Gates open approx 6:00pm Friday night and stay open til 9:00pm, if you make it in by 9:00pm you can then come 24/7, if you don't make it by 9:00pm gates re-open Sat at 7:00am-9:00pm and Sun 7:00am-5:00pm. NCM is in the Central Time Zone. No gate fee at NCM!!! We ride R*** or shine, please come prepared for Southern rain showers. If you need camping or electric, you need to pay the gate guard at the track for that. There is currently VERY limited power at NCM, so plan on bringing a generator. WE WILL ALSO HAVE YAMAHA GENERATORS FOR RENT!!! First come, first served. Tire service will be open Friday night 7:00pm-9:00pm to help you out. Then 7am to 7pm Sat and 7am-3pm Sun. We can now remove and replace your wheels for you if you do not want to get greasy. As usual, we will have our awesome prices on all the Michelin tires. As of right now, there will be no suspension service at this event - if that changes, I will post up. Sign-up opens 7:00am both days and closes at 10:30am for the day. Please be on time. We will also have registration Friday evening around 7pm. Tech opens 7:00am and closes 10:30am both Saturday and Sunday. Please note some NEW tech rules regarding GoPro (or similar) cameras: - all Gopros mounted on a motorcycle must have a tether from the camera case to a point on the motorcycle. - helmet mounted Gopros are not allowed at all on track - in our novice group, Gopros are not allowed on track in the morning sessions - in the afternoon sessions they are fine as long as the above rules are followed. Mandatory riders meeting 8:20am both days, Intermediate riders are first on track at 9:00am. We will be running a regular 7 sessions for this event - track hot at 9am with intermediate, advance at 20min after the hour, novice at 40min after the hour. At the moment, NCM is working through some issues with the local neighbors regarding noise. To help them out, we are going to stick to a 9am-5pm schedule. Considering the heat, I feel this is also the best thing to do. Absolutely NO revving of motors before 9am or after 5pm. Idling through the pits on your track bike is fine - but let's try to help NCM be good neighbors. There is a 103dB sound limit at 50' at NCM. The bathrooms and showers at NCM are now complete!!! There is fuel available on site - see the track for that. Please keep your area clean and do not leave any race gas cans or tires when you leave. We must be out of the paddock by 7:00pm Sunday night. Any questions, please post up here.
we skipped Barber due to heat, so we're ready to do NCM (again) and pull the trailer w/a new (to us) truck. riders who are new to this track would do well to watch some videos. lots of turns with most being very fast/blind. the food truck is excellent, imo. a pit bike/bicycle is very helpful given the length of the pits. spectators: it's a pretty grim scene, really. unless the new garages' deck is open.... and yes, even w/o recent precipitation, the track has weepers. (often avoidable, but unsettling at speed) I found the surface to have excellent grip allowing for very agressive trail braking. 8 sessions was nice last time, but 7 will likely be plenty given the forecast. Samir said anyone who needs a place to stay can go to his house.
Coming onto the front straight, follow the added orange line. At the end of the front straight, we do the chicane.
So there will be a sharp Left right before the orange line going into the front straight? Looks odd, which is why i ask, i would figure they would extend that straight further back Any videos anyone would like to share would be great. thank you!
I believe that the straightaway is run that way to avoid pointing people straight at the armco barriers in the event of going wide. Here are some ridiculously slow laps (literally first Novice session ever on that track) that show pit in and pit out procedures. Here are some quicker guys showing how it's done. This was a race held at noon on the first motorcycle day at the track, so I'm sure there are plenty of faster laps out there, I'm just not sure the best way to find them.
NCM pit in, like some other tracks, is poorly designed. if you're alone, no problem; if you're in a group going through there and intend to pit in, continuing riders must swing wider to right around you to continue onto front straight. really, it's not that big of a deal, but making it much easier and safer would be pretty easy. (make it an earlier entrance: imagine pit in is a new line to the left of Vern's orange line)
John its actually just fine if you follow the red lines on the map... It's the config we run that just makes it a issue...
Anyone that runs faster than 2:04s have any track notes? I'm looking for something similar to this: Going fast at Blackhawk is about corner speed and sneaking in the throttle in a few spots that aren't immediately obvious: Turn 2 is fast, over 100mph Pour in some more throttle after turn 2 and before turn 3, this makes the entry to turn 3 a very hard braking zone. Roll the throttle on slowly the whole way through turn 3, with a quick full throttle burst before heavy braking into the bus stop. Turn 4 is a bit of a throw away, but roll it as fast as you safely can without running wide. Roll the throttle on all the way through turn 5 and you should end up WOT on the right side of the track at the exit. Roll off the throttle before the kink and start HEAVY braking for turn 7, make sure you're pointed in the right direction as you come through the kink so you can get your braking done with the bike straight up and down, you have a ton of speed to scub in a short distance. Trail the brakes off as you get the bike turned, and as soon as you can see your exit point open the throttle back up and haul ass down the front straight. Corner speed through turn 7 is critical. And that's how you go fast around bhf It's from this thread: http://www.sttforum.com/showthread.php?t=15662 Last event at NCM was my first track day on a bike, I come from a car racing back ground. My laptimes were 2:17-18 on a GSXR 600 with Q3 tires and no warmers of any sort. I'd like to get under 2:10, single digits would be a great accomplishment. Which means I need to drop 7 seconds. Correcting my line, using more 5th gear, accelerating longer, trail brake instead of scrubbing all my speed before the turn, and not shifting to 3rd on turn 6 should help. I'm not sure why I even shifted to 3rd there, It killed my entry speed to 75-80 mph, Ive since learned people are taking that corner at 105-110mph. I'm way off pace. Any other tips? Maybe I can get a instructor to tow me around alittle bit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPS24910zOk
Yes, I'll give you one - Don't try to gain 7 seconds in one day! That's called "Recipe for pushing your luck and going home with wadded up bike"....
