The slides were under power, or maybe i should say in turns, a little power. the braking i wasn't really slamming it too hard for the most part, was leery of the movement. yes the brakes felt good, nice solid response, and even gentle touch to bring them on, they stayed good it seemed even until the very end on hot runs but then again, because of the squirrely every time you do brake, i was not coming into turn 1 at 120 mph like normal i was maybe hitting it at 90 ish because i knew that long turn was in front of me, and the wiggly jiggly and didn't want do to a slow sling out into the grass.
bottom line, i came in knowing i had much weaker brakes than the corsa kit and was Not going to push them nearly as hard because of it, once it dawned on me im riding on some hard ass pirelli's and the scorpion there's not a hell of a lot you can do to make them 'track ready', they are a hard carcass, stiff road tire. it was a cooler day, maybe upper 40's, windy out, 20 mph ish, and getting ready to rain later so no sun. these tires were not going to get any heat at all, and i needed to ride the bike back home so was not going to take any chances of wrecking it.
This wasn't a race day, it was a lets have a little goofy fun day, so, yah, take it easy on the gal
As another side note, long story short, had the ac worked on in my truck, had to replace the condenser, mf'er did not refill the tranny properly after he put it all back together so sunday night burned up my tranny going home. with that, i was not going to lose my race time so said fuck it, and rode the experia to the track and back home fully decked out in my race gear.... got there and then realized, god dammit, i brought everything i needed.......except the key to the ego. home is 100 miles away, so said, im here, talked to race control and they were like, yah it's a monday, not a lot of people here, go get out on that bike, have fun, so i did !! Taped up the glass and showed em my ass !!
riding home, the tires at higher speeds are a bit odd. at first it was a bit,... squishy on the highway, but i was doing 95 mph, so pulled into the next gas station to make sure i had my tire pressures right, and didn't leave track pressures in them. on the track you run low pressures for traction, but on the highway, in normal circumstances, you can't put enough energy into a tire to really keep it hot enough to perform properly, so track tires will feel odd, it will want to creep around. they grew but were a bit low so topped them where they should be, but yah they felt a bit squishy on the road at sustained higher speeds, a lot of movement, especially when getting buffeted by semi's etc. After running about 30 miles and getting them warmed up a bit they tamed out a bit and were ok, but cold, yah, ..don't like them. This could just be me being prejudiced to my conti's. im in love with the continental. i run the attack road 2's on my ego when im not running slicks. tend to like the dot's now that it's colder out. when it's 34 degrees out, i don't give a rats ass how hot you had them, one lap and your tires are cold, that track sucks the heat right out of them at those temps. now lets throw some morning dew onto the mix and yah, dot's work much better.
Another real advantage, with dot's, i can puff them up for the ride home and back, then drop the psi for the track, i can literally ride the same bike w/o having to swap the tires. odd observance. if i raced on the tires all weekend, still great for the highway, racing wore out the sides really, the center core is still perfectly fine for the road, plus you got your NON chicken strips to show off to your friends with
, but, my Ribelle now, that's my street racer, you wore out the center, it's got a nice big fat florida flat spot from hard running on the highways and side roads at saturday night, that is NOT really good for the track. the transition over that flattie in turns is... interesting, and can cause you grief, especially if you get caught on a seam or something, so those are not really recommended for the track as a dual purpose. I guess if im going to play with the Ribelle on the track (even though she's not as fast and can be a wheelie machine if im not careful) do so with new tires.
This in an odd way is nice to be able to get some use out of the tires even after you burned them up on the track. I mean, shit, a set of tires is what 400 bucks, burning them up in a weekend stings a bit, but being able to get another few months out of them as roadies, takes the sting out of it when you can toss them at 1500 miles instead of maybe 100 miles.
when they are fully wore out, i drill holes in them all around the circumfrence and stack them up in my redneck yard along the fence, fill them with compost and dirt, drop a strawberry plant in each hole and let em all root down thru the tire and dirt inside. The tire keeps the good dirt in place, the worms really can't migrate it out of the upper tires too well and helps keeping the chickens from tearing the shit out of everything because there ARE worms in there. Sort of a repurpose for them. They are also awesome for growing my garlic in too, and you can split the stacks to move them around / clean out the bulbs, etc. I also stock them up in my back yard, because once or twice a year, some of the cities around here will do a 'tire event' where they will pay you to pick up old tires and bring them in, they'll pay you 2 bucks a tire up to 10 tires. At the legion, we'll grab a bus load of the poorer people, tell them, you got an id, go get it, load the tires on a trailer, take em all to the event, get rid of all the tires we piled up and they get to take home 20 dollars each, so it's a community service thing really. once we get them back we'll feed them a good breakfast, and send them on their way. Good pr for the post, and it is a good way to get rid of race tires where im not paying to dispose of them.
Aaron
