Brian: Do anything interesting last weekend, Robin? Well, yes. Yes, you did.

Robin: So did you.

Brian: So we did. We just happened to run into each other. All right. So long story short, we went to a track day at Putnam Park Racecourse in Indiana. It's just west of Indianapolis. And the cool thing here, there are a lot of cool things, but one of the cool things is it's about 45, 50 minutes from my house. Man, that was so nice. And then we got there and we found that this sleepy little track, what looks like it's in the middle of a cornfield in Indiana, is an absolute gem. Pavement is immaculate.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: The course layout is really fun, really fast, you know, has a lot of challenges. Anything has a lot of challenges. For me, all the challenges it had were like legit. It wasn't like, oh we've got a surface change here because we need to repave and we don't have any money, I mean no I mean this thing was immaculate this thing the challenges were designed into the course, they had some surprises like we didn't realize we thought it would just be an Indiana flat cornfield track it's got like all these little elevation changes, and that kind of keep you from seeing what the heck is coming up what's going on.

Robin: It completely makes up for the fact that it's ever so slightly shorter than Black Hawk Farms Raceway, which is a pretty short track. I mean, it's a great track, but it's not long by any means. And this one's even shorter than that, but they make up for it. There's an elevation change of some kind in every single turn. And that is just fun.

Brian: Oh, it's just, yeah, it's just a blast. And if you look at a picture of the circuit, you will see that it is remarkably, there's a lot of runoff room. It's very flat. I mean, we love Blackhawks. They've got these giant corrugated concrete curbs that are just enormously huge. And they have, you know, they have the curbing. They've got the candy stripes on the inside, et cetera. But yeah, there's tons of runoff. So it's a super safe track in a lot of ways where, you know, some other tracks, yeah, you're going to be, you know, there's things you need to be a little wary of on some tracks. This one here, it's really well designed. They have some like different kind of cutouts in there. So you can you can actually slow traffic down by going through those little kinks and so forth, what we rode was the main course which is without all the little weird little kinks and cutovers and whatnot and the facilities were very nice, yeah the garages look great you know we'll do.

Robin: That next time

Brian: Next time we might get a garage because yeah that looked really pimp 55.

Robin: Bucks for the day it was cheap

Brian: Yes 55 bucks for the day for a garage and also like The organization is Sport Bike Track Time that ran this track day, and there are a couple of them, I think, that run at Putnam Park. Sport Bike Track Time is kind of the main one that puts motorcycles out here. For me, there were some differences between the only other track days I've done or three at MotoVid. So it was really interesting to see some of the little differences, and we'll get to some of that. Some of the things were, frankly, a little annoying. We'll get to that. Most of the time, there were little differences. Mostly didn't matter. It's still riding motorcycles in circles and going as fast as you can.

Robin: How do you want to, we can look at it from the beginning too. So the night before, the way it worked was I'm on my motorcycle. Brian's got the house and the trailer and the minivan and all the stuff that's necessary to make things happen. So I packed up everything I could onto my bike, rode to his place, crashed there for an evening. And when I got there that night, we first drove his already trailered and ready kit and, to the park discovered right then and there that when you enter the park you don't have to cross the track get into anything so the entire pit system is off track by an entryway that has access which i think is downright lovely and yes they do have plenty of garages they do sell out kind of quick but they've got a good number of them for a very cheap amount of money for a lot of space especially for a motorcycle related track deck so we went And just sort of stopped and stared at the elevation changes then went over to the risers and noticed that you can see the entire circuit minus one section that's hidden by trees from the bleachers you can see the whole circuit it's really fantastic like that so we went and did our bit we set everything up got comfortable got his bike offloaded and got the trailer blanked out for my bike then drove back to his place and immediately started prepping that which actually technically not my bike maggie's 2018 sv650 current gen lovely machine i was certainly changing my signature my emails to their photo people saying robin quote definitely outgunned dean because i was getting passed all day but having just so much fun. I think I passed maybe three or four people all total, but that bike was just a hoot. Some pretty good photos that I got to witness after. But that's the point is we got all set up the night before and then I insisted when we got back to the sv i was like first things first i need three fingers of bourbon because i need otherwise i'm not going to get to sleep on time i put me out you know so brian walks out with this lovely glass of tasty tasty bourbon got the bike set up went to sleep and next morning there was very little discussion points in the the van at what time 5 a.m

Brian: Yeah we had to get up at 5 had to leave at six so we got there a little bit before seven got in line, yeah and i also want to mention one little detail that's really nice is when we got there the day before, I had to stop and sign a waiver because, you know, if you die or something, but you had to stop and sign a waiver, but there's no admission fee just to be there at the track. So that was nice. We wander in, set up, unload a bunch of crap, you know, set up the canopy, set up my bike, wander around, get the vibe, see where tech is and all that stuff. Very, you know, see where the bathroom is, all that good stuff. And yeah, the next morning, get right in, get set up. So one of the things, and I think this is every track day, but it's pretty tight. The track opens at 7 a.m. And, The rider's meeting is at 8.15, 8.20, something like that.

Robin: Right.

