7
So, early this spring My girlfriend (JerseyGirl) invited me to do a private bootcamp in Nov. What do you say to that? Sign me up, that's what! As it happened the organizer needed some help filling the camp, so Kerry invited 10 of our friends to join us. Wooot! That made the camp roughly half roadracers/trackday peeps, and half flat trackers. An interesting mix of levels, experiences and ages. The stage was set for an incredible experience, and it did not disappoint!
The cliff notes: the camp is amazing and worth every penny. A year's worth of learning crammed into four exhausting, exhilirating, humbling, and at times frustrating days. Also, Colin and his crew are really rad people.
The long version:
Day 1: We arrived Thursday afternoon and signed a shitload of waivers, then got set up with a gear bag. There was a quick welcome and orientation by Colin and his crew. Rider coaches were Joe Prussiano, Jake Johnson (Flat track champ), Cory West (road race phenom) and Shea Fouchek (also road racer). The day started with picking a ttr125 and spinning some guided warmup laps of 3 separate tracks, one perfectly flat, smooth covered ring, one outdoor TT track, and one big oval track with a TT type course set up. The surface was red clay on top of sand. Conditions varied throughout each day ranging from moist and very grippy, to dry blue groove, to sandy, to slightly rutty. Generally speaking, the riding surface is both the best, and most challenging/confounding part of the whole event. As soon as you think you have it figured out, it changes drastically and you are back to square one.
After practicing each track for 10 minutes or so, we lined up for superpole 1. This is a timed event. Each rider against the clock linking all 3 tracks together. Conditions were all time grippy and you could almost roadrace the whole course, wheels in line and go fast. Corners range from WOT 3rd gear sweepers to 2nd gear stop and go hairpins. This lap sets a baseline and kinda sets the tone for improvement as you will repeat this challenge once each day. One shot unless you fall in the first corner or two. Then you might get to start over. The coaches are phenomenal at this, and they set times in the 1:28-1:31 range depending on conditions. I set had a clean run and set a 1:36 on day one. This proved pretty hard for me to beat as the track got drier and drier (slipperier) as the days went on.
After superpole, they turned the lights on and we had free ride time. They highly discouraged go too hard as the weekend is long, and bodies are not prepared. I listened and packed it in early. Dinner with the crew followed by some fun games of Crud with Colin and the crew.