Update: A friend (Sergio) lended me a tape that he shot from the track side during that day (his SP1 had some problems) and I managed to find a couple of seconds of film where I'm seen going by. (you'll need the XVid codec installed)
Yesterday I participated in another ActionTeam advanced riding course at the Estoril track. It was a fun day, riding at the track and meeting the usual friends. Nice to talk to some of the Motociclismo magazine people (ActionTeam belongs to MotorPress, which in turn owns Motociclismo magazine) and some previous champions from our national racing scene, which were there as instructors.
The weather was nice, except for the tremendous heat. I mean, it was boiling hot !!! I tought we would all melt in there. Motociclismo's executive director, in the welcome talk, even mentioned "let's go out there to the frying pan and have some fun" meaning we should go out on the track and ride... Temperatures were in the range of 34-36º C (95-97º F), with little or no wind. Not to mention the leathers, gloves, boots, helmets...
Even so, once we were riding, we'd soon forget all about the heat and just enjoy ourselves, until we got back to the pits melting in sweat. Fortunately, ActionTeam had all planned and had plenty of drinks there for us, so nobody got dehydrated.
There were four 30-minute sessions with the instructors, plus a final open session for noth groups. By the time we got to the open session, almost only half of the riders felt fit enough to go at it again, so the track was fortunately quite clear to give it som gas :-)
Some things were't so good, like the instructor on the group I was in had to stop twice mid-session to refuel (something better planning could have avoided), and besides the track time lost, we would just fry under the hot sun on our leathers whenever the speeds dropped below 100 Km/h (60 mph). So the stops for refueling were a pain...
But the worse, the thing that upset me the most was all my fault, and only noticed it once I got home. I had taken my camcorder as I usually do now, and recorded plenty of laps behind friends who asked me to, and I was excited because I was sure i had some great footage of riding behind another 600 RR, behind a Triumph 675, Yamha R1, and even a beautiful 1000-miles-on-the-clock Aprilia Mille factory.
I was so excited, in fact, that the first thing I did once I got home after taking my leathers off was to rewind the two tapes to start recording them onto DVD. To my complete dissapointment, I managed to increase the zoom of the camcorder when taping it to the tank, so the image was basically the top of the tachometer focused, and a little bit of windscreen out of focus... And since I never checked if things were being well recorded at the event, I never noticed this, and all footage is like this. Oh how I hate myself for this !!! If only I could kick myself, I would have !
A good thing was my decision to shorten the transmission by going down a tooth on the front sprocket. That made a huge difference on the track, and I may go up 1 or 2 at the rear sprocket to make it perfect for the Estoril track. Even so, it dropped less rpms, and it pulled harder out of the turns, just like I wanted. Best bang for the buck, playing with the transmission ratio.
Once I get some photos from the event photographer, I'll post them here, and I hope to have some video from a friend who said would be taping the open session from the outside. can't wait, I always tape friends, but I never get filmed by others :-)