World Superbike at Laguna Seca Raceway
Jul. 15th, 2002 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikIt took a bit of finagling, but I got Friday off from work. The bossmen were glad to give it -- it was a slow day, and they knew I had a birthday weekend goin' on. I'd gotten the bike packed and ready to fly on Thursday night, with the idea that we'd run down to Laguna Seca in the morning with Dusty. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
reality_fox and I were to meet him at his office at 9am and head to the track from there; a short 60 miles or so.
As it turned out, Reality_Fox couldn't get off of work; The Man stapled him to his desk for the day. Well, okay... plan 2: he gets out of work early, and we leave about 4pm or so, just in time to make it to the Embassy Suites next to the track to pick up our camping passes for Friday night. Work kept him late enough that it wasn't going to happen, so we're now on plan 3: leave early Saturday morning. Friday night was spent instead with Frang andrevar, watching the heck-of-a-lotta-fun cheesefest movie known as "Reign of Fire". I highly approve, on the grounds that I really needed a cheesy action/fantasy film that night.
At 6am, my phone rang, Reality_Fox hollering at me to get up. We were on the road before seven and due to the utter lack of morning traffic, made it to the track by 8am.
Packing the bike was a fun challenge which I've written about in previous LJ posts. For the curious, here's what the bike looks like fully loaded down:
The top roll held both sleeping bags. The bottom one had the tent, a pillow, and the thermarest. Left saddlebag had all my clothes, and the right had the silly sleep-apnea machine and the food. The golf-umbrellas were tucked between the bags, and the 12v marine battery for the apnea-box was strapped to the tail. The rest of the things (camera, spare jacket/gloves/shoes, etc) were in the tank and pannier bags, and I wore the camelback. My oversized self fit nicely between tank and tailbags, making for a surprisingly comfy fit. The bike road well with all the gear, though there was a slight tail-waggle when doing hard leans at lower speeds. I could offroad with it, but I wouldn't want to do anything too rough; I had the bike at its weight limit, or possibly slightly beyond. I need to spend the bucks to get a lightweight gel-cel to replace the 12V lead-acid someday (or heck, just keep losing weight so I don't need the dratted apnea machine anymore). The only real downside was the load-out left me little room to shift on the seat; a longer distance journey would have been problematic without the ability to slide back and readjust now and then, to avoid hind-side fatigue. The short ride to the track was no worry.
The trip down was quiet and quite beautiful; I feel it made the weekend worthwhile. Once we'd made it past Gilroy we found ourselves in a heavy fog. The scent of all the eucalyptus trees and the misty-fantasy look of everything was just a wonderful combination for the hour-long morning ride. Following the "race traffic --> this way" signs, we ended up going the back-route through Fort Ord. The access road winds through what look like abandoned barracs and other odd buildings, then dips and weaves through rolling pastureland and little hills. The 'do not enter -- Explosives Area' signs were just a cool, surreal touch. :) We circled the track on the access road, and followed the helpful pointings of various parking-monitor people all the way to our camping area, known as "Fox Hill".
For those who have not been there, Laguna Seca is a very pretty track. It's surrounded by the normal kind of campsites, with numbered lots (and some RV hookups). The only oddball one is the motorcycle-only camping zone of Fox Hill. It's just a simple dirt track up the side of the hill behind Turn 6 of the track. It's actually inside the raceway itself, so one has to cross the track on one of the bridges to get there. The racers zoom around the base of Fox Hill and up the backside to the highest point of the track, then are forced to navigate down a rapid, multi-curve descent that makes Laguna Seca famous. It's known as "the corkscrew".
The top of Fox Hill was dotted with bikes and pup-tents, and it took a little navigating around to find Dusty. The top of the hill was a cluster of trees that the LABusa.org guys (a riding group from Los Angeles, all Hayabusa fans) had marked off with 'caution' tape. Dusty was inside, as the 'busa folks had invited SacBORG (the group Dusty was with) to stay there. We got a few 'what are YOU doing here?' type accusations before Dusty and Vic (another SacBORGer) came over to explain our presence. We pitched tents while the fog burned off, and then went about meeting our camp-mates. Reality_Fox ambled off on his own for a while -- something he'd really wanted to do. This worked out very well for him, which made me smile quite a bit. I've had that kind of feeling of needed-relief and calmed pleasure... though definately in not as serious circumstances as he went through. I just know how good it is when it happens, and I hope he finds more of it.