Brian: So you've got a little over an hour to get set up, whatever you need to set up. So we unloaded Robin's bike, unloaded the coolers, blah, blah, blah, get everything set up where we want it. It's always an operation. You streamline over time, I think. But get over to tech.

Robin: There's a trick to that now. You feel the tension of the scheduling they have arranged, and it is a bit militant. You know you are having a good time you will enjoy today you know it's all intense but i told you that i was not going to have that and i didn't i've walked over asked about so what time do i do something what's happening when who am i talking to and that got done and then as i was getting ready to leave i said okay so where is tech gonna happen and they were like over there And they kind of waved in a vague direction. I was like, oh, okay, I'm looking here. Where, where is it? And then I hear a voice say, do you see the sign? And that was my first opportunity to make sure it was understood. I turned around and I looked at this person very calmly and I waited for them to understand that I'm not having that shit tell me where the fucking sign is. And the person looked up and they were large and in charge. They, they're the one that was running the presentation of everything. They looked up and they, they looked at me and they gave me a wink and a smile. They knew that I was just like, no, they made up for the brashness of the initial. That's where you're, you know, do you not know where you're going? What do you know where you're going? You know, like, so tech. It all got done.

Brian: He got through tech just fine. I forget what his title is. The guy who runs the whole day, Owen.

Robin: Presentor.

Brian: The director of the track organization, whatever. Yeah, Owen. Great little talk. They go over the flags like they always do, that kind of stuff. There's kind of a quirk about Putnam that we'll get to in a little bit later. So Robin got through tech with no issues. It was, what, five seconds and you had your sticker?

Robin: I got some kid in pajama pants who was like, I don't really like that chain. I was like, me neither. That chain's done. He's like, you're going to want to get a new chain after this. I was like, all right.

Brian: Yes.

Robin: And I was fine. Nice bike. Chain's kind of bad. I agree. Hey, have a good day.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Brian.

Brian: Yeah. It was a little bit different. And I'm not going to call him out by name or anything, but we'll just call him Mr. P. I don't know why. And maybe it's just because I was new to this organization and I was riding a novice this fine day. But yeah, I got a lot of scrutiny to make sure my fork seals weren't leaking. You know, I operated all the controls, said my throttle seemed a little slow to return. I'm like, the throttle body, that's what Yamaha gave me in the throttle body. So I don't know what to tell you, buddy. And I'm not going to repeat it because, frankly, it was offensive language. He was not happy with the state of my brake pads. He was not happy with the state of my brake lines. He was not happy with the state of my brake light. It kind of was like, at a certain point, you can tell, that it's kind of a ritual. I'll just sit here and take it, and I'll smile and nod, and yes, sir, no, sir, yes, sir. And then I got my sticker.

Robin: Yeah, you remember last episode, Joanne made a great point about putting yourself in other people's shoes. Imagine what his home life might be like. I have no idea.

Brian: Wants to work out on a newbie. You know, some 58-year-old fat guy showed up and wants to ride on a motorcycle on his track.

Robin: You're in my school now, guy I've never met

Brian: Yeah and he's like this has my blank the blank name on it so don't go out there and embarrass me you know i'm a grown man you're a grown man this this elevates neither of us sir.

Robin: You have to want him to like adjust his belt a lot you want him to be that guy he's all just oh yeah i'll talk to you about the things that i know

Brian: For the record i will state i ordered a set of new brake pads because one of the things that occurred to me is like i don't have a new set of brake pads on hand in case this guy pushes it. I probably should have. So anyway, I noticed that the pad material measures 4.25 millimeters, EBC brake pads, and the pads on my bike after the track day measured 2.7 millimeter. So that works out to 63.5 percent. And so they had to be around 65, 70 percent before. Anyway, plenty of meat on these pads way above what they, you know, in the manual that says they can go down to a millimeter thick.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: Whatever. Fine.

Robin: Some people like the sound of their own voice. I mean, hell, we run a podcast. We understand that.

Brian: Yeah, voice, voice, voice. And that's one detail. Some track days, and this is something we maybe should compile somewhere sometime, but some track days specify 50% pad life, and some just say your brake pad should look good. And this guy went on, you know, and the brakes were dirty and blah, blah, blah, you know. Anyway, I got my sticker and I got to ride in the yellow group like a good little boy, and it was all good. So happy.

Robin: Intermediate rider signs up for novice and gets that.

Brian: I would also say that showing up with a clean bike would probably also be helpful, too. My brakes were dirty. I mean, this is a street bike. It gets ridden a lot. It gets ridden in the rain. And I hadn't really paid a lot of attention to cleaning things up, so it was kind of filthy.

Robin: That is the truth behind it, is that there are different outfits operating the different kinds of track days. You get a different vibe, a different environment. People start to go on the regular to what they know and understand. And STT has oftentimes, more so now than I've ever seen, a lot of what they do is carried by the snaring and draw of the sport bike bro mindset. So the idea that you would show up with a normal sport bike, as many people do to go to a track day, and get that feeling of you brought that, that could put you off. And so I think when they see a normal street bike, it's not atypical to go to a track day on a street bike that you ride regularly to enjoy a track day. But if the outfit presenting that opportunity is like, well, can't you see these are all dedicated track bikes?

