Full Monti!

I couldn't make it to the full Monti, but a few friends in advanced returned really disappointed. Way too many riders in that class that shouldn't have been, and too many stupid accidents. First two sessions of the day were only 3 laps each.

 

not a good day for advanced group. far too many people who had no business being in that group. we only got one 15 minute session before lunch. the other three sessions people crashed on the warmup laps..

all told..

a single 15 minute session before 1pm (3 warm up sessions only to be redlflagged within a couple laps)
2pm (ish)- 10 minute session
3pm(ish) 10 minute session
4pm(ish) 15 minute session

overall less than an hour of tracktime. it seemed as if novices, and intermediate had at least 6 full 15-20 minute sessions and the advanced kept getting screwed.

my main gripe is with people who classify themselves in a group they shouldnt be in putting others in danger for their own selfish reasons, i dont think people should be able to self classify. this would make a much safer/smoother day for everyone.

 

Worst track day I ever attended.

Far too many people. Many in advanced should not have been in that group. I'm surprised the coaches did not see this and bump people into a more appropriate group.
I would gladly pay more money for fewer riders on the track.

A few observations:

The two pit in/ out areas did not work. Why was this used?
If your found yourself in a clusterfuck, you couldn't just do a quick pit out to get clear track. Even that would have been hard with the amount of riders out there.

The bus stop on the back straight is a danger! Why is this used???
Many people bunching up trying to get through and many just blowing straight through and not even slowing! (guy with the motard!)

If you can't stick to the rotations "on the clock" every 20 minutes, some sort of PA system needs to be used to get the message out.

With the amount of crashes out there (coaches and riders) the day should have been stopped and people lectured. This works.
If not, people need to be sent home.


I had one clear session the whole day... never saw so many red flags in my life.

Hope things get better, more days like this and Monticello will be getting a bad taste about motorcycles. I would hate to lose this track because of bad riders.

 

Terrible dissapointment. Sighting laps (in advanced) were slower than novice and still red flagged. I won't be back at the Full Monti next year, too many people fighting to get into a once a year event and taking spots in groups that they can't handle and ruining the day for so many other people.

BTW, why is this a once a year event? Most of the time doing North, the South course is unused.

 

John, I agree with you on your points. When not on the clock (which we werent all day) we were not informed of when our groups were going out, and we would sit on pit lane for anywhere from 10-20 minutes waiting to get on the track. We were left in the dark.

and the chicane on the main straight really is a bad area, and very dangerous. especially since the advanced group was full of novice and intermediate riders. i would find myself coming down the straight only two see about 10 wide trying to go into that chicane on all different lines, and at all different speeds. it would be far safer to remove this all together.

the biggest difference that would help is to have coaches policing the advanced group actively looking for riders who cannot maintain a line, pace, etc...

 

Just a small reminder the STT coaching staff and directors can't ride your motorcycles for you. We provided for you (the rider) a track map, clean track with Corners workers, (I think 14 people) Trained Medical and Fire, and great weather for Oct. So its up to you to ride smart.
As for the so called riders in advanced group if there was a problem with a rider not in the correct group its up to you as a rider to bring it to the attended of a coach or the STT director (David)

Sorry for the rant my $.02

 

while the blame ultimately rests on the individuals since they are supposed to ride responsibly. its up to the org. to do all they can to promote safety and overall organization. im not looking to blast STT, but I am pretty upset with how the day went. regardless of the numerous wrecks there were riders in groups who didnt belong there and it should be up to STT to either not let people self classify, or police the sessions more strictly to weed out the people who really dont belong in that group. and the fact that we were left in the dark for just about every session as to when we would get on the track was really bad. a PA system should have been used to keep us updated, or in lieu of that there should have been coaches going around making announcements in the different paddocks to keep us updated. often we went down at the 20 minute mark only to sit there for anywhere from 10-15 minutes waiting. it wasn't fair to us (the customers).

 

What about the 2-up rider in Advanced??...shouldn't have been in that class at all...heard lots of complaints about that.

 

forgot all about that... wtf???

 

Lots of understandable criticism. Looks like about 80% is related to the number of riders in advanced who were either over their heads or out of their minds.

Anyone have any suggestions on how STT might better qualify riders who claim to be advanced? Most of the solution I can think of would't have been much help.

A couple thoughts that MIGHT help:

Reduce the number of riders in advanced
Reduce the number of riders in intermediate.

One problem was that Intermediate was completely full so I don't think STT could really bump anyone down. I guess another approach would be for more aggressive action from the Control Riders...ie...ask people to leave or sit out a couple sessions who are riding like asshats. (That's fine until you're the 'asshat'. Right? Often that assessment is pretty subjective.)

Anyone else have any useful ideas????

