I rolled over to the track a little later than normal.  I was expecting to get rained out yet again.  This time, the weather held up much better.  It was cool, but there was some sun and the track was *mostly* dry.  For most of the day, there was standing water on the exit of turn 3 and at turns 14/15, making it impossible to get great lap times.

The day was positioned as a club racing school.  What this translated to was that there were many additional instructors present, providing one-on-one sessions throughout the day, as well as classroom sessions during our track breaks.  A new feature for me was that they ran  45-minute sessions, which is far longer than the typical 20-minute sessions that most track day organizers.  Because I was still feeling pretty slow and hadn’t really gotten any good track time at this point, I welcomed the longer sessions.  Later in the season, when I’m pushing much harder, it would be difficult to run that long.

The first couple sessions out, I noticed very poor traction in my rear tire.  Every time I had the bike leaned over and started getting on the gas, I felt a sensation that I interpreted as the tire slipping.  It’s hard to say – I’ve felt longer sustained slides from riding hard on worn tires, but this was a slightly newer sensation.  The bike felt like it would just tip over.  I attributed this to the cold weather and kept riding, albeit slowly.
 
One of the other features of the club racing school was that we did a couple “mock” races that were only 3 laps in length.  I got worked by these newbie club racers, which was discouraging.  My friend Adrian, who plans to start racing this season, passed me after turn 2 on the second lap, a turn in which my lack of confidence in lean angle was really hurting my speed.  He flipped me off after he went by.  That sums up the mock races for me.  The positive of it was hearing the instructors talk about their approach to the start of a race, and to get out there for a couple practice starts with people.  Starts have typically been the worst part of my race, and it was a welcome opportunity to work on this aspect.  Some of the hardware changes I’d made set me up for better starts.  Specifically, retuning the fuel injection and moving up 2 teeth on the rear sprocket.