LP track days come to Midwest on Saturdays!

[Eric Kelcher]

The question was about LP days on Fridays in Midwest the topic was changed at some point so my previous post does not make sense with changed question.

If you look there are no Sat dates in MW at race events but there are LP dates at other tracks on Sat.

[DRU2]

Eric, May 17th is a Great PLains race weekend that is a Saturday. September 27th is a Saturday and that is a Midwest race weekend. July 4th is a friday run at Mid-America that is a friday that is also a twin sprint weekend so that is a race day also. September12th you have down on the LP sch. as a track day at Gateway Intl. that is a twin sprint also so the 12th is for the 30 min races right?   This is why i changed the heading.Joe

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

Oil, do you really think all of the street squids will drain there coolant or that tech will check what's in the radiator!  

Oh, like anyone has ever checked what's in YOUR RADIATOR?  Safety wire and the honor system are all you have to count on as a racer.  I have certianly gone out unwired after a major thrash to make a race.  Who hasn't?  Street bikes oiling up our track is a very small concern.  

all amateur racers combined with the advanced trackday class for practice. This strikes me as unsafe for everyone involved.  I would suggest 3 Ambulances on the premises.

This is a much bigger concern.  Last year, I was among the faster amateurs.  I was having trouble avoiding some of the slower amateurs when I lapped them.  (I guess that's why I'll get to be one of the slower experts this year...)  I can't imagine the carnage that will result when you mix the slowest of the track day people with the fastest of the amateurs.  Closing speeds, corner speed, braking distance, and line dicipline will be radically different.  Let's not mince words.  Imagine a very fast amateur slicing under a very slow track day person while approacheing turn two at Blackhawk.  The track day person suddenly decides he needs to be more to the left to enter the corner, and moves over into the path of the amateur.  The collision occurs at over 100 mph with a 40 mph speed difference.  Parts and pieces fly.  Bones break.  Then the whole mess slams into that rusty old guardrail at 80 mph.  
This scenario or a similar one could happen just as easily with a Learning Curves student, but at least then there is the warning signal of a tee shirt over his leathers to let the experienced rider know that this is an inexperienced person.  It's really not logical to have to be looking for taped over tail lights while negotiating a race track at speed.
I already know how this will work.  The race director will stand up there at the riders meeting and remind the racers that it is their responsibility as experienced track dwellers to give the track day people some slack.  How nice.  Now the track day riders are absolved of responsibility for their own stupidity.  CCS is absolved of their responcibility of mixing incompatable riders and creating a dangerous situation.  If anything bad happens, it's all the fault of the big bad racer being too agressive around the street people.  Isn't it ironic that the CCS will sell us track time, then tell us not to use it to the full extent?  
Dress this any way you want, but CCS is taking track time that we've paid for, selling it to a different group of people, and then offering to sell some back to us in a much more dangerous format.  We can complain forever, but the CCS is 100% profit driven, so they really don't care what we want.  (No offense ment toward all the wonderful CCS workers who took this job primarily out of their love for racing.  You aren't the ones who are entrusted to make these decisions.  That would be too effin logical!)  Really, the only solution it to go race somewhere else.  There have been so many issues with CCS in the last two years that I am seriously considering this for 2004.  The only way that CCS will realize that they cease to exist without customers is for the customers to leave.  Right now, they treat us like they own us.  After my house payment, racing is my biggest single expenditure in a year.  If there is not a signifigant change in the policy and attitude of CCS in 2003, I will certianly have to excersize my right as a consumer and go looking for a better deal.

[Super Dave]

I don't know what to say.

My feeling is that many track day guys don't race.  And I don't think they will be very attracted to a track day offered by a racing organization during a racing event.  

The groups will be separated so that in the "race groups" the track day guys will be pretty fast, at least reasonable.

[TZ_Boy]

I am still confused did Eric say that there are no Sat LP events for the MW?
  Chris as far as being on the Honor system that racers have water not coolant in there radiators thats one thing but if you think that street bikes being used for a trackday 1 time in a year are willing to drain there coolant and then re-install that coolant the next day is quite another.  I am not an expert but I was under the impression that coolant was worse than oil to clean.

[Super Dave]

Gingerman is on the MW schedule, so yes.  It is also on the GP & GL schedule.  That will be the only time there is a SRD on a Saturday in the area.

[Woofentino Pugrossi]

 I am not an expert but I was under the impression that coolant was worse than oil to clean.

It is.

[DRU2]

There are two dates that are twin sprint weekends that we will be practicing with the track riders on friday too, there both at Mid-America.One is in July and the other is in September.

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

Coolant and oil are bad.  They clean up.  All I was trying to say was that the oily track issue was insignifigent compared to the bigger picture.  Unskilled riders can take you out.  It  takes months to heal.  The majority of track day riders are not skilled enough to mix with the fastest amateurs, and they have not made the monitary and mental comittment that even the newest racer has.  I think riding with them can be dangerous.
There are exceptions.  I rode during a track day at Gateway.  There were a few experienced local guys there on big street bikes who just left me on my lightweight superbike.  There were also riders who scared me to death.  Visionsports has some very good street riders as regular students.  
The problem is that these guys are exceptions.  I don't fault them for wanting to ride the track.  Didn't we all start that way?  I did two schools and a track day before I enrolled in race school to get my license.  I fault CCS for selling them our time, and then selling that time back to us so we can go ride with them.  Rider entries pay for the track, and we should get all the time.  How often do we get our races shortened because time was needed for a clean-up?  How much tighter will the schedule be now?  I'm very angry about this.  It's like your landlord renting your second bedroom to someone else without asking you, charging you the same price for what's left of your apartment, and then trying to charge you extra rent if you want to go in that room again!  Every year we pay more.  Every year CCS devises new ways to make things harder and more expensive.  Would it be too much to ask that we racers at least get sole use of the facility during OUR race weekend?
Understand that as an expert, I will never have to practice with those guys.  I object to this based on how I would have felt last year, and also because I feel that any time not used for races should be given to us racers as practice.  There isn't enough practice now.  CCS has answerd that concern by adding track day riders to the mix, and saying that we can still ride with them for an additional fee.  They obviously don't care about the dangerously short amount of time we have been getting to set up our bikes and learn new tracks.  All they want is more of our money, and more money from other sources.  This is the most blatant ripoff CCS has leveled at us racers to date.  It is completely indefensable.  

[sdiver68]

I've never had a problem with the street squids.  In fact, I have WAY more experience as a street squid than a racer.  

95%+ of them do not ride in the advanced group anyway, they are too scared of the racers.  Those that do have to drain their coolant and be safety wired.  Also, those that do can usaully handle a bike easily as well as a mid-pack Amateur.

I personally feel the more street guys we get to the track, the better it is for racing and our sport in the long run.

I have a bigger concern when GS500's are out there with GSXR1000's.  Regardless of the skill level of the riders, that much disaprity in speed is dangerous, witness the Putnam accident a little over a year ago.

[TZ_Boy]

  I think the visual you are looking for is a 250 Ninja and a Hayabusa at the end of the straight of Mid-America Motorplex. :o  

[Thingy]

I agree with K3.

PS - I don't think I ever met you last year Chris.  Looking forward to it this year.