I attended Oct 10th, Lightning with TPM. Overall it was an okay day. I wish it could've been better, definitely too many crashes. Red group did 4 morning sessions, and 3 afternoon sessions. It doesn't sound too bad right? Well, some sessions were only like 5 laps
Honestly, I'm not upset with TPM, they told everyone to take it easy out there during the rider's meeting and stressed a lot of safety. But for some reason, idiots didn't pay attention and continued to ride like they are trying out for a MotoGP team or something. After lunch before we went out, they told everyone to chill and get warmed up again, since we just had a one hour break. Did they listen? No!!! 3 laps in, another crash. They cleaned it up as quickly as they could, then we go out one full lap, but then right before I get to the bowl on the second lap, I see the checker flag.
I kept cool about things and tried to stay positive, but then second session after lunch, exact same thing someone goes in way too hot into turn 7 right after the bridge and crashes (almost taking out the guy next to me in the pits). It appears he was kinda dicing or racing with someone. So this time red group gets yelled. The coach basically said something like, "If you are here to be racing, this is the wrong club. If you guys don't relax, we can skip your group." He also said that he wanted to go home in one piece, something like that. I don't blame him one bit, however I didn't think it was cool that the whole group got yelled at. For the most part I saw many of the red riders doing ok and honestly, everyone was riding safe and courteous. There were a few guys that were running kinda fast probably should've been in blue group, but coach Smoking Joe was working with them, and he's been with TPM forever so I'm sure he knows what he is doing. There was also a guy that I remember, I think he was on a SV650 with orange wheels and he was moving, again probably should be in blue. He certainly was passing fine and was moving fast.
So it's time for the last session, and again the guy running the event for TPM (I'm sorry I didn't know his name) talks to red group and tells us its the last session and to stop crashing. I think the squids had already packed and didn't come out for the last session cause we ran the whole session with no incidents. I believe I got 7 laps consecutively finally!!!
I wish it could've been better. My neighbor ended with about 105 track miles and he did all 7 sessions. I ended with a little less cause I missed the first session, but that was my fault. I'm used to coming home pretty tired but not saturday
I wanna say that I'm not upset with TPM, they certainly were trying to warn people and we got 4 talks about not crashing. It was very clear that certain riders were not listening. I don't know what can be done about this? My one suggestion right now would be to implement a one crash policy, you crash you're out. Make it this strict so that the whole red group doesn't have to suffer for a couple of idiots. I don't know about the rest of the groups, I think blue and white went ok, and art basic level 1 was ok too. Anyone know how those groups did?
I'm glad I got another track day this upcoming Sunday, cause I couldn't end the season this way.
Oct 10th lightning review
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