Brian: That was the weird thing about, I was an, I rode novice because I'd never ridden this track or this organization before.

Robin: This was a spy shoot.

Brian: I was the only sport touring bike in the whole novice group. There were a whole bunch of like race bikes with numbers. There were a whole bunch of dedicated track bikes. There were quite a few sport bikes and novice. And then me sitting a foot above everybody else on my tall rounder sport touring motorcycle. Like, hello. Wow.

Robin: I watched you do some amazing things though, man. You had a good day. You finally got to unleash and I saw it go down. It was great.

Brian: Got to uncork. Yeah, I got to pass some of those guys on those numbered bikes.

Robin: They got to see that happen. They got passed by you.

Brian: And I do want to give a shout out. There was a guy there. It was a brand new Ducati Panigale. Beautiful, bright red, absolute pure sex in motion and his eyes were like bugged out of his helmet and he was shaking like he was, he was like man I got I got to learn how to ride better I got to learn how to ride he just kept saying like he was he was waving me around him and so you go you go up there I'm I got to learn how to ride this thing I got to, Shout out, mister. I think this guy understood it. That's why he was there.

Robin: But he was cool. Like he was humble.

Brian: Yeah, he was humble about it. You know, obviously he doesn't want to scratch a 30,000 or whatever the hell those costs a lot. That was interesting difference in the cultures because at MotoVid, there were a lot of bikes of all, there were, you know, there's a guy on a Triumph, Speed Twin. and it's almost a cruiser. The last track day at Road America, there was a guy in a gold wing with the antennas and everything in orange and rocking it. It's a different variety, which I thought was interesting.

Robin: I don't know where the arms are more open. I think that something started to sculpt what we witnessed in many and other previous events that they host. They just eventually drew in enough of a particular kind of mentality that that's what they are most used to dealing with. And that's okay. They're trying to run a business. Whoever wants to show up and pay the ticket, take the ride, that's cool. It does inspire me. Like, I really want to have a dedicated track weapon. Right now, I don't have anywhere to keep one, and I'm working on the concept of that. But the idea is that, like, when you have one, whatever it is, it should be treated with the same... It's like a really overpriced skateboard. You're going to want a machine that you can treat like you would treat a skateboard. You're not looking to fire it off into the grass. Heck, you don't want to have that conversation about why it happened and what you need to do to become better. You want to ride well and you want to enjoy the machine, but to own the machine where you can go in not with reckless indifference, but financial indifference is hugely positive. I think that's a good thing. Go get a $500 bike and turn it into a $1,700 bike. Then you've got a weapon that you can just break if you need to survive the instance and, push a lot more limits because it's not your go-to daily rider

Brian: There are still consequences no matter what but uh yeah again the thought was coming to me is like man it'd be cool to have a dedicated track bike and i'm like what what am i what's going through my head here what's going on but yeah it would be cool, so the track itself a couple of specifics about this track i really enjoyed i liked how turn one, wasn't an absolute park it and turn 20 foot 90 degree hairpin or whatever like at road america turn one is probably the tightest turn on track and so you got to go from 130 plus to like, 30 you gotta haul it down like turn one is not the tightest and then it goes into reducing radius and then you gotta there's a kink and so forth so it's really interesting you don't have that holy shit all down.

Robin: Well we've seen things we've seen riders not understand the concept of a break point nor the concept of 360

Brian: Awareness it was a little weird like i was at least in my group i going into turn one i think there may be may have been one or two laps where i was kind of all you know not all out i wasn't i wasn't all out all day but i was, at an elevated pace pretty much most of the time i was kind of in traffic and staying the hell away from all these people doing unpredictable things yes, i remember seeing like 85 on home on the front straight once because i forgot to cover i remember because i was like no this i'm not gonna go past this guy because he's all over the place doing all kinds of weird stuff unpredictable.

Robin: Consistency and predictability are two enormous ingredients that will by themselves on a slower bike get you all the way up to the most advanced groups because you have smoothness and consistency of form. Found it impossible, not only because I was on stock suspension, stock forks, stock tune, handlebars, seat position, all of it was just bone stock 2018 Suzuki SV650. It did not change the fact that even when I did have the opportunities to pass, and I did, I could not work up the gumption in intermediate to do it. They were fairly predictable. They really were. They were doing a really good job. They had a really good feel. And I still was just like, that's the difference between me and whatever comes next is, do I have the stamina and the confidence to say, I can see their rhythm. I can see their line. And I'm going to take this at this point to get around them. That is next level shit. And I don't have it yet. I will one day. I'm excited to say. To bring that back to down to novice is just chaos. What you were going through is just like, oh, what is going on? This really is a track. Holy crap. I really, I'm really doing this and you've already done it, but you're watching them experience that.