Dusty and I headed down to the Buell parking zone. He had a 9 to 11 shift which he seemed to enjoy a little too much, driving off non-buells with gusto. Some of his verbal stylings were a riot to hear, as he put intruding would-be parkers in their place. If he ever gets offa his butt and gets his own LJ, I'm sure he'll post such things. :) I spent my time wandering through the paddock and vendor areas, taking a few watch-cam pictures I'll probably post later. The weirdest food they had were 'frog dogs': hot dogs rudely spiked into a loaf of french bread. They were disturbing and mildly offensive, but they tasted great. The paddock area was huge in comparison to my earlier trip to Sears Point, and much better laid out. The World Superbike guys really knew how to rig up a work area.
All the guys at the BMW booth knew me; I guess word had spread around since last meeting them at Sears Point. I got a hearty welcome and chatted to about taking the Adventure bike on the BRAG ride; many had seen my writeups on the web and were passing them around between employees. I begged their help in finding a proper, safe, cordura riding suit in my size (a quest I've failed to conquer in 3 years of trying), and finally got a lead: a group named "Bates" was here at the track, and they were good about big sizes. One of the nice ladies from the BMW apparel group walked me down there and introduced me. I spent a good hour with them talking over bits and pieces, even eventually dragging Dusty over there for a 2nd opinion, before deciding it'd be a good and responsible b'day present to finally get the cordura-and-bodyarmor suit for myself. While much cheaper than a full set of leathers (last quoted at $2300, owie), it was still a chunky $1500, chopped into two payments. I really can't afford it, but for safe riding I really _do_ need it. I put down the first half on credit-card, and spent a half-hour getting measured by a rather cranky but effective garment tech. Nobody ever told me how invasive being measured could be! It was as fun as it was embarrasing, Dusty getting a serious laugh as she barked orders at me. "Bend over! Stretch your arms out! Turn around! SPREAD 'EM!" I think next time simply doing a full 3D-scanned bodymap might be easier!
I still am having second thoughts about the suit. It's basic, no frills... just a nice, safe cordura with shoulder/knee/leg/arm/elbow/back armor and venting for summer use. It is what I need for road-rash protection, but the price was just a total Ouch after all I'd spent on camping gear and other things this summer. I also have to make a trip down to Long Beach in a month or so for the 2nd fitting -- a necessary task for such a customized garment. Hopefully I can draft a friend like Reality_Fox or Roon to do an LA trip with me some future weekend. Now that Frang has moved up to the Bay area, I don't have a 'go crash with' buddy down there anymore, so it'd be a singleday trip.
We watched the race on Saturday from just inside the corkscrew; a really nice angle. They had to restart twice due to ugly crashes, but nobody was seriously hurt. I love the sounds the bikes make as they transition from haulin' tail up the backside of Fox Hill to the sudden brake-and-dive down the corkscrew. If they hit it too fast they have a moment of gravity-loss, lofting down with little tire-on-road control. A few scary moments happened, including one who overshot and went offroading for a ways before re-finding the track.
The day was a good 95+, and I spent almost all of it under the huge golf umbrella, with the little pocket-sized mister attached and spraying away. When the races were over we went back up to the campsite to reclaim the bikes, and headed out with the Buell BRAG guys to get dinner at a place called "Tarpy's Roadhouse". Dinner was $20, and it was supposedly a great deal as we were going to get a "$50 dinner" for the price. The dinner wasn't great... but we did get a $50 meal. The reason was that Tarpy's is one of those places that puts the "Fru" in "FruFru restaurant". While what we did get was pretty good, it was pretty short on quantity and overly high on 'fancy'. "You selected the rib dinner? Okay, here's your rib, singular, with an eyedropper of sauce on it. On the side is a vegetable, as in a single piece, julienne'd. A 'dollop' of mashed potatoes, ooh, not too big there! That might be real food, and we can't have that... and a tiny cactus-shaped bit of cornbread. Isn't that just so _cute_? I could just take a picture! Oh, wait, you actually wanted to eat it?" Hrmf. Double-hrmf. Oh, and lemonade was $3 a glass... and cokes were $3.50... for a *half can* over ice. The bikers at my table and I made up for it by snarking as much free bread as we could, going through probably five baskets of the stuff, much to the forcibly-quelled annoyance of the server people.
