep the water back up the track.

Spent the weekend with MCRA at NCM, was the first bike event there. I had heard some mixed things about MCRA but I thought that they did a very good job for this being the first day at a new track. There wasent much of a PA system so they had a large air horn setup, one honk was first call.. etc... In the riders meeting they went over each section with a huge map of the track and let us know what to expect in each section. Turn 12 is a blind right hand turn that is very easy to run wide on, they put a tall cone up so that you could see where the curbing would be before you crest the hill which helped loads. They let us know that all of the curbing has traction aside from a real small patch on the last turn of the track so they made sure we stayed off of that. Each group had 2 parade laps the first session of the day which also included using pit in/out, they did this for both days. They had alot of challenges to overcome and I thought everything ran smoothly.

 

This was the layout we used.

 

The track has the same pavement as COTA and I wasent sure what to expect going out on a green track.  Obviously lap times were slow the first morning there as everyone was learning so it was hard to judge traction "also I was in intermediate, since I hadent ridden with them before I couldnt register in advanced" so pace was a little off. In the afternoon as the pace was picking up I never slid the front or rear. The next morning there was heavy fog and sessions were supposed to start at 8:30, they were postponed until 9:30 and they made up the session at lunch. The fog had lifted about 30 minutes before we went out and it was still relatively cool however the track was still very grippy, I think I ran a best of a 2:12 that session. The traffic was so bad that I couldnt learn the track at full pace and ran a best of 2:10 in the weekend and I never did find the limit of the grip. I think had I been in advanced I could have been in the 2:03 range. Tire wear sure was nice though.

 

 

 

 

This was my quickest lap but far from the cleanest, it just happened to have the least amount of traffic.

 

The layout is very fast and very technical, im not sure if anyone ever figured out turn 10. You can also get a decent wheelie after going through turn 14. Overall it was a great weekend and its a track I plan to visit again in the future.

I will try blipping again this weekend. Sounds like thats the general consensus.

Congrats on the sale.

 

Now let the shopping commence!