Brian: Yeah. A lot of people were really all over the place. Yeah. You really wanted to give each other a lot of room. So, which I did. It was like one of the things, I learned and figured out, you know, and again, this is, this is basic track one-on-one I know, but one of the things that was really fun is, and they talked about in the classroom was, planning your paths ahead of time, two or three TURFs ahead of time, a couple of times, you know, I was able to actually make it work where, You basically give going into the last turn before the front straight or whatever, wherever you plan to pass. You know, you don't sit there six feet from the rear wheel or, you know, three feet if you're whatever. You don't sit there right next to them. You give them time and then you out corner them big time. And so you got 20 miles an hour on them going into the front straight. Some of these people just freaking park it. And they're offline. So you're on the correct line and you've got a significant speed advantage. And you get into the throttle even, you know, much sooner than they do. That's a lot of fun. And there were times I managed to pull that off and then I had the speed and then they're like going back and forth on the front straight. Like, you know, there's nothing to win here. I'll just let you do whatever weird shit you're doing. And we'll live through turn one.

Robin: Like in session one, we did this 15 or 20 times. I'm not sure what you're trying to adjust for or prepare for, but you know, we're going to make a right turn at the end of this.

Brian: Yeah, it's kind of like, damn, dude, there was a variety there. And I do want to give a shout out to the control writer, Quinn, who was, they divvied up into groups and there was, I missed something there. There's, there's some order to what group you're in, but I don't know what it is.

Robin: Well, there was a lot of verbal backtracking on certain things while the presentation was going on. Now, remember, they had a day before of constant heat. It was not cool out by any means. And then they wake up the next morning to repeat that, there were going to be some stutter steps, you know, just heat-induced hallucinations. For example, my first entrance on the track, like first off, a cold track, they're like, intermediate, go get to work.

Brian: Go get the dew off this track for us, all right?

Robin: Here's one pro tip. When you're going to describe a track, describe it in parallel to the actual track location that you're at. Don't create a new orientation for the people that are there to try to figure out what you mean when you could just stand next to the concept of the track and be like pointed out right there for them in relation to where they are. For example, when I went out to line up, there's this pole divider down the entrance to the track, and I ended up on the left side of it because I just didn't understand what was going on, where I was supposed to be, what was happening. And when I got to the end of the left side of it, the lady who is kind enough to be standing in the sun all day telling people when they get into the track looks over at me and is shouting at me in an angry way about where I'm supposed to be. But that wasn't made clear. You will see a metallic pole divider. You want to be on the far side of that from where I am standing on the right-hand side from your spectrum when you enter. So make sure you get that correct. I was the first one out and now I'm immediately being shouted. I'm like, hi there. I gave you money. Shut your pie hole. I'll be over there in a second. And I turned around and went back and got in line. The point is clarity of communication and descriptions. It's important. Now, mind you, don't let any of my negatives change the fact that they did a great job and I had a great time. I had an excellent time at this track. But Brian, you also went through something similar in terms of communication.

Brian: Yeah, and I will say, you know, these are complex events. There's a lot going on. There's a lot to think about. People's eyes are all over the place. So I get it. And again, MotoVid, there's a lot of stuff that's not spoken that should have been spoken or maybe it was and I didn't hear it. There's a lot of unwritten stuff that really should be fricking written. And that's the one thing every organization needs to write down the unwritten rules. And they never do.

Robin: Sit down, get organized, prep your words.

Brian: Yeah. So there we were just before lunch. So novice was, novice basically ran last. So intermediate ran, then advanced and novice. Intermediate ran first just to knock the dew off the track and make sure it was, you know, all nice and slippery. So right before lunch, we go out and somebody visits the landscaping for some reason. I never have any idea why. But anyway, yeah, somebody visits the landscaping and it's a red flag. So we come back in, they scoop him up, they scoop up his bike, and he comes back in and we go out again to finish our session just before lunch. This is all my fault. I own that. I get it and so forth. But the entire scientific method, I will swear that I did not see any checkered flag. So anyway, we went around and we went around and we were around. We rode motorcycles fast and we went in circles and it was awesome. And then the control rider ahead of me and the customer ahead of me, I guess the rider ahead of me, left the track, but I didn't see anybody else leave the track and I didn't know why. So I just kept going. And then when I went past on the front straight the checkered flag was was waved angrily like it was sort of waved like it wasn't pointed at me like a black flag but it was like waved with verve, and then I noticed I was very alone.

Robin: You had a clean slate open canvas of a racetrack all to yourself

Brian: I had an open canvas I really didn't take advantage of it either because I was looking around like I just screwed up I'm not sure what I did, I'm not sure what's going on here I really screwed up somehow and I kept looking there were no flags no flags no flags no flags no flags and I exited the track, I was the only one there it was a very slow lap because I was like look what's going on here and then I exited the track and there was a young man in a car with a red light on it and he waved me over to have a chat, and so we observed the ritual you know basically told me yeah you you did an extra lap whatever, You should have exited the track. There were checkered flags. And again, I'm not clear on this, but from what I understand, they fly on, you know, when it's time to exit the track, they will fly the checkered flag at, I think, three locations. They don't do it at every station for some damn reason. I have not figured that out. And to this day, I do not know which stations.

Robin: Checkered flags cost money, Brian.