I agree, it might be, but watching videos I'm seeing several seconds being left from simple things like, "accelerating to top of 4th in a straight and holding steady instead of going to 5th and continuing my drive until the actual brake point." If don't mind Kieth, that would be great! Are you instructing in I this weekend? Just get with me or I'll find you by looking for a blue bike with painters tape on the tank. :rawk: I'd like to keep the bike from being wadded but watching the video I felt like a noob. I think alot of it is just getting used to the visuals and speed. That will come with time hopefully Here's the notes I've came up with from my video and watching other videos of guys running a 2:04 or faster edit: I see the spelling error on corner 3, I fixed it on my copy but probably not changing it on here Can you tell I'm getting excited?!
Don't overthink it.... Just have fun till the Q 3's start slipping... Then you know you are out riding your tires... At that point then invest in race tires and learn more each weekend to get your times down.. I agree with Keith.. It seems like you are way too concerned with times... That is a recipe for disaster at a trackday... A Race no..... Just go have fun and don't worry about the times so much... Remember there are other people that you have the responsibility for to make clean safe passes on.... All it takes is one of those people doing nothing wrong on the race line to add a second or two to your time at a TD... Again Laptimes at TD's mean nothing IMO...
A piece of advice I hope you (and others) will consider. As has already been said, don't worry as much about chasing lap times at this point. If you choose to ignore that I can tell you what will most likely happen, you will either achieve that lap time unicorn or you will wad your bike up trying to reach a goal you may or may not be ready for. It is far more important that you spend your time working with someone like Keith and find out where your techniques may need some tweaking, things like body position, where and how you are shifting your body position, how you apply the brakes, how you downshift/upshift, how you apply the throttle. What I have seen time and time again is people chasing a "magic" to them number too early. You work hard at it, this is your sole goal, your driving force and then bingo, and you hit that mark. But then they get frustrated because they managed to hit that mark and then find they have hit a wall and can't progress because while they achieved that goal they did it while doing a lot of small things wrong and they are riding over their personal limit. With that frustration clouding their mind they go out and push harder thinking they are just not trying hard enough. Guess what? They end up on the ground. Hopefully the damage is limited to their bike and their ego but this is not always the case unfortunately. Injury sometimes is the result, and hopefully not injury to another innocent rider who unknowingly got caught up in their frustration. Lap times are a byproduct of proper technique and CONTROL. If you are not in control at all times then honestly the lap times mean nothing to me as you are pushing too far out of your skill set and bad things are going to happen, maybe not that day, but trust me they will happen. When you learn and implement the proper techniques and execute them properly your lap times will fall as a side effect of being in control. If you ask around I will guarantee you the vast majority of riders will tell you their fastest lap times have been laps that didn't feel particularly fast and they were surprised when they saw what they had achieved. This is because they were concentrating 100% on riding with control, using the proper techniques and they executed those laps much cleaner than they ever had before. One more piece of advice, I have often seen riders tend to always want to work with one coach. While up until a certain point that has its benefits, avail yourself to the depth of knowledge that is spread among the coaches, get multiple viewpoints. You may find that due to your particular situation that all techniques may not work for you. Over time your riding style will become uniquely yours and is generally a combination of techniques you have learned from multiple sources that you have blended together in a manner that works for your situation.
Mr. Brooks (the old wise man of STT) is 100% correct. I'll be riding in I on Sunday and am glad to work with you anytime, but I'm also going to tell you I'm still a student too of those who are much more talented than me (and that is a LONG list). I'm a 'literbike cheater' and a newb coach so I've got plenty to learn also. My even coaching now is strictly a by-product of a bunch of great coaches (some still riding, some not) who helped me get better. We are all on the same path, just at different points on it... What has helped me a little is that I have now gained some PERSPECTIVE. Not that long ago, I was EXACTLY in your shoes, getting all wrapped around lap times. Plenty of the coaches still here probably remember me trying to wrestle my Busa (my first two seasons were spent on the big girl) around the track and grin. Tiller, Charlie and I would put our timers on, and go out and see who could best who. Felix would come over and remind us to 'turn those damn things off before you wad yourself up chasing it' - and he was right even though we didn't want to listen to him. I didn't turn my timer off until I started coaching (this year). I can judge now if I'm doing better by how smooth I feel on the bike, not the timer. I'd rather be a little slower and smoother, and go home injury-free than show off a 7 second gain and be all broke up... The first few times you ride, you can take big chunks out of your times - but as you get better, those improvements become smaller, and smaller...but that's OKAY...No matter how fast you think you are, there always someone who's gonna smoke you... See you this weekend!