First Track Day - I packed up the truck the night before so it was ready to go first thing Saturday morning, making my mental list of things not to forget, gas, cold drinks, paperwork, etc. I drove about 1.5 hours to the track and show up to the mostly fog, and lots of it.

I picked my spot and settled in to let the rain fest that was eminent try and ruin my day. The club that hosted this track day is NESBA. If you’ve got a need for some coached speed this club is the best. I went to meet up with some friends, run the SXV through a break-in, and get the IQ3 working.
I set up a space to get the SXV through tech inspection, and make adjustments to the bike.

The day proved to be a great learning (relearning) experience for me. I hadn’t been to Blackhawk Farms this year yet, so relearning the track was the least of my worries. Getting to know the SXV was the order of the day. I was worried about the engine, blowing oil all over, and watching the track temps rise to almost 100 deg made me even more concerned.

After putting down 30 - 40 laps, the notebook reflected a few things:

• Gearing was all messed up ( was running 16 -32) and barely tagging 5th gear on the straight.
• The bike had a nasty head shake on the front straight, that worried me and the club starter.
• The GPR steering damper seemed to have a break point in the settings - causing me not to trust it.
• The bike was hard to keep under control under hard braking, it tail wagged considerably.
• The IQ3 kept showing an incorrect gear compared to what I was actually in, perhaps the gyro needs to re-calibrate.
• Oil was being blown into the overflow container and I wanted to gauge the rate.
• Pirelli slicks are the best and the 180 rear gives a huge amount of traction. (Note buy more) Read more here.
• Need a chain - the current one won’t fit over anything larger than the sprocket on the bike.
• The Adige slipper clutch is the single best mod to the bike PERIOD. Thanks to Ed Cook at AF1 Racing for the great tip!
• The Tune that was controlling the ignition / fuel mapping had some bad spots. I’ll be tinkering with this later as well.