Brian: And apparently having somebody wave the flag costs money or something. Like I said, I did not see a checkered flag. I knew we were getting close and I would swear I was looking for him, but I didn't see anything. So yeah, I came around and waved it angry at me and I came in and so forth. So this guy, and we just run around in circles. Yes, I know what I did. I'll pay more attention in the future. And then the guy would just start over. And it's like, so you've got a contract where you have to give a three minute lecture to any grown adult who screws up and knows what he did and won't do it again, sir. It just went on in circles. It's like, come on, dude.

Robin: That must be unique to them.

Brian: I'll fix it up. Can I go eat lunch? Yeah.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: Again, my screw up, my bad. Everybody else saw the flags. Everybody else at least had the brains to follow the control riders off the track.

Robin: So point counterpoint, you might, that flag may have gone up literally right behind you.

Brian: Right.

Robin: We'd have to see video footage. I had an incident at Black Hawk Farms where I went into the hot pit. Now, the hot pit and the regular pit out lane are divided by a solid line. And the first instructions about riding on a track, cornering and paranoia of people being around you, do not worry about the people behind you is important. Take your corner. It's yours.

Brian: Don't look back.

Robin: Right. Yeah. Do not look over your shoulder. So I take the hot pit lane because I people get further ahead, basically open up the track for my use. And that's a solid divided line. And while I'm in the hot pit, I look up into the main bridge and I see a checkered flag. And I am not going to look over my shoulder and I'm not going to cross a solid line when I don't know who's there. I'm going to reenter the track and take one more victory lap before I exit. And I did. The person who was in charge of this on the bridge, I've experienced interactions with this person before, they went into scold mode. So I ride my lap and I rode that lap blast fast and past people who were preparing to exit and exited before them was stopped by the person in the actual pit out lane. And he leaned in and said, so did you see the checkered flag? And I told him what I just said. I was in the hot pit lane. It's a solid line. I'm not going to look over my shoulder. What was I supposed to do? His response? Good call. Go ahead. That simple. It was the right move. And I wasn't the last person off the track. I imagine your situation, you come around where the final opportunity for a checkered flag appears. They plop it down behind you. What do you expect is going to happen? You got the track to yourself because the rhythm was off these things do happen

Brian: I'm looking at this picture i saw hands go up and there are no there are three flag stations and i looked at maybe four i mean there was no white flag there's no checkered flag there's no nothing, at the last three at least the last three and maybe four so i thought they were exiting because of a mechanical problem or something they were, my bad you know everybody else saw it i was i was the only guy so obviously i'm wrong so whatever i'm, The other part of this is that I would have thought, or at least that's what I've heard at other tracks, is that when the checker goes out, it goes out at all the stations.

Robin: That would be better.

Brian: That would be better. I don't know if that's what they do, but if they only put it out at certain spots and then the last three stations don't have it at all, what the hell are you supposed to? You only have one chance to see it? You know, I don't get that.

Robin: Their argument against this is going to be something that sounds like, look, we volunteered here to do this instead of, look, you paid to be here. And that is one of the ranking mechanisms that caused me to say like, oh, okay, that's who's doing it. But in the end, here we are saying what we're saying. Let's lift this up. We need to create a sine wave of the ups and downs that came with this event. And all in all, we got to do it. You didn't get kicked out, you know what I mean?

Brian: So that's good. Yeah, no, it was all good. The only thing I regret is that I didn't haul all the ass on that lap. I had an extra lap, but I spent it wondering what the hell was going on and not just doing a perfect lap.

Robin: Let's talk about that for a second here. when I did finally get in line I looked to a control rider and said hi I do not know this track would you please lead me around I will follow you directly could we go the pace of maybe a quick to fast novice and let's paint the line for me and we did now I think it took me all of five laps to realize what the line really was got the hang of it was getting the thumbs up by the third run. The third lap was when I was getting the, yeah, okay, there you go. But the bike is what it is. Yeah, it was, it was all right. But let's talk about this track. Now, if anybody's listening, go find yourself the Putnam Park Road Course Facebook page. And right there in there, whatever the main pick is, the big pick, you'll see a giant, beautiful drone or helicopter shot. I don't know where this was taken, of their circuit. Let's ignore the first couple of laps because it was very chill. It was like, okay, here, here, here, here, here, here, 10 different court. By the third lap, I was trying to get a rhythm for the braking. Now, when you enter the course, you're going uphill. And then you drop into turn one, which is an increasing radius curve,

Brian: But it's a little downhill and you can't quite see it.

Robin: Yeah.

Brian: That's so cool. Yeah.

Robin: The first turn is over a plank and down in to an increasing radius. After that, a kink and then a standard S-curve, which is also an increasing radius when you come out. So turn one to turn two is the trick I want to talk about first.

Brian: Yeah. Turn two is a smaller radius. So you have to be aware of what you're scrubbing off and when one to get to arrive at two with just enough and not too much and not too little.

Robin: Any track design, it's intended to mess with you. The trick I'm noticing is that one, no, you cannot just gun it into an increasing radius turn one because turn two is going to be a total upset for you on the brakes if you do. The second flip side of that that I never got right on that day, and I'm going to work out next time we're there, and there will be a next time for sure, is that you also can't run and gun into turn one and then just roll off the throttle and assume that the coast down is the trick. There's a very particular amount of consistent throttle that you need to maintain on a decel level, like you're decelerating, but you're doing it only as much as is necessary. I've never seen that before in all the tracks I've written. Not once. The need for a perfected amount of deceleration without total roll-off to lead into turn two. That's turn two, which is an uphill, by the way.

