My passion started back in the 70s when my dad took me riding on this thing...loved the two wheels life ever since. She's not pasta art but man I loved that bike.
Just before my 7th birthday, my father came home from work. In the back of his truck were 2 1970 Trail 70s. Both were in great shape, and both were 4 speeds. I've been on two wheels, in varying forms, since.
This is a good thread. When I was about 7 I rode my cousins mini bike, the old school 5 hourse briggs style. It was a piece of junk and kind of a death trap really. After that I begged my parents for one. When I was about 9 my dad came home with one, which was also kind of an old sketchy bike. Then moved on to dirt bikes and quads over the years. I was pretty hooked but can say that motorcycles truly became a huge passion for me after I got on a track about 3 years ago and really got surrounded by people that love and live the sport.
My brother had a double lung transplant, and in 2007, we were watching the Daytona 200. He just popped up and said, when I beat this and get on my feet, lets get a bike. I agreed, but only a 600. We decided on a Honda. Unfortunately he succombed to organ rejection and sepsus, and didnt make it. Passed away April 14, 2007. On June 3rd, 2007 I honored my end of the promise, and purchased a 2007 Kawi 250. A year later I was on the Honda CBR600rr. Never looked back, and it saved my life.
I'm assuming that you are asking "what got you started" when it comes to track days so that's how I'm going to respond. Pocket bikes, lol! My brother and I bought a couple of cheap Chinese pocket bikes to do some parking lot thrashing. The lot we most frequented was big enough in my opinion to warrant buying a cbr250r to bump it up a notch. My brother wasn't on board with that, probably a good idea. I found out about track days by searching for local club racing, found a local race/track day organization and went for it since they do track days in conjunction with racing and now I'm a track day junkie! Since I'm not really interested in racing, I searched for track day only organizations and STT had more tracks available to try out which really grabbed my interest. I've had one of the best years in my life riding with STT this year and look forward to repeating it in 2016!
Charlie, How does your coach do on Diesel? Do you feel like its overkill to take to the track? I'm looking at a 45' er and wonder if the 7 MPG is gonna kill me! But if I can load up on travel partners I suppose it wont be to bad.
I was at work in 2007 and picked up a magazine with sportbike on the cover on the track. At that time I had never sat on a motorcycle of any kind, didn't know where the key went or what the controls did. I saw that guy and thought "that looks like fun...I am going to do that". So I called my buddy who had raced dirtbikes and ridden sportbikes forever and said "I want a bike, what should I get?". He said "get a Gixxer". I was like "ok cool...............what's a 'Gixxer'?". Went to the dealership and found a leftover 2006 that was still new. I didn't want to tell them that I don't know how to start it, so I was like "would you put that on the trailer for me while I find a helmet?". Went to my buddy's house and he showed me what the controls did. I had ridden 4-wheelers so when he showed me how you operate the throttle, I was like "well that is gay, are the ALL like that?". Riding came to me quickly and a few months later, that buddy couldn't stay with me through the mountains. I felt like I was riding too fast for public roads and it wasn't safe so a couple of months after that I did my first track weekend. A few months after that I started racing. The rest is history.
A solid 6 mpg towing nothing or a freight train...doesn't matter. She gets what she gets....The 22 ft trailer with a car inside is worst case and makes no difference in mileage...The Aspire is bottom end in diesel sledgehammers.... the Aspire is ISL and the big boy is the ISX engine.. found in the Cornerstone...
I've rode dirtbikes since the age of five. I've raced cars since about the age of 20. This past season, age 26, I started doing track days. When its warm and not 40 degrees (ran a 2:07 in the cold) on the track I've ran 2:02s on a bone stock GSXR-600 with dunlop slicks around NCM. I plan to continue prepping the bike for superstock and hoping to run sub 2 min lap times this season. I'll probably start racing this year also.