idk Vern. With the way that corner opens up on exit I'm having trouble seeing it nesessary to do this. Does your bike run wide on corner exit or do you have to work the throttle to stay on line?
I'll put it like this.........If it's good enough for Jason DiSalvo, most likely it's good enough for me. When I took the class in April of this year and they showed us that line, I was like....WTF? I had never done a line like that at Barber, but went out and tried it and it works. As far as your question about my bike running wide.........nope! I've got the suspension dialed in really well and and absolutely NO issues with that. Like I said before, it's a better method for T5 if you have a bike that has a lot of low end grunt and drive out of a corner, but a 600RR like mine, that is geared -1/+2 does drive out of the corner pretty well if you keep the RPM's up. Of course, that means that at the higher RPM's, you really need to be smooth on the throttle too. I've gone back and forth a couple of times with my old line and the J.D. line and I have to say that the J.D. line works better for me. Just be careful not to get too far over toward the outside of the corner before you diamond it, as the track seems to slope a bit off camber in that area.
Whatever works for you is the best line. Whatever it takes to get from point A to point B the quickest. Just imagine if the was only one correct line thru every corner...be a pretty boring race. In regard to T5, alot of passing goes on there on entry and exit, so I guess there is more than 1 good line there. JMO
Tryce..........There are more lines through there than there are chins in a Chinese phone book! :lmao:
Pretty much......it's just that T5 seems to have a lot more options than most and seems to cause folks more trouble than T2/3 and T14.
Standard apex on entry, and start to pour it on using about 2/3s of the track on exit, looking for the crest to the left where the bump is as your aiming point to exit. The entry is slow. Everyone is slow in the slow corners, Tehre is not much to gain but a lot to lose. The truly fast riders are fast in the fast parts. That is where time is made. Get the entry apex right, and concentrate on driving out hard, minimizing spin. Unless I am trying to make a pass, the double apex line is slower. I only use it to make a block pass basically. Your mileage may vary.
Personally, I single apex T5. I drive hard out of T4 and get to the far right of the track. While straight up and down, I brake as hard as possible, then I start tipping in while still on the brakes. It isn't a quick, "snapping" kind of turn-in, it is more of a "fade" so I can maintain pretty high brake pressure (which allows me to keep the throttle on longer before braking). I stay on the brakes past the curbing on the inside (the area most people call the "first apex") and I am not at max lean angle at that point. I brake past that point, drifting out 4-5' from the track and apex the corner late. Then once the bike is pointed in the right direction, I drop my head, stand the bike up and pour on the gas. Disclaimer: that is how I do it, I am not telling everyone else to go out and do it like that.
Diamond-cutting the corner seemed to work pretty well for me, based on the JDSA school and track walk we did, although you don't really worry about hitting/"apexing" the curbing on exit. YRMV of course.
Yep. That is how I do it. I started to say that I "make a diamond out of it" but i wasnt sure if it would make sense without elaborating. Also agree on not worrying about the curbing on exit. I get it slowed down, pointed in the right direction and work towards getting to WOT ASAP....where i end up from there is where i end up.
This is the line that Jason Disalvo takes (at least it's what I saw him explain on a trackwalk)...he can late/trail brake the crap out of it because he's standing up and down longer/later than everyone going wide and tipping in earlier. I haven't had any luck with that method yet, although I've seen several of the AMA guys make it look easy..
Yep, the ability (or lack thereof) to trail brake effectively dictates your personal line through that corner moreso than anything else. I rode a ton of laps around Barber for a while without being able to trail brake and my line was much different than what it is now. I take the same line DiSalvo uses (he is the one that taught me that line), but that was after he taught me how to trail brake properly. Which is why I gave that "disclaimer" in my first post. I don't want to tell somebody to go do/try something and have it end up badly. I do however suggest that everyone take a JDSA stand-alone school. The techniques taught in the school open up many options on every track...one of which is a better line through T5 at Barber.
I agree Chris. A person's ability to effectively trail brake in that turn is key to being able to"diamond" it, and of course, effective trail braking means being totally smooth both on and off the throttle and brakes