Attack at Peakdale

I went to Peakdale last night. I was looking forward to it as I hadn't been in a while and I was curious to see what it would be like with the new bike. My only goal for the session was to do 15 minute motos.

My first session was dreadful. I felt like a real novice, stalling the bike a couple of times and toppling over in a corner. I think a part of it was getting use to the new bike on a hard packed track. A 4 stroke has a lot of engine braking and so you can't just freewheel like you would on the 2 stroke, you have to be accelerating right the way through the corner. You should be doing this on the 2 stroke but the 4 stroke doesn't let you get away with not doing it. I also think that I was preoccupied with trying to last the 15 minutes and was trying to be too chilled out. I went back in and knew I needed to change something for the next session.

The next session I decided not to look at the stop watch at all but just to ride hard and attack the corners and then just come in when I felt tired. This I found out was a much better approach and I rode much much better this time. After a number of decent laps I looked down at the stop watch and I had done just under 15 minutes so I was happy.

For the last session I decided to take the same approach again but try and turn up the aggression and attack the corners even more. Well what followed was by far my fastest moto at Peakdale to date. I was leaning the bike over more than I ever had and it was actually easier than ever. It felt awesome putting the power on that much earlier and the bike going in the direction you wanted it to go in. I looked down at the stop watch and I had done just over 13 minutes so I put another lap in and called it a day.

I came away from the session feeling really good. I felt like a learned something new and I got to know my bike better. On Sunday I'm racing at Preston docks which I hear is quite a deep sand track. Its supposed to be good so I'm looking forward to it.