So I spent this past weekend circulating the tarmac at Miller Motorsports Park. My weekend started Thursday when I dropped off my bike ('07 R6) with MotoGio's Limousine and Bike Transport Service. While he was schlepping 16 hours and 9 bikes across the deserts of Nevada and Utah, I was getting a good night's sleep followed by a Friday mid-afternoon flight to Salt Lake City - thanks Gio! Not 30 seconds after my plane touched down and I turned my phone on did Gio call to say he was about to arrive at the airport to pick me up. Sweet! A short ride to Tooele (pronounced Too-wil'a) in Gio's Monster Truck (best said in that deep-throat TV commercial announcer voice - go back and say it again that way, it's fun and you know you want to) to the hotel, then out to the track to scope out the scene.

The facility is impressive, and impressively flat - being built in valley flanked by mountains on three sides and the Great Salt Lake to the north. Driving up to the main gate you stop at electric, remotely controlled iron gates. A security guard is present 24/7 for access and will open the gate for you. It's nice to always have access to the track, and know that security is always present. We walked through one of open the "GP" garages which line the hot pit and bumped into TrackMonkey (Chris) getting set up. These garages are impressive, each one has a private bathroom and TV monitor! Not cheap though at $175/day. Across the hot pit to the wall we surveyed the track. Couldn't see much of the track really, just the "flatness" of it all. But against the dramatic backdrop of snow capped purple mountain majesty I was already impressed. We climbed the starters tower for a better view. To the left is the last turn leading on to the front straight. To the right is...

is...

the horizon!!!??? The front straight seems to stretch out forever, it's easy to imagine that it goes out 5 miles to the nearest mountains! At 3500' this is a frickin' loooooonnnnnggg straight! The sun is just going down and it's already getting chilly. At 4500' high in the desert both ends of the thermometer will get a work out!

Back to town and we dined at the Mexican place across from the hotel. I've had Tex-Mex and Cali-Mex, but this was neither. The restaurant looked like a truck stop on the inside, and the food was bland enough to complete that picture. I dubbed it "Mor-Mex" in honor of the Mormons of Utah :-). They served great big piles of food "smothered". Smothered with what, we don't know, the menu just listed "smother". You could even get extra smother for another 75 cents. For $1.75 you could get a whole side order of "smother". May be a waiter came out and shoved a pillow in your face, or something else that just occurred to me but you'll have to keep reading to find out...

That night back in our room (I shared a hotel room with Gio), Gio fell asleep while channel surfing and the chain saw racket began (Gio's snoring shakes the walls). I was prepared for that with ear plugs - I've shared a room with him before. But on TV was some program on Discovery Channel about WMDs - specifically chemical weapons stock piles in various countries. They went on to discuss how the US is incinerating it's inventory of Agent Orange, et. al., at the Tooele Army Depot. Say What!!!??? Now I know why land is so cheap around here - and I now have my suspicions about the origin of that "smother" at the Mor-Mex place :-)

Saturday we were up before the dawn and it was cold and windy. I'm told that if there's one aspect of the weather you can count on in Tooele, it's the wind. I don't know how cold it was, but with the wind it felt like it was below freezing. Let's just say it was befuddlingly cold. At least the sky was clear which promised some quick warming once the sun came up. Out to the track, it wasn't warming yet but it was still early. I insisted to the MotoGio crew that we rent one of the day garages to get out of the wind. At only $75/day it was a bargain compared to the GP garages, and they're located just across a narrow strip of the paddock from the GP garages, and we got one that was right across from the hot-pit entrance to the track - sweet! The day garages are just a big "hollow" building with 10 garage doors on either side. Each "bay" is marked out by white lines. They are "heated", but with the doors open you don't really notice that. Only the bays facing the track were occupied, so the doors on the other side stayed closed. At least we were out of the wind. And there are nice, large, clean bathrooms located at either end of the building.

