So how many people look at you like you're nuts bringing a Busa out there. I told my buddies that I ride with on the street that I'm going to and they keep telling me I'm not going to have fun with it out there. They are just Busa haters though..lol
When I showed up for my novice school on my Hayabusa among a forest of Gixxers, it caused quite a bit of discussion.
First off, they didn't know where to put me. They usually put SV students with SV instructors, 600 students with 600 instructors, and so on. They ended up putting me in a catch-all group for various bikes that were not well-suited to the track, and riders who were not real serious about it. Some of them were not very fast. A guy on a Super Chicken threw it down about three feet in front of me after just a few laps. A girl kept wobbling dangerously close to others in our group.
Then the corner workers all moved back about a hundred yards, mentally calculating how far in a bike that big and fast could auger in. They talked about how many of them it would take to pick it up.
After I'd completed the requirements of the class, I hooked up with a faster instructor and he gave me a tow. We came back in and he told me that he couldn't keep up with me, and I needed to find a faster instructor.
We graduated at noon and got some lunch.
At this point, I still hadn't pulled the trigger. For the first afternoon practice session (for the big bikes), we all headed out. I got some clear track and put my head down, passing a number of bikes in the corners and on the brakes. When I came around for my first flying lap at speed, I painted a big darkie out of the last corner onto the 3/4 mile long front straight, got under the paint, and frickin' lit the after-burner. It looked like the other bikes were parked on the front straight as I went past. There were not a lot of people watching along pit wall, as it was just a novice practice session. The engine hit the limiter in 5th (about 190 mph actual with my gearing), and I sat up and crushed the brake lever, snapping off two down-shifts before pitching it into the first corner. The next time I came around, there was a solid wall of people standing on the pit wall, watching. I had to take a different line because I was passing so many people with such a high speed differential. The traditional racing line is to drift out towards the outer wall, away from the pit wall. I had to square off the corner and stay to the inside (near the pit wall), blow past everyone, and then after passing the last bike, move over on the brakes into the racing line to set up for turn one. I was told later that the announcer talked about nothing else, and people along pit wall were stunned. I watched video later that made my bike look like a stinger missle fired down the front straight along side the other bikes.
When I came back in, I could hardly get into my pits for the crowd of people there. Everybody had questions and wanted to look at the bike. We did one more practice session, and then had our races.
They gridded me up in the #1 spot. At the green, I let the clutch out and screwed the throttle on, trying to keep the front end down. I made the 1-2 upshift with the wheel in the air and carried it about 6" off the ground until my 2-3 upshift. As I set up for turn one, I realized that nobody else was in front of me, and that meant that I had to be in the lead. I thought maybe the race was red-flagged and I just missed the flag, but I kept checking at every station, and there were no flags. As I came around onto the front straight for the first time, I could see people cheering along pit wall. I figured I'd get passed on the brakes into turn one. But I didn't. So I led for another lap. On the third lap, I was suprised to come out onto the front straight and see another bike in front of me. But he hadn't passed me- he was a lapper. I blew past him doing about 70 mph more than he.
Anyway, didn't mean to type so much, but I hope that gives you an idea.
