Trackday with Pro6Cycle @ Calabogie Motorsports Park [8.25-27.2008]: DAY 1

Arriving at Calabogie Motorsports Park, around 6:30pm Sunday, My buddy Mac and I set up shop (EZ-Ups, tools, bikes, etc. etc.) and performed a pre tech inspection on our bikes before we turned in. We met up with a few other guys and gals that we knew, and I began to pick up some tips on riding the 'Bogie over dinner. We'd be spending three days here, so I was hoping to absorb all I could so that I could learn the track and improve my riding technique. Mac and others were telling me it would take a day or more to get used to the track and where it goes before I could make progress on times.


Monday morning, woke up around 6:30am. Calabogie is a track that is well liked and raved about by everyone that has been there, and I was eager to get started learning the course. Mac and I borrowed some bicycles and took a scouting lap around the circuit to get our bearings. Calabogie is a very technical track, designed by the same man that did Barber Motorsports Park. It has some similar features; lots of blind crests, sloping elevation changes (but not super scary like the Corkscrew at Laguna or Clayton Corner at Mosport), and quite a few decreasing radius turns. Many of the turns look eerily similar on entry, and then as you wind through them, you realize that they are very different.




At the rider's meeting they mentioned the following approximate time ranges typically seen at Calabogie:

GREEN (Beginner) 2:42 and up
YELLOW (Intermediate) 2:31 - 2:42
RED (Advanced): 2:30 and lower


After tech inspection and the riders meeting, I started out in my first session in the Yellow (Intermediate) Group. Learning the line around Calabogie was challenging. The turns were tricky enough that you would sometimes slow down too much, or enter too fast. Once I learned the track and started memorizing which turns were which, I could better concentrate on gaining some speed.

My best time first session was 2:56.17, so now the mission was to improve on this baseline time. Calabogie is filled with challenging corners. Learning the different lines, and how to link the corners together took some practice. As I got more comfortable, it became more difficult to maintain a rhythm as you would run up on traffic. The most challenging corners for me were Tempation (T8), and Wilson (T20). Temptation was a handful. Not only was it a severe decreasing radius, but it was hard to will yourself to carry speed going into the turn (because all you could think about was that decreasing radius ). Wilson was difficult because you needed to transition quickly from right to left, and making the transition smoothly while going uphill was a bit of a physical challenge.

The most harrowing/exciting moment of the day: dicing with a GSX-R 1000 for about a lap, we entered the front straight with him in the lead, and I tucked behind him in his tow. We both go into the Kink, and theh rider on the GSX-R runs way wide into the gravel trap on the outside of turn 1! Poof! All I could see was gravel. I remember thinking as I passed through the cloud, ..."today's forcast, gravel showers with a chance of sunshine...." That's what it was like. There was gravel hitting me from all directions. So this guy is fishtailing through the gravel at about a buck-fifty, and he's trying deparately to save it. He heads for turn 2 at breakneck speed. I check up in transition, getting ready to break hard for T2, and ahead are three other riders, one of which is in mid turn through T2. Luckily the corner worker was on her "A" game, and the yellow was already waving by the time I started to check up. The other two riders either saw the yellow, or the dust cloud (probably both) and checked up hard. The rider going through T2 barely made it through as the guy on the GSX-R came barreling out of the gravel trap [i]straight across T2[i], and into the grass on the outside of the turn, tail waggling the whole way still trying to save it! The second rider now entering T2 checked up hard and held to the outside of the turn, allowing the GSX-R more room. I dove for the only clear track left and made it through T2, and pulled hard through past Easy (t4) and took a peek back. The GSX-R somehow made it through and was coming back up to speed through the straight . The checkered flag was out at the end of that lap, and as we pulled back into the paddock, the other riders and I gave him a thumbs up for one hell of a save. I thought he wasn't going to make it!

As I pull into our area and shut off the bike, I hear a hisssssss coming from the front of my bike. I look down and there is water spraying from the front of my bike. CRAP! A piece of gravel did it's best heat seeking missle impression and punctured my radiator. Surprisingly, that last lap, the bike didn't leak at all, and even when I pulled into the paddock with the bike running, nothing leaked from the bike (I went back and checked where I pulled in, and my path back to the EZ-up). Time to take off the plastics and see if I could save my weekend.


Best Session:
Fastest: 2:29.43
Average: 2:32.21


To Be Continued....

Attached Images