NOT AGAIN!
UP FRONT
EDITOR'S LETTER
WHEELS UP AT THE TRACK
I really don’t remember seeing anything except some grass clippings. They were flying through my field of vision that was pointed mostly skyward, but most of my attention was focused on just how long it was going to take my ass, working as a brake pad, to stop my 220-pound body from its 120-mph slide on the asphalt (and grass) at Thunderhill Raceway Park in Northern California.
We were at the Cycle World and Sport Rider Track Day Shootout last July, a trackday organized by the magazines for readers and supported, foremost, by GEICO, but also by Alpinestars, Bell Helmets, 6D Helmets, and Pirelli, with demo gear, tire support, and insurance info, as appropriate. So we were riding with readers, talking motorcycles, and sharing the high-performance riding experience in a way that’s only possible on a closed course. I’d spent the previous day and a half leading up to my crash helping track test motorcycles for the naked-bike comparison in this issue (page 22).
But I’d swapped to our 2017 Honda CBR1000RR testbike for a session and, essentially, combined too much lean angle with too much throttle with too much side load.
How did I get there? I had made a plan for lapping on the CBR1000RR before I went out in the session (as supported by our own Nick Ienatsch at Yamaha Champions Riding School). The crucial point here is I changed my plan on the fly, and that’s where things began to unravel. My plan was “one full lap to get tires up to temp, two full laps after that to get a feel for the wellused stock Bridgestone Battlax S2is and to understand the bike’s overall behavior. Then lap the rest of the session hitting my marks and evaluating the difference between this liter-class sportbike and the naked bikes we are testing.”
There is an inspirational string of lefthand turns following the Cyclone corner
at Thunderhill, and they were so inspiring that I upped my pace starting there and was really charging by the time I hit the small chicane that leads to the short straight before the double right onto the front straight.
That is, I pushed too hard too soon without adequate understanding of and feel for the motorcycle and its tires.
When the rear started to slide, I really thought it was going to come back. I’m probably lucky it didn’t. At that speed, a highside would have been disastrous. As I slid, I thought about three different times that I should be slowing down now yet had not. When I finally stopped, I held my arm up to let the corner workers know I was okay and then I looked for the bike, which was about 80 yards farther down the track.
Ever the professional motorcycle tester and photo model, I managed not to put a single scratch on my Kenny Roberts Arai Corsair-X that I needed on the naked-bike road-test ride the next two days. Oh, yeah!
The Dainese leathers were toast, which meant my ass wasn’t. I was a little disappointed at first that a seam in the seat of the leathers split, but upon inspection of said hole I was delighted to find a second layer of full-thickness leather in the bank. Why,
I could have crashed at 240 mph and might not have burned the other cheek...
Okay, maybe not. But the leathers did an exceptional job, and we’ll have a full evaluation of the crashed Dainese suit, gloves, and boots next month.
I feel strangely vindicated in being the fool who again proved that traction control is not foolproof. As good as motorcycles are, they still rely on us to not crash them. More lessons and chances to improve. Just wish it hadn’t come so soon after my street crash.
MARK HOYER
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
two
FULL DAYS OF TRACK TESTING OUR PIRELLI DIABLO ROSSO CORSAS LASTED
131.062
AVERAGE SPEED IN MPH OF MICHAEL DUNLOP’S STANDING-START SENIOR TT QUALIFYING LAPATISLEOFMAN
