Curious about some thing....20 minute practice sessions

[butcher bergs]

Over the weekend I was talking with a few people and they all expressed a similar sentiment regarding how great having a single 20 minute practice session was over having two 10 minute ones.

The general consensus I found was that a rider was able to get into a groove with a 20 minute session.

Other than that, I can count on one hand the number of red flags between Saturday and Sunday during the extended practice sessions. I believe that number was 2 or 3 across the two days and I can only imagine this is directly related to riders operating with less haste to put down fast lap times.

So, all that said, I became curious as to whether or not we should, as a group, look into having LRRS offer a single extended session rather than 2 short sessions.

Personally I am a fan of the single extended session.

[union]

I like having the two sessions. It was nice having the longer break but with the two sessions you can make changes and go out try them in a non race setting. If they dont work you dont lose anything.

[smokinjoe]

No way, two sessions are better. As stated you can make changes in suspension, etc, and try them out. One session is like a GT race. No good. Bring back the two sessions.

[butcher bergs]

Not sure how you guys are set up but any suspension changes I need to make can be done in less than 2 minutes.

[Jim]

i'd rather have the rest between shorter sessions, plus it gives time to make trial & error changes for the next session.

[Trouble]

I really didn't like the single session approach. If you wanted to make changes (suspension, tires, whatever) there wasn't a whole lot of time, especially if your pit isn't right near the track entry. Sure, you can bring tools out to the hot pit but that seems like it's asking for a rushed change and the potential for items to not be secured properly. I understand why they did it for this weekend but I hope they go back to the two practices in the future.

[tsanterre]

I thought our single practice sessions were 15min?

Either way, I didn't mind it. I understand the viewpoint about making changes in-between practice sessions - but for me 1 longer session was fine this weekend.

["Dangerous" Dan K]

I'm with the majority here, I really like 2 seperate sessions. I'm always much faster 2nd session out. Not sure why, I'm sure it's in my head, but 2 sessions FTW in my eyes.

[b0xmonkey]

I like the two sessions. The first one is a wash usually, just waking up and shaking the cobwebs loose. The second one I try to put down some good laps. My 2¢.

[zx1012r]

The biggest problem is the guys that are first out don't have a chance to get a warming or drying track during the crappy months. Otherwise I like the long sessions. However running 2 bikes that are in back to back sessions isn't a fun stint.

[CBR929RE]

I like having the two sessions. It was nice having the longer break but with the two sessions you can make changes and go out try them in a non race setting. If they dont work you dont lose anything.

[union]

Not sure how you guys are set up but any suspension changes I need to make can be done in less than 2 minutes.

Ya you can turn the clickers in a matter of seconds. Do you really know if its going to work for you if you dont try it out? I wanted to try a different spring on my shock. On a new R6 its a 30 minute job to get the shock out.

[Gecko]

Without a doubt, two sessions. The consensus in our garage was that the one practice session sucked.

For me, I use the first session to shake out the cobwebs, ensure bike and tires I want to use are good, make sure all body parts are willing and able, and then if everything is good after a few laps I’ll set some “good” laps.

In between sessions I’ll swap or flip a tire depending how everything felt, check and adjust pressure, adjust a part or two, change fuel mapping (maybe), take some Advil (why are my legs and shoulders so sore?) and talk with my garage mates who were in the session with me about what they saw and what they did during the session.

Then I’ll use the second practice session to go out and try to set as close to a fast race pace as I can without getting all crazy. I’ll note spots from the first practice where I thought I could be faster or need to work on at pace. Plus, if the changes I made during the first session aren’t working well, I'll change them back or modify them to suit before my race(s).

The majority of our races are 8 lap sprints. If it takes someone 20 minutes to “get into a groove,” maybe sprints aren’t their thing. If they’re into doing the extended session thing, save that for the endurance races.

Oh, and the single session was 15 minutes. So that was one less session with 5 minutes less practice. I was none too pleased with this revelation upon arrival Friday morning.

I (along with the three others in our garage) would oppose a single session (extended or shortened like this past weekend).
.