The day progressed just as any Keigwin's event does, except that there were only two groups with 30 minute sessions. The first half hour session was devoted to sighting laps, which I'm sure everyone that hadn't been to the track before took advantage of. The track seems to go on forever, and the 3 sighting laps at slow pace make it seem even longer. Twenty-four turns smeared over 480 acres and 4.5 miles of track are going to take a long time to learn and I decide that I'm going out with the B group today. I figure 1 + 1 = B (1 new bike + 1 new track = B group for me). By the time I'm done with my sighting laps I'm frozen to the bone, my hands are numb, and I'm seriously wondering how crazy I am for doing this. I spent the day in the B group learning the track, and realized that at 4500' elevation my R6 is down a bit on power. Even though the front straight is about twice the length of THill, it still takes to about the midway point to hit 6th gear. Make no mistake though, speed into turn 1 is pretty serious. It's hard to find sight lines to learn the track. There are several turns that are hard to see coming and you're constantly distracted by bikes in the distance on another part of the track that's two miles away (following the track) yet are right beyond the next corner. For example, entering "Demon" I was constantly fooled by bikes in "Agony" and "Ecstasy" (yes the corners are named, not numbered). On the plus side there's lots of paved runoff beyond many of the turns, I saw many a bike on the runoff outside of "Demon" and "Right Hook". Kudos to the track!

The day was slowly warming, and by lunch time I was feeling pretty comfortable. I slowly started connecting the corners together and figuring out lines. I was riding pretty much by myself all day, but bumped into (no, not literally!) Gary, Ralph & Julie in one session. Needless to say, Gary and his 954 turned invisible down the front straight and I never saw him again!

By the end of the day I was confident I knew which turn was coming up next, and what direction it went! I didn't bother working on braking markers, I just tried to learn the line. I did pretty well with the first half of the track, except for the "Demon/Devil/Diablo" combination which fools you into thinking it's a triple apex turn, but the faster line is a constant arc from Demon to Diablo for a double apex (thanks Wally!). The second half of the track is more technical than the first and I was constantly in the wrong gear. I decided that the first order of business on Sunday would be to figure out better shift points for the second half. But by the end of the day I was sick of the typical B group shenanigans: fast riders buzzing by slow riders at warp speed, really slow riders on really wide lines, and HUGE speed deltas entering turn 1. As I tend to be a more polite rider in the B group - I slow down when encountering slower riders in front of me - I was getting frustrated and not having a whole lot of fun yet.

Here's what I learned about some of the corners today:

Sunset Bend
yeah you really are going off into the sunset if you think this is just a "bend" at the end of the massive front straight.

Demon/Devil/Diablo
fools you into thinking it's a triple-apex because of the curbing inside Devil, but a faster line is a double-apex, constant radius turn from Demon to Diablo.

Fast / Faster
"kinks" on the "back straight". And no, "Faster" is not faster than "Fast". At least not for me. D'OH! "Fast" is a minor kink even less than turn 8 at THill. I suppose the fast guys would just stay on the throttle and make "Faster" faster than "Fast", but I couldn't do that, had to roll off and be a bit less fast in Faster than Fast.

Maybe Y'll Makit (sic)
Just a really fiendish name for a corner on a motorcycle track.

Satisfaction / Agony / Ecstasy
Really cool names for corners on a motorcycle track.

Wind Up / Release
My two funnest turns on the track that lead onto the front straight.

Saturday evening the track opened the "Clubhouse" for us from 5-7. This is normally a members-only facility that is located on a small mound of dirt piled up outside of the last turn. It's a beautiful building with a wall of glass windows that face the track, and since it's up on that pile of dirt the view of the track is really good. They served beer and some food (I'm sure, though, not the same menu that "members-only" get). Present was the track's designer, Alan Wilson. He kept circulating among the tables, introducing himself and shaking hands all around. A really nice touch by the management! I've heard that he's also designing the new track in Merced, Riverside Motorsports Park. The rest of the evening was uneventful with dinner at Applebees, chain food dining at its best and we retired early.

Sunday morning was overcast, still windy, but warmer than Saturday morning. There was a 20% chance of rain, but no one was allowed to mention the "r" word. I went out in the A group today and in the first session was pretty much alone, except for a few liter bikes that blitzed by me and disappeared into the horizon. This was a good session because it forced me to figure the track out without relying on bikes in front of me to tell me which way the track was going. In the next session I hooked up with Wally on his GSXR-750 and we had a blast showing each other what we learned about the track. He showed me better lines through the west half, and I made him cry into turn 1 :-). We spent the better part of the day chasing each other and having a grand ole time, one of my best times at a track day in a long time! Thanks Wally! I really didn't want to show him all my tricks though, if he learns my line through T1 I'll never be able to keep him in sight any more!

Sunday wound down and we finished the weekend pretty cleanly. There were only a few minor spills, no rain, and, except for Saturday morning, pretty comfortable temperatures. Before I knew it, Gio was taking me to my hotel at the airport (couldn't get a flight out until Monday morning) and it was done. I really hope that Keigwin's and PTT sponsor more track days there, I look forward to going back!