Maybe getting rich means getting stupid. The place was full of rich people overly enjoying themselves as they spent half a c-bill on a pretty little plate small enough to be fit for a kid's afternoon snack. I do NOT understand frufru restaurants.
The rest of the evening was spent on Cannery Row in downtown Monterey. They'd blocked off the 8-block area around the aquarium and only allowed the motorcyclists inside. Fields of bikes, all there to be walked amongst, peered at, commented on... from the powerful to the silly, from the bland to the outrageous. I suddenly started to feel pretty crappy, though, and didn't make it too far before I felt like getting out of there. Later I realized what it was: the strawberry sorbet from Tarpy's was getting to me, making my throat swell up. I don't know when I started to react to strawberries this way, but it's been happening more and more. I just need to lay off that particular berry, which isn't much of a problem; they're far from my favorite anyways. We stopped at a K-mart to pick up some campfire snacks and a new sleeping-pad for Dusty, dropped by Tarpy's to pick up my track-passes I'd left there (d'oh!), and made it back to the track in the now-foggy night air. I got to freak out the other campers with the huge rally lights on the GS, which made me grin.
I slept a lot better than I thought I would. A little stiff and sore in the morning, but actually rested; a good sign. It was my birthday, and I was a little bummed to not be doing anything party-ish... and also I was quite slow (being the fast bastid of the group) in comparison to my friends, so I shooed them off to go do paddock-and-race watching on their own without me to slow them down. I walked halfway down Fox Hill's face and perched, nibbling an MRE my little sister had given me (she's an army-chick), and watched the races from there. I'd not taken many pictures this weekend, so I hauled out the camera and took a few stand-and-turn (like a bad REM song) panoramas of what I could see from this vantage point.
Warning: if you click through to the full sized images (first click goes to the image's page, the 2nd goes to the original image), they're _huge_. Just warnin' ya.
The races were a bit more fun to watch from this vantage point than I'd thought. About 70% of the track is visible from that side of the hill, and with so much viewable space one can get a real good mental impression of the speed and tactics involved in the race that the constant panning closeups on TV never convey properly. Only one crash this time, a fellow spinning off the hairpin corner a turn before the big Dunlop bridge. I only caught a few shots of the race, including this one as they came around on the very first lap:
We packed it in immediately after the first race. Neither Reality_Fox nor I wanted to get stuck in stop-and-go traffic the whole way back to the bay area. We figured we could get home in time to watch Race 2 on TV and compare the experience. This turned out to be a wonderful solution, as the trip back was stress-free and relatively quick, with only a hint of lanesplitting required near what I call "red barn curve" north of Salinas. We even had time for all of us to unpack the bikes, clean up, and order a pizza before the second race began. Seeing it on the screen was completely different now that I'd been on the track; the camera angles now all made sense! I can definately see going to more tracks in the future, just for the experience.
I had a great time. Admittedly, I was in a mild funk as I found out I really missed hanging out with freinds-and-sisters for a proper birthday party type thing... but the good ride and cool race-watching balanced it out well. I may still try to drag a few friends out to a dinner, andoctantis has offered to take me out with some of his friends (who I'd like to meet) to see the Powerpuff Girls movie, which will hopefully be a lot of fun. I'll stop obsessing over the budget soon, but for now I'm still kind of wincing at spending on that suit. The day it saves me from another major road-rash incident (like I had when younger on my old Honda Helix), it will have been worth every penny... but for now I can still make faces thinking about spending on it. I've avoided as much work as I can by doing this entry, so now I'll get back to it before my boss gets grumpy. :)
reality_fox and I were to meet him at his office at 9am and head to the track from there; a short 60 miles or so.As it turned out, Reality_Fox couldn't get off of work; The Man stapled him to his desk for the day. Well, okay... plan 2: he gets out of work early, and we leave about 4pm or so, just in time to make it to the Embassy Suites next to the track to pick up our camping passes for Friday night. Work kept him late enough that it wasn't going to happen, so we're now on plan 3: leave early Saturday morning. Friday night was spent instead with Frang and
revar, watching the heck-of-a-lotta-fun cheesefest movie known as "Reign of Fire". I highly approve, on the grounds that I really needed a cheesy action/fantasy film that night.At 6am, my phone rang, Reality_Fox hollering at me to get up. We were on the road before seven and due to the utter lack of morning traffic, made it to the track by 8am.
