{"id":249,"date":"2010-07-18T17:16:39","date_gmt":"2010-07-19T00:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/?p=249"},"modified":"2010-07-18T17:16:39","modified_gmt":"2010-07-19T00:16:39","slug":"thunderhill-bound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/2010\/07\/thunderhill-bound\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunderhill Bound"},"content":{"rendered":"

Immediately after work on Friday, I rushed home to get ready for the Track the next day. I was only able to get in about 4 hours of sleep before having to wake up at 4 am. After getting everything into the car, I was on my way for the 160 mile journey up north to Willows, CA.<\/p>\n

Getting some gas for the beast:<\/p>\n

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I had to make a trip to a Walmart since places like Sports Authority weren’t open yet, and get some Under Armour type clothing. Surprisingly, there were a good amount of people at the Walmart even this early in the morning…<\/p>\n

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Watching the sunrise somewhere on I-80E.<\/p>\n

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Eventually I made it there. It was still early morning and I could feel the temperatures starting to creep up.<\/p>\n

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Since this was my first Trackday ever, I took the Novice School and was in Group C. I also didn’t have time to prep my own bike, and felt it would be better to start with a 250 at the track. I rented one of these for the day:<\/p>\n

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Fun little bike but absolutely no power. I would be flooring it at 11k on the straight and people would zoom past me like I wasn’t moving. Shifting on it wasn’t even in the same league as my Ducati. I also really disliked the upright riding position of this bike, felt like a scooter almost. It was, however, very light and very easy to throw around.<\/p>\n

These Pirelli’s were had a ton of grip and were very sticky\/tacky at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

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At the end of the day, I probably drank close to 2 gallons of water. The temperatures were in the 100’s, and I had to be in a full leather suit… The most detrimental factor of the day was the fact that I was running on virtually no sleep, and with such a fatiguing activity I felt like a zombie the entire day. I had a little spur of energy after lunch, but I wish I was better rested. On the drive home, I was literally nodding off and falling asleep. I had to pull over in the middle of no where in order to get a nap in. Furthermore, having only been riding motorcycles for about a month, period, I was definitely at a handicap. Not to mention, the 250 that I rented was foreign to me, and it was the first time I rode a motorcycle in well over a week. Had to adapt quick, that’s for sure.<\/p>\n

All that aside, the whole experience was very humbling. I learned a lot and the practice was great. Most of the people there had experience, and there were a few sandbaggers in the C group. I remember getting passed by this girl that was leaned over dragging knee all the way down the righthander of the Hill.<\/p>\n

Very fun but extremely tiring and hot day. I’m definitely aiming to go back, hopefully with a bike of my own and a lot more rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Immediately after work on Friday, I rushed home to get ready for the Track the next day. I was only able to get in about 4 hours of sleep before having to wake up at 4 am. After getting everything into the car, I was on my way for the 160 mile journey up north […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions\/252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}