Track Weekend 3-3-07 at Coimbatore:
It was a most unexpectedly amazing weekend. I didnt have a bike ready this time (RD getting ready and R1 needing new tires) so went thinking i would have to make do taking pics and watching the races. When we got there though i thought i'd do a few laps on a friends (hennas) RX. Unfortunaltely the RX wasn't in shape, the new port job had obviously wrecked it. I was lucky though coz my friend vodka had brought down 2 bikes, his race RD and his stock cbz. He let me ride the cbz and i immediately fell in love with it, i went out and was running in the 1:33's.
Everyone else seemed to be having a blast too including Rajan Joshua and his daughter who was riding track for the first time. There were a number of newbie bulleteers too who were obviously loving their time out on track. As usual we had classes setup for the noobs and expert riders.
On Sunday i was doing better on the cbz, a lot of people who didnt have bikes to ride were taking the poor CBZ out so i struggled a bit to get time on it. Nevertheless i managed a few sessions and got my times down to 1:31's. I took some of my friends out to help them with their lines and pace and gave them some new ideas to try out. By the end it looked like everyone had improved and were happy. We also didnt have a single serious crash and that just made the weekend even more special.
I returned with my friend Arun in his esteem and we took the ooty / mysore route back. It was a fun drive up the hairpin bends through weekend traffic with Arun eagerly putting his Koni suspension to test. He made sure i was wide awake and making all efforts to stay in my seat :D. We startled many unsuspecting animals as we ploughed through the bandipur forest and almost ran up an elephants butt. Arun knew his way around those parts like the back of his hand though and after a couple of mins waiting to let the elephants pass we were on our way again at a steady 140kmph. Got back early Monday morning 3:30am and sunk into bed exhausted but totally thrilled.
I managed to drag vodkas photographer friend out on track to take a few pics of mine plus a couple of others my friend Sandeep took. More pics of everyone else on Sandeeps photo album here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skudnr12gs/sets/72157594571788331/ and Abhi's website http://www.bikeszone.com/content/view/295/35/
Click on the pictures to view them full sized