Brian: Yeah, that was wild. Really fun.

Robin: Turn three is, okay, run wide. If you can, scoop the candy canes with your tires for a split second and then jab into turn three. Where followed by turn four, which is an uphill left-hander, that is also an increasing radius that is just, it's just a haymaker on the throttle. Just a can of whoop-ass go-fast juice. That is the moment where I realized this is the first track day where from start to finish, I melted my pucks down. And I've never done that. It's always been almost, almost, kind of, sort of, almost, and I'm on a bike that really doesn't lend itself well to that, but it just felt so good. And you know, I'm posing and I'm getting passed, but it was totally substantiated. That brings us to turn five, which is where my whole dance card was just, no, don't, don't bother passing. You could, it's probably the guy you want to pass, but this is all beyond both of our pay grades. So it's like, you don't know where to pass this guy. And then he'll probably catch up to me and pass me on the main straight anyhow, because I think that's kind of what it's all about in some points.

Brian: Four to five, you could do a lot of passing there if you, if you really wanted to push it. I, you know, I didn't. And again, five and six are one corner. You know, that's one of your favorite sayings is like two, three, and four, all one corner. You know, and this is again, one of your favorite sayings, but like five and six are one corner. You know, you kind of arc through them and then seven gets a little tighter, which is really fun. I'm looking at the official track map. If you click the link, you'll see they're numbered.

Robin: I cannot see that map. I think it's my VPN. But the point is I'm looking at the actual photo. So it makes me work harder.

Brian: One of the things you're getting is when you're going into six, you go into four, you go into five, there's a tree there. You can't really see six and seven very well. So you have to know what's there.

Robin: And it's over a hill. So you're in the blind.

Brian: Yeah, there's a little bit over the hill.

Robin: The whole track is in the blind.

Brian: Hiding the apex just under the hill is the trick this track has it's really fun so fun it's so fun what the i can't, use the force luke like they've got just one tree there you can't see seven and it's really fun and again it's it's just a slight downhill.

Robin: Well looking at it from above if we were to like have like slot cars going it tells me to blaze one two three blaze four with full hatred it all up into five and then keep gunning it over the line until you clip six and that's where you roll off and you keep rolling off until you exit all the way through seven i think i might have done that almost once

Brian: Yeah you never get it right which is you know that's that's the whole point you never get it right and then you know the one they keep talking about they call it dead bear turn which is turn which is eight and it's it's basically almost, i think it is a 180 it's close to it perfect symmetry perfect 180 and that's the thing it really kind of separates the the men from the boys there.

Robin: It does go uphill

Brian: Yeah and it's a little bit uphill.

Robin: Wait wait wait it goes downhill then uphill so that's the trip

Brian: Yeah it goes downhill and again there's some trees so if you're going into turn four you're on the other side you can't see the other side i don't know if there's really anything you need to see over there to plan ahead but whatever.

Robin: I came around that corner when somebody had just biffed it and they saw me, their eyes got huge and they turned around and they were running into the field, like sprinting. Dude, don't worry. It's. It's just an SV650.

Brian: You can't hear a thing. Yeah, that's kind of their big carousel turn, and it's a lot of fun. The tricky part about that for me was you can hit that a lot harder, and you can use a lot more throttle than you think you can. You kind of have to work up to it. You need experience, and you need to work up to that. And then we go into the final combination is 9-10. 9's a nice big sweeping radius, but 10's a little bit tighter radius.

Robin: It's slightly downhill on 9.

Brian: Slightly downhill, and in 10, you're onto the front straight. Because 9 is larger radius and it decreases radius into 10, the line is kind of complex, plus you have a lot to look at. That's where you exit the track, kind of at the end of 9.

Robin: Turn 10 is not a decreasing radius. Again, this is the mind fuck.

Brian: It's a smaller radius than 9, but it's not a decreasing, no.

Robin: But what happens is, because 9 is an increasing radius downhill, hill, you get the running gun effect where you're basically going to go wide and then you need to deal with a normal curve. That took work to get the hang of. But once I had it, that's the curve that I most feel I got that one because I always ended up barely three inches from the candy canes on the main straight. I liked that.

Brian: So it looked more intimidating. So a lot of people slowed way down on 10 more than they should have.

Robin: Nine does it to them. There's nothing complicated about 10 except for the nine gets easier and easier and faster and faster. And then there's this dwarfed straight. The straight is the kink. You think of a kink as being an elbow, but what if you make the straight the kink? And then you got to deal with the aftermath of that.