Packing the bike was a fun challenge which I've written about in previous LJ posts. For the curious, here's what the bike looks like fully loaded down:
The top roll held both sleeping bags. The bottom one had the tent, a pillow, and the thermarest. Left saddlebag had all my clothes, and the right had the silly sleep-apnea machine and the food. The golf-umbrellas were tucked between the bags, and the 12v marine battery for the apnea-box was strapped to the tail. The rest of the things (camera, spare jacket/gloves/shoes, etc) were in the tank and pannier bags, and I wore the camelback. My oversized self fit nicely between tank and tailbags, making for a surprisingly comfy fit. The bike road well with all the gear, though there was a slight tail-waggle when doing hard leans at lower speeds. I could offroad with it, but I wouldn't want to do anything too rough; I had the bike at its weight limit, or possibly slightly beyond. I need to spend the bucks to get a lightweight gel-cel to replace the 12V lead-acid someday (or heck, just keep losing weight so I don't need the dratted apnea machine anymore). The only real downside was the load-out left me little room to shift on the seat; a longer distance journey would have been problematic without the ability to slide back and readjust now and then, to avoid hind-side fatigue. The short ride to the track was no worry.
The trip down was quiet and quite beautiful; I feel it made the weekend worthwhile. Once we'd made it past Gilroy we found ourselves in a heavy fog. The scent of all the eucalyptus trees and the misty-fantasy look of everything was just a wonderful combination for the hour-long morning ride. Following the "race traffic --> this way" signs, we ended up going the back-route through Fort Ord. The access road winds through what look like abandoned barracs and other odd buildings, then dips and weaves through rolling pastureland and little hills. The 'do not enter -- Explosives Area' signs were just a cool, surreal touch. :) We circled the track on the access road, and followed the helpful pointings of various parking-monitor people all the way to our camping area, known as "Fox Hill".
For those who have not been there, Laguna Seca is a very pretty track. It's surrounded by the normal kind of campsites, with numbered lots (and some RV hookups). The only oddball one is the motorcycle-only camping zone of Fox Hill. It's just a simple dirt track up the side of the hill behind Turn 6 of the track. It's actually inside the raceway itself, so one has to cross the track on one of the bridges to get there. The racers zoom around the base of Fox Hill and up the backside to the highest point of the track, then are forced to navigate down a rapid, multi-curve descent that makes Laguna Seca famous. It's known as "the corkscrew".
The top of Fox Hill was dotted with bikes and pup-tents, and it took a little navigating around to find Dusty. The top of the hill was a cluster of trees that the LABusa.org guys (a riding group from Los Angeles, all Hayabusa fans) had marked off with 'caution' tape. Dusty was inside, as the 'busa folks had invited SacBORG (the group Dusty was with) to stay there. We got a few 'what are YOU doing here?' type accusations before Dusty and Vic (another SacBORGer) came over to explain our presence. We pitched tents while the fog burned off, and then went about meeting our camp-mates. Reality_Fox ambled off on his own for a while -- something he'd really wanted to do. This worked out very well for him, which made me smile quite a bit. I've had that kind of feeling of needed-relief and calmed pleasure... though definately in not as serious circumstances as he went through. I just know how good it is when it happens, and I hope he finds more of it.
