It was a long drive home for me from Tremblant Sunday night. Need to do some soul searching. Struggling now with my hobby and what I have included my kids into as a past time.
MOSPORT - August 22nd!!!
- Thread starter Mina
- Start date
It was a long drive home for me from Tremblant Sunday night. Need to do some soul searching. Struggling now with my hobby and what I have included my kids into as a past time.
Mr.Azim
Well-known member
Ummmm............... yeah. sure. I guess I'll take the blame next time I purposely turn off my physics-immunity.
IMO if your in red you should be ok with lots of bikes being out at once and close riding and passing, 90% of the people in there have race numbers, so like you said they should be use to this kinda close riding...It pisses me off when your holding a line beside someone who is holding their line, you show them a wheel and they stand the bike up or get all squirrely...Just hold your line! I got passed by some 1000's like I wasn't even moving, and it felt like they brushed my leathers going by...I love it!
You hit the nail on the head. When we race.
A track day is not a race and that is why they let people out in groups of four to six. At least they did until that session. Can we all handle it either way. Sure. But the session as a whole was slower because of the traffic it created.
With recent events, I sympathize. There are a lot of people having second thoughts, now. This really ought to be the topic of another thread, but here we are.
I am not giving up my passion but it reinforces the need to pick one's battles. I'm quite content to ride a smaller, slower, older bike at tracks that I feel are adequately safe, and adjust my riding at places that aren't, by backing off a notch or two just to make sure. That is not the recipe for winning at a CSBK level, but it is a way to keep at it for a longer time. Can bad things still happen, yes, but it is about risk management.
At a national-class level, CSBK needs to do some soul searching about the types of tracks they want to run at, and the safety measures they put in place at those tracks. From the discussions that I'm seeing on Facebook, there will be quite a number of national-level riders either calling it quits or going elsewhere and doing other things, unless something changes. There have been comments such as never riding competitively at Mosport or Tremblant again (i.e. if CSBK goes there, those riders won't be).
I just did the VRRA race weekend at Mosport on my FZR400, which hits maybe 200 km/h at the end of the straight; I hardly need to brake. Add another 100 km/h to that, and missing a brake marker or having brake fade or some such is going to be a big problem. The paved area that has been added outside of 1, 2, and 8 helps if you run wide in the corner (but have an otherwise fully operational bike), but the trade-off is that if you go wide in that corner because of not having enough brakes for whatever reason, your bike is going to be staying on its wheels and coasting all the way to that wall, barely slowing down. In my opinion, this track is now less suitable for modern superbikes than it was before, and it was bad enough before.
As for Tremblant ... I've done a double track day there. Look up on-board video taken at that track. The wall outside of corner one has no place on a motorcycle race course. To manage this at the track day, they set up a construction-cone chicane at the entrance to corner one that we had to go through single file (at greatly reduced speed). Under racing conditions, that might not be suitable - but there are other tracks that have paved a chicane into them to reduce speed at a critical spot on the track - Road America being one of them (and I rode there before they put that in).
CSBK does not have a good history of listening to its participants. They had better start. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with putting an issue on the table for discussion - Here's the situation, what should we do about it.
Racing motorcycles is dangerous. Even on the best tracks in the world, people die. Stall on the front row, get run over etc. As we all have seen. Even in the hayday of canadian bike racing 50000 people paying 20 bucks a head to watch, that's $1,000,000 revenue. And we still had to race on dangerous tracks. I have had several friends get seriously hurt and worse. Took 7 years off from track riding. But now I look at it as, I may get killed crossing the street. Rather it happen when I'm doing something I love. So much so that I hope to race the isle in the next year or two.
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^ Yes, all of those things can happen - but we have had two incidents at two consecutive weekends where a rider went off track and hit a wall that, ideally, should not have been there, or failing that, should have been better protected. We can, and should, do better.
N3WMAN
Well-known member
As much as I support this ideology, you cant help but think that there is a lesser chance of you getting killed crossing the street if you don't cross when a bus is coming.
Anyone could ask Austin Shaw-O'Leary about his crash in turn 1. He hit the air fence and walked away from the crash. There was no air fence covering the tire wall where JR hit...... but there was air fence covering a section of the wall that would be nearly impossible to hit.
It seems that people that are setting up the safety features on those tracks are possibly people that do not ride the track. It seems that there is a lack of communication with the riders that could probably provide feedback like the one above that would save lives.
I was talking specifically about the comment about letting them all out at the same time - I am not talking about the physics of making a mistake or mechanical failure and end up smashing against a wall
There is a certain person whom we all know, who has been a staunch advocate of track safety measures for years and years, and was instrumental in getting certain protective measures put in place in the beginning. Unless something has changed that I am not aware of (and the situations described above suggest that it has not ...), CSBK does not make use of that person's knowledge.
It is my understanding that Christian also struck a tire wall with no other protection in front of it near the exit of corner 8 at Mosport.
As of the VRRA weekend, there were still sections of unprotected tire wall in 1, 2, and 8.
CSBK does not seem to have a history of listening to its participants. They had better start now.
GRAYZ
Well-known member
From what I've seen, the VRRA appears to have the best recipe, and although many of the bikes are slower my feeling is that it is the organizers who can be credited with their safety record. An association-model (e.g., President, Board of Directors, etc.) represents the participants the best as everyone is afforded an opportunity to provide input (e.g., rules changes, etc.) and even run for leadership. That makes everyone accountable and part of a democratic process.
I don't expect CSBK to change it's business structure but an organized representation of the licensed riders (call it the Canadian Superbike Racers Association, for example) might be the best way to communicate with the ownership. On the other hand, the past talk of a new national series might find more support if it is structured as a non-profit corporation, rather than a privately-owned operation.
GRAYZ
Well-known member
I remember being very nervous the first time I went out in expert. But I soon realized there is definitely LESS drama in expert than intermediate. The riders are *much* more consistent, and in many cases know each others' riding already. Getting there is like being accepted into the club, and I can trust most of the riders out there as we've ridden together over the years.
If you find yourself in an uncomfortable pack, back off 5 percent, be predictable wait for them to make a gap. Or, hang back at pit exit until enough riders have gone first. If you're not good with close passing, ask the organizer if you can wear an "X" on your suit to let people know you're new and to play nice. You just might have someone offer you a tow to help take the tape off before the end of the day.
I saw the crash at mosport from beginning to end, an air fence would have helped but probably wouldn't have been positioned where the rider contacted the tire wall. It appeared he had a couple of options and things unfortunately didn't go right. In no way shape or form am I trying to take anything away from the severity of the situation or lay blame and no matter what the circumstances both of these incidents are extremely tragic.
Anybody hear an update?
Guys at Pro6 said he was out of critical, they knew who it was just by me saying older guy with grey hair on a 675. Apparently he broke his leg below the knee and has really bad rash on this leg, apparently so much they could not close the wounds and they need to remain open...Otherwise he is going to be ok....Thank god it didnt look good when I seen him on scene, and I knew the rash would be bad the way his suit was ripped open on his leg
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That's certainly better news than the last I heard.
Yeah would be nice to hear he bounces back and get back on the bike, John said today the guy owns like 30 bikes or something...I think they said he was 63! Now thats a soldier!
Yeah he was an older guy, pitted across from MeMe .. from BillyBob Racing i believe.