Brian: So if you look at the aerial shot of the track, the trick there is to be going fast enough to just, kiss the candy canes on the left side, on the outside, just after the exit, and then kiss the candy canes on the inside. There's like a little tiny bit of candy cane right after the exit to the track. So the trick there, most people are way too far to the right. You want to get way to the left, kiss those, and keep on it. Kiss those candy canes, clip the inside, and again, you know, your knees over the candy canes, and then it opens up onto the front straight, you know, at least in novice what i found was nobody nobody really figured that out like you could, like they slowed way down before they went into 10 they came out of nine and went whoa. And then and then nobody was going very fast in 10 and really i'm glad i rode i rode novice i wanted to see, how they taught things what they had to say so absolutely it was the right play it was the right move and so forth even when i was kind of jammed up behind some slow skis you know there's still a lot to learn You can always work on form. You can always work on line. You can always work on, okay, there's a control rider towing this guy around. I can watch the control rider and see what he's doing and that kind of thing. The control rider for my group was Quinn, by the way. Great guy, really did a great job. He did some stuff too to kind of, like he was kind of pacing the slow guys and kind of, you know, waving me or, you know, that kind of stuff. So he was managing the traffic pretty well. You know, it's amazing. You know, you think you're a good rider and then you see like one of the control riders, like, you know, they're looking behind them 90% of the lap. You know, they're giving you the thumbs up and waving and, you know, smiling.

Robin: They know that track.

Brian: Yeah, they don't even have to look. It's really, some of those guys are really, really pretty amazing. And so things like, you know, maybe I'm not going the pace I want to in this corner or in this section or whatever, but I can be more precise. I can follow the line better. I can be more precise with my body position, that kind of thing. So, you know, there's always something to learn.

Robin: Always.

Brian: From that stuff. But yeah, just as, you know, being able to do it, to at least do a few passes, you know, like I was, I was out, I was outpowered by a lot of people, but I was able to pass them, especially in, in nine and 10 and getting that closer to right than they did was very useful.

Robin: I don't remember the name of the control rider that I talked to the first session when I basically said, please give me a leg up on this. Help me understand better. Be the guy. But I will tell you that almost every session after that, he kept an eye on me. And that means a lot. So Owen is the guy who was like, do you see the sign, right? And then immediately made up for it and then put on a great day. And helped me out with a lot of questions. I was like, hey, so this, that, where are we allowed to pass? Do I need to go to, do we have any classroom stuff? He says, you can pass anywhere. And how do I position myself into a slower group? Things like that. He really helped very much. I don't know who the control rider was. I didn't get a name. But the fact that repeatedly, whenever they passed me with somebody faster than me, whatever, you know, I knew when I can and a track I don't know on a bike that's not mine. But the fact is, is that this dude, every single session would invite me into that line of like me and one person, then chase him around and kudos to the general positivity of. The good-natured actions of the control riders there.

Brian: And again, I felt like they were paying attention, and that's what you want out there. You know, got a lot of thumbs up and got a lot of, you know, wave-arounds and stuff like that.

Robin: I got told I looked uncomfortable. Who was the guy that came up to us? I forgot his... There was a guy that walked up to our pit setup, and he had apologized for cutting into my line. Oh. And there was no vibe. It was like, nope, you were fine. I mean, he outgunned me and outpowered me by easily twice the bike. I didn't even experience the tension of it, but he seemed so very concerned. It's like, nah, man, you're fine.

Brian: All good.

Robin: And he saw my line. He knew my line was good. He just didn't account for the fact that I'm feeling the way I'm feeling in a track I'm not familiar with. So that same guy at the end of the day, and I'm just jumping ahead for a second. At the end of the day, he said, so you look uncomfortable out there. And I'm like, well, I'm not uncomfortable, but that is a modern standard posture machine. Upright posture. Oh yeah, you're upright. All right. I'm like, yeah, that's kind of the deal.

Brian: You're upright. You're not overly overwhelmed with power.

Robin: Shin over wrist is work. It becomes super moto in some manner of speaking. And I think he understood that after a second. But that's where I got confused about, are they trying to vibe the customers? Are they trying to impose knowledge? Are they trying to get to know the customers? Are they trying to weigh knowledge? Those are two very different platforms.

Brian: Yeah, one thing in Novice, yeah, it was a little different. We all were doing well, and they basically canceled the last classroom session. You know, we were like, ride, go to the classroom, get it together, ride again, go to the classroom. So I think we went to the classroom two or three times, and then they canceled the last one and said, go forth and ride. I think we had a novice class that wasn't, like, I think a lot of them had been there the day before or were repeat customers, something like that. So it was a little less thorough than I have seen before, let's put it that way, which is fine. We only had two red flags i think in novice and both the people were fine bikes weren't, really okay but you know that's part of the deal but yeah we had two red flags but again they're huge amounts of runoff they were in the gravel just standing there you know watching everybody go by, wasn't a big deal and also the track staff there i have to give them a shout out they i mean they were out and they had like picked up the bike and the rider and had it on the trail and they were like gone in maybe two or three minutes.

Robin: Might have some experience there they may have done it once or twice.

Brian: Yeah, we just, we just basically, if there was a red, when there was a red flag, we just, we all came in, you know, like you're supposed to, and we waited, you know, like one time we didn't even shut off our engines. We just waited and then we saw the trailer take off and then we just got back out again. So it was very quick, very efficient.

