Track: Willow Springs raceway
Date: March 19, 2006
Tires: Michelin PRC front, PR4 rear
Weather: 58 degrees F, partly cloudy, windy

Saturday: I spent the morning getting the 06 R6 ready by doing a dyno run and taking off the stock tires and mounting up the Michelins, finished safety wiring the bike and mounting the bodywork. I was expecting my Aprilia RS250 to arrive that morning, from the previous months mechanical I had at Fontana (destroyed the transmission) but the bike didn't show until 2:30pm. So, after lunch I took the new 06 R6 out for it's first flogging since buying it at the end of Jan.
I had just gotten my forks back from GP Suspension out of Oregon and put a Lindemann Engineered Ultimate shock with titanium spring on the bike, so the suspension had to get set up, and I decided to put the new Michelin PRC tire on the front with a PR4 rear tire. I went out for my first session on the R6 and took it easy to get used to the stock slipper clutch, see how the suspension felt, how the tires would react and in general learn the bike. First session showed my at a lap time of 1:39. Slow time, but I knew the suspension needed adjusting
both up front and in the shock. Dave Moss of Catalyst Suspension, did some fine tuning and I went out in the next practice session.
This time I produced a lap time of 1:36, and the front end felt really solid, but the back end was still a bit off. When I pulled in we could see that the PR4 rear tire had a lot of cold tearing. So Dave adjusted the low compression and rebound and I went out for the final practice session of the day for the middleweight class and dropped my lap times into the 1:32's. The bike felt really good, but the rear end was still a little off. Dave did some minor clicks on the shock and I would test them out in the morning. I had finally gotten my Aprilia back and quickly took it to tech,  but forgot to put air in the tires (these tires hadn't been used since the beginning of Feb and in the first turn I about crashed. I only had 10psi of air in them! Stupid mistake. I got off the track and brought the bike back to the pits. I decided to put my other set of tires on, but since it was the end of the day, I would have to wait til Sunday to test the Priler out.

Sunday comes and I take the Priler out with correct pressure in the tires and she feels great. My mechanic did a great job putting it back together.
I took the R6 out in the next session and it felt equally as good and very planted. The rear tire looked pretty shagged and decided to flip it for the races.

Race 1: 2 stroke production on the Aprilia RS250. Uneventful race. After the first lap I was in 4th all by myself and finished the race there. Best time was slower by nearly 2 seconds from Jan! I don't know what my problem is on this bike?

Race 2: 600 Superstock: Since I have no points in this class and everyone else does, I start all the way in the back with all the new racers. I'm gridded 34th out of 40. I found out that there is a trick to starting a bike with a computer controlled throttle. Since the computer tells the butterfly valves how far to open and when, it is better to keep blipping the throttle, revving the bike on the line and then letting the clutch out quickly, but smoothly when the green flag drops. If you just hold the throttle wide open, you are gonna lose a lot of spots. Needless to say, I gained about 8 spots right off the bat. Got through turn 1 cleanly, although pushed wide and then set out to pass as many people as I could in 6 laps.
With the quickshifter on this bike, I could hold the throttle wide open down the straight without letting off to shift. This allowed me to pass people with relative ease on the two straights that make up Willow Springs. I battled my way up to 20th spot by the time the checkered flag dropped.
So I gained 14 spots in 6 laps, but my lap times were quicker than quite a few guys in front of me, so next month should be better.

Race 3: 600 Mod Prod. Started 29th on the grid and this was a repeat of the first race. I finished 15th and had a best lap time of 1:30.6, which is almost equal to my best lap time ever on my 03 R6 and I had lots of time on that bike. So here I am on a new bike that I had never ridden, and hadn't raced a 600 in 10 months and within 2 days, I was doing the same times as the previous generation R6. That's how good this bike is! And I dropped 9 seconds from Saturday to Sunday.

I had a great time learning the R6, even though the race results had me way down in the standings, I know I will get a lot faster on this bike!
Can't wait for next month!