What Will Be Your First 2025 Uk Trackday?

27th Feb 2023. S1000rr at Donny. Max temperature was 8 degrees. Session one was 3.5 degrees.
Tyre pressures were 38 front and 33 rear. Immediate check on return to pits to check pressures. Rear was maintained at 33. Front had dropped to 34. I can’t remember where it ended up. (Edit. Just checked. We were aiming for 36/33 hot pressures following several helpful conversations with tyre guys). By the afternoon I had sufficient confidence to be knee down very occasionally on hairpins. Great day. Zero red flags. People were well behaved respectful of the conditions.
The heated grips were a big help! Treat it like a wet day.
Note digital air temp thermometer on seat.

 

Off topic, sorry.
Being a GSXR fanboy, I really like that, shame the lines don't perfectly follow the bikes, but still very smart.
Yours is lovely too of course

 

It’s my mates. Owned by two other mates who are members of this forum before him.

 

Brave man! I love Craners but I’d only ever commit in optimal conditions. It’s quite fast and quite bike smashy uppy if the front goes…

Tip toeing round any track, in sphincter twitch mode, ain’t my idea of fun. I’m a fair weather fanny…

 

Usually April for me, will be donny I guess as know it well now.

 

This is superbly useful thank you

 

Good, happy it’s of help.
A little more info. Tyres were Racetech RR K3’s. Some were running wets on first couple of sessions. I had tc turned up high (coward!) and suspension softened off - basically a full wet set up other than tyres. I had one moment when I got a little impatient/over zealous going into the Melbourne Loop. I went in a bit hot after overtaking a group of slower bikes on the brakes. It felt like I had zero grip at all tipping in. I simply held the bike up as vertical as I could and let it run (very) wide. Bit of an arse puckering moment but I learnt a ton from that one single experience alone.
Patience and smoothness are key.

 

By the sounds of it, a winter day will be more about circulating than exploring the bikes capabilities

 

True. A lot of club racers doing shakedowns after winter rebuilds. We went to check a mates bike pre Spain. Just as well as we found a problem.
Once temperature gets up towards double figures (perfectly possible in late Feb) you can get a fair push on. Had this at Silverstone one April too. People tend to crash as the temperature rises though. At Donny no yellow flags across all three groups in the morning. In the afternoon there were a few crashes as people started to push more. Take it easy and enjoy.

 

My friend went a went at the end of Feb a few years ago, air temp ranged 5 low -10 high degrees throughout the day, and circulated around 1'55 on his 600. I can imagine false security sets in and before you know it you're rolling across the gravel at McLean's.

 

20th March for me at Snetty.

Ive had better days in March in previous years than April and even early may, occasionally get lucky with a spring warm spell.

But, usually not worth hanging around much after lunch, track temp dips and red flags start coming round quicker and quicker as the PM wears on and people dont realise tracks cooling down, quickly! Few years ago one April day, sun was out and had loads of grip. In the space of about 2 laps, 3 of us in our garage came in and all felt the grip just disappear in the space of a few minutes. Red flags came out and every session had red's while we were packing up!

So, early days can be good, but do need to be careful

 

I'm not experienced enough I don't think to make a well reasoned judgement of how quickly the track is cooling, however I'll be mindful that this can happen. Thanks for the heads up.

 

James Whitham days at some point this year, probably Anglesey

 

Cadwell this Sunday, just booked it, see if the 996 works!

 

I've booked Cadwell but not until 19 July.
It's a Classic Bike Trackdays event and if all goes as planned I'll be on my little Aprilia RS250.
Anyone else doing any Classic Bike Trackdays this year?

 

I'm there that day as well