Dusty and I headed down to the Buell parking zone. He had a 9 to 11 shift which he seemed to enjoy a little too much, driving off non-buells with gusto. Some of his verbal stylings were a riot to hear, as he put intruding would-be parkers in their place. If he ever gets offa his butt and gets his own LJ, I'm sure he'll post such things. :) I spent my time wandering through the paddock and vendor areas, taking a few watch-cam pictures I'll probably post later. The weirdest food they had were 'frog dogs': hot dogs rudely spiked into a loaf of french bread. They were disturbing and mildly offensive, but they tasted great. The paddock area was huge in comparison to my earlier trip to Sears Point, and much better laid out. The World Superbike guys really knew how to rig up a work area.
All the guys at the BMW booth knew me; I guess word had spread around since last meeting them at Sears Point. I got a hearty welcome and chatted to about taking the Adventure bike on the BRAG ride; many had seen my writeups on the web and were passing them around between employees. I begged their help in finding a proper, safe, cordura riding suit in my size (a quest I've failed to conquer in 3 years of trying), and finally got a lead: a group named "Bates" was here at the track, and they were good about big sizes. One of the nice ladies from the BMW apparel group walked me down there and introduced me. I spent a good hour with them talking over bits and pieces, even eventually dragging Dusty over there for a 2nd opinion, before deciding it'd be a good and responsible b'day present to finally get the cordura-and-bodyarmor suit for myself. While much cheaper than a full set of leathers (last quoted at $2300, owie), it was still a chunky $1500, chopped into two payments. I really can't afford it, but for safe riding I really _do_ need it. I put down the first half on credit-card, and spent a half-hour getting measured by a rather cranky but effective garment tech. Nobody ever told me how invasive being measured could be! It was as fun as it was embarrasing, Dusty getting a serious laugh as she barked orders at me. "Bend over! Stretch your arms out! Turn around! SPREAD 'EM!" I think next time simply doing a full 3D-scanned bodymap might be easier!
I still am having second thoughts about the suit. It's basic, no frills... just a nice, safe cordura with shoulder/knee/leg/arm/elbow/back armor and venting for summer use. It is what I need for road-rash protection, but the price was just a total Ouch after all I'd spent on camping gear and other things this summer. I also have to make a trip down to Long Beach in a month or so for the 2nd fitting -- a necessary task for such a customized garment. Hopefully I can draft a friend like Reality_Fox or Roon to do an LA trip with me some future weekend. Now that Frang has moved up to the Bay area, I don't have a 'go crash with' buddy down there anymore, so it'd be a singleday trip.
We watched the race on Saturday from just inside the corkscrew; a really nice angle. They had to restart twice due to ugly crashes, but nobody was seriously hurt. I love the sounds the bikes make as they transition from haulin' tail up the backside of Fox Hill to the sudden brake-and-dive down the corkscrew. If they hit it too fast they have a moment of gravity-loss, lofting down with little tire-on-road control. A few scary moments happened, including one who overshot and went offroading for a ways before re-finding the track.
The day was a good 95+, and I spent almost all of it under the huge golf umbrella, with the little pocket-sized mister attached and spraying away. When the races were over we went back up to the campsite to reclaim the bikes, and headed out with the Buell BRAG guys to get dinner at a place called "Tarpy's Roadhouse". Dinner was $20, and it was supposedly a great deal as we were going to get a "$50 dinner" for the price. The dinner wasn't great... but we did get a $50 meal. The reason was that Tarpy's is one of those places that puts the "Fru" in "FruFru restaurant". While what we did get was pretty good, it was pretty short on quantity and overly high on 'fancy'. "You selected the rib dinner? Okay, here's your rib, singular, with an eyedropper of sauce on it. On the side is a vegetable, as in a single piece, julienne'd. A 'dollop' of mashed potatoes, ooh, not too big there! That might be real food, and we can't have that... and a tiny cactus-shaped bit of cornbread. Isn't that just so _cute_? I could just take a picture! Oh, wait, you actually wanted to eat it?" Hrmf. Double-hrmf. Oh, and lemonade was $3 a glass... and cokes were $3.50... for a *half can* over ice. The bikers at my table and I made up for it by snarking as much free bread as we could, going through probably five baskets of the stuff, much to the forcibly-quelled annoyance of the server people.
