+1 I'm with you @simmytt Took my road 1199 as well as my track 999s. Never taken the 1199 on the track for fear of damage either by me being stupid or others being too risky. After 2 sessions on the 999 in the inters I took out the 1199, brilliant. Mainly coz the riders in the group whilst fast, were sensible. Had a Great day, good value at £175 considering normal Donington prices and have booked Silverstone for July. Hope weathers as good as yesterday.
It was a great trackday, just for once it was dry and my wets stayed in the pits. Although each session was very busy, I got round each lap without too much traffic to get through.
Yeah, what were you doing at the esses? Sounds typical FE to me. Fannies. . . As bradders says 'your bike your neck' Don't get me wrong, I always factor in safety to my TD's and always try to make clean passes. Its annoying and unneccesary when some twat stuffs it up your inside close to the apex. But the riding in the vid looked alright to me. The skies looked alright too! Nice and blue... Glad y'all had a blast. I was in an airport lounge off to work, doh...
Some onboard footage from Donny last week, Monday trackday then the Duc day on Tuesday. @royalwithcream was photobombing in the session with me and murray. I've got one from Tri-options Free Practice last Friday too but I'll upload that this Saturday once the upload limit resets. Dave Mackay on Vimeo
I didn't get a chance to reply yesterday Dave. I was actually trying to film you and Murray as well rather than photobomb you guys but it turned out my memory card was full so I didn't get any footage from those runs unfortunately I'm a good looking Booty though so having a bit of Marine in a vid is always a good thing! The way you pulled away from me at the end was an eye opener. After slapping my wrist in the last session for going through the esses too fast the CSS guy told me I was riding 'beyond the capabilities of the bike through craner curves'. Absolute bollocks of course, he obviously hadn't seen you going through there haha
The multiple views have come out well. I'm finding the toughest thing with the GoPro is sorting through the footage after. It takes me all week just to get the videos into useable format , let alone actually doing something creative with them.
Not sure about the Marine thing, generally means a naked bloke but you had to have you leathers on riding the bike. I think to be fair the CSS blokes just try and keep it as safe as they can, they've probably seen all sorts and they don't want red flags any more than you and me. I got told off too for holding onto a couple of wheelies in the last session onto the start straight but to be fair he wasn't worried about me, he just didn't want folks to see me doing it and assume it was ok. Fair point I thought. I think if you were riding beyond the capabilities of that bike of yours then you'd either be upside down in the gravel or a track day legend, maybe he just saw something that didn't sit well with him. Craner takes some getting used to, I've seen a fair few riders fall off next to me or in front of me and I certainly don't want to join that club. If you think I was going down there well then imagine how the quick blokes do it. I tried following some of the front runners down there in qualifying to see their line and it scared the crap out of me, I could feel the front sliding at the second set of paint on the right and then again just after the left apex. Needless to say I didn't go down there that quick again without a tow. The footage does take a while to trawl through, I usually put music and fades in but I've stopped doing it as it starts getting complicated with copyright issues etc. There's only so much free, tinkly piano, music I can tolerate.
Craner is currently one of my favourite corners in the world! I love riding on gradients. It's mind boggling that you guys can get another 10-15 seconds off the lap times. I think the biggest thing I learnt at Donnington and Jerez was how much power I could put on whilst cranked over and that made a huge difference going down Craner. Before now I was very cautious about pinning the throttle at anything other than reasonably upright. I'm hitting the race setting traction control on heavy lean now, especially once the tyres are trashed, and getting used to sliding around a bit. I've always rode with all the electronics set to the minimum to make sure I was learning to ride properly but it did mean that I've been fairly cautious of the limits. I can see how the electronics can be a useful thing for learning now. (Maybe not useful in your public facing situation but a lot of people slow down or speed up the music ever so slightly so it is not recognised by the automatic recognition software on youtube)
Gutted I missed it... And last year... Wanted to try an 899 and 1299 on a track that I know... Might do Silverstone, but never ridden it; so for me it will be more about learning the track than testing the bike... Probably do another Donington and ask @scrawnsenior to borrow his 899 and Andy Peblow to borrow his RSV4 (not really - too scared to bend them ! ) @royalwithcream 1:46's are pretty good mate; I've not broken the 150 barrier yet ;-(
Having just come back from Sardinia and doing a DRE day at Morés track on both the 899 and 1299S, I can say that anyone going out on either is a lucky fooker, especially the 1299S
decided on 899 in the end, 1 because of cost and 2 because I can barely manage riding a mere 170 hp at the mo lol
You'll enjoy the 899 no end, but the 1299S is another level and so much easier to ride fast, it's madness. Here's a pic of our instructor, Alessandro Valia (Ducati test rider) doing his thing on the 899...