 

In case I didn't get to meet any of you guys yesterday, Hi! I'm Mike... I was one of the rider coaches.

This isn't intended as a rant... or a response to any particular post... and let me say that I can completely understand the frustrations. We felt them as acutely. With that siad, just some observations from my perspective.

We all know that a trackday only works if everyone plays a part in making it succeed. As Renard said, the org can't ride your bikes for you, but you guys also know that we can't send 30 coaches out to monitor each group and we can't be everywhere at once. 4+ miles is a LOT of track for coaches to cover... especially when only given a lap and a half to survey the field before someone throws their bike down the track. Bear in mind that we ideally need to spend time passing and being passed to really get a feel for what's going on out there. I'm not trying to whine here, but the reality is that if it's going to work, you faster, more experienced guys and girls have a role to play in navigating the field. MAKE SAFE PASSES! If there are customers out there with erratic lines that make safe passing difficult, find a coach and LET US KNOW. Preferably while the trackday is still happening (nudge, nudge, OK, just busting internet balls with that last part).

But seriously, though... again, I guess my point is that no organization can be everywhere at once. Tell us what you saw and trust us that we'll approach the person professionally, anonymously and with respect… I'm not going to go over, point back at you and tell the guy "hey, that guy over there on the black R6 said you're an oily trainwreck!" If you see problems, please let us know. We'd be happy to take it from there. I personally worked with several people on the lower end of the advanced group spectrum yesterday and I know for a fact that I was not alone, so I can truthfully say that we did what we could.

 

helpful suggestions...

fewer people allowed in the advanced group period.
people should need to be evaluated or show credentials (race license, etc...) before being allowed to be in the advanced group.

perhaps a few specific coaches dedicated to only the advanced group that basically police the group for people who truly dont belong there if they get past the screening process. the reality is that there were way too many people in the A group and many of them had no business being there.

 

I have to agree with most of the complaints here. I was riding in the advanced group (w/o crashing) and feel that we got shafted. It was truly a non-typical STT track day. I think the main problem was too many riders. Obviously we all need to ride safe but when crashes did occur unsafe conditions were not corrected. Bikes and riders that were unhurt stayed right in the crash zones. They should have moved or been moved under yellow flag conditions. I also believe there should be an incentive not to crash. Such as leaving bikes out there until lunch or the end of the day or being parked for two sessions or whatever. Running the chicane didn't help either, that just bunched up the group. Mid Ohio has a straight just about as long and that never created major issues. That day was a disappointing disaster.

 

Hi, all.

Novice guy piping in.

With only six track days under my belt, I was always told that the Advance group was one of the safest. I didn't really see that yesterday. So, we were all just as frustrated waiting for our turns too. (I don't mean this to sound like I'm pissed. I wasn't...I personally just went with the flow)

And to put in perspective, if it was us Novice riders crashing like crazy and delaying the other groups, you guys would be just as upset. I think a few of the first-time Duc riders might not be coming back because of everything that happened.

With that said, I made a couple of suggestions in the "Novice" thread (http://www.sttforum.com/sttforum/viewtopic.php?t=8626)...
- limit the overall number of riders (might entail raising costs).
- maybe only have two groups (Advance and Intermediate). Yeah, I can't believe I said that, but it might help the situation.

Oh, and a PA system would be awesome.

Despite all this, I still had a blast...especially since I was able to blow by some Ducs on my little Triumph.

Cheers,
Brad

 

Paul McCartney did a song after his earlier band disbanded.
" Too many people".
Measuring how many is to many.
Way one- How much the average rider can afford=Y x $
Way two- Riders per ft,or, Track length / rider.
Way three- At any given track day, on any given day, between 5% an 11% are going to hit the ground.
A small event that has, say 60 riders total , won't be badly disrupted if 10% crash. A large event that has 3 times that number of riders ,but only a 5% crash rate will have more disruption for everyone.
IMO- charge more for the big ones rather than add more riders
I know, I'm an elitist pig and there will be a lot of unhappy riders that either couldn't afford or didn't get off the fence early enough.
Is that worse than listening to the whining after the event. :wink:

 

im curious how many spots were sold for each group? is it possible for someone to post the registration list for curiosities sake?

 

I think the lady at registration said 165 riders which probably included coaches. Lance said there's a formula for riders per mile. So probably about 45 people per group.

 

if that 165 is accurate then divide that by 3 groups (coaches included) and that makes 55 people per session on the track. it looked to me that there was somewhere between 60-70 bikes on the grid for adv. sessions. but that was just an estimate. although one guy i know of said he counted at least 60.

 

could be. idk the exact number of riders nor do i know the formula.
in reality there was a lot of available track out there as long as people kept their wits about them.