Maybe getting rich means getting stupid. The place was full of rich people overly enjoying themselves as they spent half a c-bill on a pretty little plate small enough to be fit for a kid's afternoon snack. I do NOT understand frufru restaurants.
The rest of the evening was spent on Cannery Row in downtown Monterey. They'd blocked off the 8-block area around the aquarium and only allowed the motorcyclists inside. Fields of bikes, all there to be walked amongst, peered at, commented on... from the powerful to the silly, from the bland to the outrageous. I suddenly started to feel pretty crappy, though, and didn't make it too far before I felt like getting out of there. Later I realized what it was: the strawberry sorbet from Tarpy's was getting to me, making my throat swell up. I don't know when I started to react to strawberries this way, but it's been happening more and more. I just need to lay off that particular berry, which isn't much of a problem; they're far from my favorite anyways. We stopped at a K-mart to pick up some campfire snacks and a new sleeping-pad for Dusty, dropped by Tarpy's to pick up my track-passes I'd left there (d'oh!), and made it back to the track in the now-foggy night air. I got to freak out the other campers with the huge rally lights on the GS, which made me grin.
I slept a lot better than I thought I would. A little stiff and sore in the morning, but actually rested; a good sign. It was my birthday, and I was a little bummed to not be doing anything party-ish... and also I was quite slow (being the fast bastid of the group) in comparison to my friends, so I shooed them off to go do paddock-and-race watching on their own without me to slow them down. I walked halfway down Fox Hill's face and perched, nibbling an MRE my little sister had given me (she's an army-chick), and watched the races from there. I'd not taken many pictures this weekend, so I hauled out the camera and took a few stand-and-turn (like a bad REM song) panoramas of what I could see from this vantage point.
Warning: if you click through to the full sized images (first click goes to the image's page, the 2nd goes to the original image), they're _huge_. Just warnin' ya.
The races were a bit more fun to watch from this vantage point than I'd thought. About 70% of the track is visible from that side of the hill, and with so much viewable space one can get a real good mental impression of the speed and tactics involved in the race that the constant panning closeups on TV never convey properly. Only one crash this time, a fellow spinning off the hairpin corner a turn before the big Dunlop bridge. I only caught a few shots of the race, including this one as they came around on the very first lap:
We packed it in immediately after the first race. Neither Reality_Fox nor I wanted to get stuck in stop-and-go traffic the whole way back to the bay area. We figured we could get home in time to watch Race 2 on TV and compare the experience. This turned out to be a wonderful solution, as the trip back was stress-free and relatively quick, with only a hint of lanesplitting required near what I call "red barn curve" north of Salinas. We even had time for all of us to unpack the bikes, clean up, and order a pizza before the second race began. Seeing it on the screen was completely different now that I'd been on the track; the camera angles now all made sense! I can definately see going to more tracks in the future, just for the experience.
I had a great time. Admittedly, I was in a mild funk as I found out I really missed hanging out with freinds-and-sisters for a proper birthday party type thing... but the good ride and cool race-watching balanced it out well. I may still try to drag a few friends out to a dinner, and
octantis has offered to take me out with some of his friends (who I'd like to meet) to see the Powerpuff Girls movie, which will hopefully be a lot of fun. I'll stop obsessing over the budget soon, but for now I'm still kind of wincing at spending on that suit. The day it saves me from another major road-rash incident (like I had when younger on my old Honda Helix), it will have been worth every penny... but for now I can still make faces thinking about spending on it. I've avoided as much work as I can by doing this entry, so now I'll get back to it before my boss gets grumpy. :)
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Riding armor good. Road rash bad!!!
Date: 2002-07-15 01:30 pm (UTC)I preach because I care.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 02:53 pm (UTC)A-hem...
- Hatch -
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 03:06 pm (UTC)My brain still places you in Michigan when doing the subconscious-scan of nearby folks. I think it's because I've never actually met up with you in Southern California since you moved there. :) I apologize!
Two quickie questions, then... (1) how far are you from Long Beach, and (2) do you have a spare couch or other appropriate crash-spot for a guest of tug-size? :)
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 03:30 pm (UTC)- Hatch -
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 03:49 pm (UTC)