Robin: Turn eight towards the exit of it. That's where I found myself making eye contact with a gent on the track in his leathers with his helmet on and his bike off in the grass and he saw and he turned around and ran now that same instance

Brian: Like he was off to the outside.

Robin: He was off to the outside but he turned around i saw him running like he he was yeah impressive olympic what I never really got a chance to do those. One small piece of his bike did stay on the track. I don't know what it was. It was some piece of plastic, like a left cowling something, something, whatever. It was not very big. Maybe the size of both your hands put together. But it was black. It stood out right there in the silver pavement. And I kept on running past it. I was just thinking like, man, I could just, I mean, my knee's already touching. I'm melting the pecs down. I could just reach out and grab it real quick. By the fourth time, I was like, I could just kick it. I could just kick it off the track. I'd be so cool.

Brian: Didn't see that. Yeah, they must have grabbed it before we went out again. I will say that Quinn and I had a little talk afterwards. He said, you know, and he said some very head inflating type of things. And then, and he said, uh, he's like, there's one piece of advice I have is to take the center stand off next time. You are correct, sir. Yes. And if you look at the picture, like I, I dropped it in the document. If you look at the picture, you can see my center stands, maybe like a quarter inch off the deck. And I'm like, yeah, I know. That's the next thing. I can be very precise. And so I know like when I drag the feelers, yeah, I know where that's at. And I know the next thing is the center stand. So I don't go past that. So my feelers are pretty ground down. Anyway, I'm in a right hand return and you can see underneath that the center stand is real, real close. I'll take that off next time, even though it's a giant pain in the butt. The other thing I will say is also, like, I've talked before, you know, I know my brakes aren't 100%. And so, yeah, I ordered, I have brake pads sitting here. I have, I actually have a new set of rotors on the shelf that I bought when I first bought the bike. Somebody, for some reason, they bought a new FJ09 and they wanted to put on these, like, fancy shape brake rotors. So I have a set of extremely low mileage, almost new brake rotors on the shelf. So mine, the limit is four millimeters. Mine measure 4.18, and the new ones measure five millimeters. So there's been some wear. And I also have a set of stainless brake lines coming from Spiegler. So yeah, I do plan to basically wholesale upgrade the brake system next time, Mr. Grumpy.

Robin: Just tape a whole bunch of brakes all over, just brake pads all over your forks. Just I pasted my own picture in the outline.

Brian: I do have to say, watching you come around 10 onto the main straight and pin it for all it's worth, an SV650 is not a leader bike.

Robin: No.

Brian: And even though you had the little inserts out of the exhaust, it was still pretty quiet.

Robin: I can't make sense of that because that exhaust is pissed off loud. You heard it in your garage.

Brian: Oh, it sounds great, yeah. With those inserts out, it was nowhere near some of the track bikes out there. But it was really, you could tell you're coming around on the front straight and you're just like, I'm giving her all she's got. You know, it's like, there's only so much you got in a 650, but like in the corner, sure. Rocking it. It's light. It's agile. You're just killing it. Like you can look how much taller my bike is. So, you know.

Robin: It's a sport bike on stilts, man. That's a fantastic shot. I think you had a great day. And I know for a fact that I watched them saying, no, you go around, go, go, go. You pass us. I saw that over and over. That is a beautiful pick that you should definitely get blown up for Christmas.

Brian: Yeah. Overall, I feel like sport bike track time, like I said, there are differences. I feel like they run a nice tight ship. On track, everything is really fantastic. The control riders are great. And the track itself is amazing. The best surface I've ever seen. Not that I've seen a lot, but really tricky and really interesting track and just a ton of fun.

Robin: I fully support what they do and I appreciate that they make such things available. I'm always judgy critiquing. I guess that would be my major critique is that I wish they would invite and humbly accept direct, even the harshest input. Just about like, hey, work on this, expand on that. Make sure we understand this without overstepping the thrill. Be receptive to the, hey, this could have been better. And that's with any outfit. Don't stand on your format so tall that you don't have any room for new information.

Brian: And again, write down the unwritten stuff. There are some things that they did not convey in writing and things they didn't convey in any form until you get there, that kind of thing. So guaranteed, we'll be back to Putnam as often as we can. It's very convenient. That's for one. And it's a great track. STT also runs track days all over the place. I've only been to Grattan as a race mechanic. Grattan as a rider. I would love to do that. I would love to go to Gingerman. And then they also run track days at BFR, Blackhawk Farms Raceway. So one way or another, get back to BFR. They also run at Road America. Just not enough days and weeks and money in the summer to do it all. But yeah, definitely be back at Putnam at least a couple times next year and then do a couple of others. The last thing is a track day is much better when you go with a friend of yours. I just can't imagine going, you know, going by myself would just, it would be fun, but it would kind of suck in a way, too. So I'm glad you were there. And it really added to it to be there with a good friend.

Robin: This was near your home. You waited for any of our mutuals to sign up for this thing, and I really wanted to, and did. Really happy about that.

Brian: Like I said, Putnam Park, you got to get there. It's really fun.

Robin: Well, is that all we got?

Brian: I think so.

Robin: Want to get out of here?

Brian: Let's get out of here.