[BrianC]

I didn't mind the single practice... I actually think it does help get into a groove and I'm not sure I would have done my fastest lap in a "normal" practice... and, I like to treat my bike just like my guitar amp... set it and leave it. Not too into tweaking things unless absolutely necessary because it can really just turn into a never-ending chasing game for that "perfect" setting which in reality doesn't exist. When there are 2 practice sessions I usually skip one, so I'd be for the one extended practice.

[Io-bot]

2 for me please.. Being the first on track at 8:30am or what ever it was sucked, still sleepy, cranky, hungry an horny to operate a motorbicycle around the track. Felt 10x more rushed in the AM to get it all right and ready to roll. Result for me, tucked front in T6 on Friday

Plus, had 4 hours to kill just sitting around doing nothing before the first possible race.

[Io-bot]

Also gives people the option to sleep in, or skip a session if track conditions suck (wet) and give it a go later in the day if things change and tires need not be swapped.

[Chippertheripper]

Also gives people the option to sleep in, or skip a session if track conditions suck (wet) and give it a go later in the day if things change and tires need not be swapped.

This. And always being in a first practice group would suck.

[wheelieman14]

FWIW, when LRRS runs the "normal" practice sessions, they are 12 minutes long with about a minute break between each one. This allows 7 practice sessions to run from 8:00 to 9:30 am & repeat the 7 practice sessions from 9:30 to 11:01 am. Each Group would then get ~24 minutes of practice during the 3 hour practice timeslot.

Since there were many more types of vehicles out for the "Loudon Classic" 3-day event, we only had 2.5 hours available for each morning LRRS practice. To me it made more sense to have a single, longer practice session, than to shorten the normal 12 minute sessions to around 8 minutes.

[Slowpoke387]

It's a big 2 for me as I spent all weekend trying to figure out why my bike wouldn't run. So I would have had 2 extra chances to try the bike after making changes to see if they worked. As it turns out, one more is all I would've needed and so I was unable to race Sat & Sun. My very next attempt fixed it but I was one session too short.

[Gecko]

... Each Group would then get ~24 minutes of practice during the 3 hour practice timeslot.

Since there were many more types of vehicles out for the "Loudon Classic" 3-day event, we only had 2.5 hours available for each morning LRRS practice. To me it made more sense to have a single, longer practice session, than to shorten the normal 12 minute sessions to around 8 minutes.

So the practice sessions were cut short by .5 hrs because there were more races to fit in during the day. But why not start .25 hrs early, and end .25 hrs late to make up the .5 hrs?

[Gecko]

I spent all weekend trying to figure out why my bike wouldn't run. So I would have had 2 extra chances to try the bike after making changes to see if they worked. As it turns out, one more is all I would've needed and so I was unable to race Sat & Sun. My very next attempt fixed it but I was one session too short.

So what was the issue with the bike?

[KB]

I would oppose the single session as well. I would rahter the two sessions.

I thought it was not nice that they cut the practice down to 1 and the attitude of loudon "take it or go race somewhere else" is really starting to get annoying.

This new attitude sucks.

KB

[CBR929RE]

I would oppose the single session as well. I would rahter the two sessions.

I thought it was not nice that they cut the practice down to 1 and the attitude of loudon "take it or go race somewhere else" is really starting to get annoying.

This new attitude sucks.

KB

I'm not sure that was the attitude this time. would you rather have 2 practices and make practice run into the afternoon because of all the extra stuff running this weekend and then some races cut because of it?

It had to be done this weekend because the sidecars and legends cars needed the practice. The rest of us theoretically don't NEED as much practice there because we have many more chances to ride there.

[SVRACER01]

Wirelessly posted (HTC EVO "DROID" : Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.3; en-us; Sprint APA9292KT Build/GRI40) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

What's practice?

[Palm Bomb]

2. Only having one would be retarded.

Ps...how come amateur mw is always first practice? Can we get a rotating schedule? whose cheerios did we piss in to always get the short straw?