Floating Fucks on Track

I bought a Honda CBR 600RR a few months ago. Last week I did what any self-respecting CBR600RR owner should do. I took it out to the race track and flogged many fucks out of it. When I bought that pretty CBR, it came loaded with chicken strips and fucks. I have made this bike my own, it has no more fucks left to give. They were all scattered randomly along the 5KM of race track at eastern creek that day. And by now, depending on prevailing winds, I expect many of them floating fucks are half way across the Tasman en route to New Zealand.

The CBR working on its tan, trying to blend in with me

Turn 1. Oh Turn 1! Tucked in behind the screen, elbows in, chin on tank, you tear up the straight dreading the moment you have to pop out from the security of your air bubble and face a 250KMPH wind trying to wring the head off your body. You try to hang off the bike but you’re a sail in the wind and it blows you off course ending up 10 feet away from the line you were hoping to take. The suspension is bouncing and the ground is rising up to hit your face. You’re kinda watching the scene in 3rd person, on a drug trip, floating above the circuit like a drone. You brake hard for Turn 2, go down a gear too soon, the rear fish tails, your arsehole scrunches but you say “Fuck It!” and thread the needle between 2 bikes, throw it down on your left knee and ride a graceful arc around the hairpin. Out of the corner of your eye you spy Tim Munro, the official photographer you have just paid 80$ to make you look like a MotoGP star, aiming his huge lens at you and you lean it over just a little more.

I hope you're getting this shot Tim Munro!

The CBR600RR is a devilishly nimble motorcycle. Coupled with a relatively soft power delivery, it makes for a very carefree ride. You can throw the thing into a corner at the last second and get on the power very early in the corner. Early in the day I was judicious with the throttle on corner exit, being used to bigger bikes that would easily highside you. However, the CBR just refused to break traction and I got bolder and ballsier as the day went on. But at one point, the CBR let me know in no uncertain terms that I was not to take undue liberties with it.

And then I almost high sided

 I was garaged with a bunch of fast guys who were in red group. I had signed up in yellow. Half way through the day, I was overtaking way too many people in my group and decided to move up to Green group. The fast guys from red group I was garaging with decided to take it easy and moved down to green. They had race prepped R1s with tyre warmers and tore out of the blocks. I usually take it easy on the first lap to warm up my tyres as I’m no track hero. I rock up on my road bike, tape up my mirrors and line up on the grid. I don’t fuck around with tyre pressures or suspension settings, I just get out there and ride (by feeeel!). So when these fuckers went off like hares on the first lap itself, there was no way I was catching them. On the next session I decided to start ahead of them and go hard right from the start. I tore out of pit lane. And nearly high sided on the first corner. The tyres were cold and as linear as the power is on the CBR, if you twist that throttle enough, it will still push that rear tyre with the strength of a hundred horses. So, respect for throttle was immediately reinstated. It was a brutal but timely reminder for me and an endorsement of my usual strategy of taking it easy on the first lap. 

Rossi bitched me. Then I bitched him. Then the chequered flag waved.

I hate turn 5, always have, still do. There’s something about this corner, the camber, the surface, the view of the gravel trap with the marshal staring at you, waiting for you to crash. At least 4 people have low sided at this corner right in front of me. It just fucks with my head and I always ride it at 80%.

Highsides and Turn 5 aside, I had a rollicking good time. I saw 261KMPH on the speedo, which is surely out of touch with reality by at least 10%, but still. I scraped both knees many times, which is not something I often do because I don't hang off much. Most surprising was scraping my knee at Turn 4, the downhill right hander. I have never particularly liked this corner as you have to brake hard downhill and it really loads up the front tyre. But on this day, on this bike, I was consistently nailing the inside line here, with my knee on the ripple strip. I wasn’t even scared of Turn 9, that scary down-hill right handed U-turn and cheekily undertook a few people through there.

The CBR certainly lacks the punch of the big bore bikes out of corners that I’m used to but it makes up for it with nimbleness and pure throttle-stop fun! I have never had a bike pinned right to the throttle stop in ALL gears. And then I put the mirrors back on, strapped on my backpack and rode back home. The next morning I rode the CBR to work, as usual. Fucken Hondas! 

Lap Times? Bah! don’t know, don’t care. I was faster than a few, slower than many. What I do know is that I had one of the biggest grins in the paddock that day (certainly bigger than the folks who crashed their hired S1000RRs in the first session!). And by fuck, that’s priceless! For everything else, there’s Masterchef. or something…

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