A Lap at Laguna Seca:

First off, I gotta thank Jodie York (www.jodieyork.com) and Jay
McDaniels (publisher of www.activebike.com) for giving me the
opportunity to get up to Laguna and ride the track with the California
Superbike School.

I went out to Laguna Seca on March 29-30 to help cornerwork and and a
perk is that you get to ride the track. I have to say, Laguna ROCKS! I
mean, what an amazing track. At the speeds I was taking it, and doing
the drills, the track was quite forgiving, including the corkscrew,
but I can see as the speed picked up, where its amazingly scarey...

By the end of my day riding the track, I was coming out of turn 11 (I
hated that turn!) and upshifting twice into turn 1. oh G*D! the
distance to turn 2 was getting shorter and shorter, but I was still
able to hit the turnin point and just roll on that throttle 'til I
thought I was going out in the dirt, but the bike would stick and turn
and make the decreasing radius and I'd have it up and down to head
into turn 3... didnt bother upshifting between three and four, but
would out of four and take five as fast as I possible could... short
shift up into six (I won the award for loudest pipe at a whopping 88
dB) zoom up the hill into 7 and begin to pray "do I have what it
takes? can I not roll off 'til the #1 marker?  come on, baby! hang on
that throttttttlllllleeeeee! NO! NO! I couldnt do it! *rolls off at
marker 2* Aims Deep for the apex and slams into turn 8!

well, ok, you cant really slam into turn 8, but I'd shift left
completely blindly, aim for the second turn mark, flick right -- what
RUSH of a feeling dropping 5 stories and accellerating all the way
thru the drop, coming out when your heart in your mouth and wondering
"just HOW the f*CK do the AMA guys DO that? I saw Gobert and Bostrum
thru these turns, scraping knees all the way thru..." -- ooops, cant
think too long, here's turn 9, down hill and under a bridge, and the
turn radius decreases and you wonder if you'll make it or hit the
bridge, and then you're under and there's turn 10! cool! this one is
easy!  (after all that!) zip right into 10 and aim for 11 and get
really nervous. Turn 11 essentially makes me want to stop, turn the
bike and then go... its a slow ass turn, right out onto the
straight... whooeeeeeee!!! begin to acceellerate thru the turn and
have it pegged before I'm up and down, fly by start finish, wave to
Jason Payden or Stoney and wonder if I can hold that throttle open up
the hill. (Usually I couldnt. damn. what a pussy. )

back flying into turn 2, singing at the top of my lungs... "I've never
been so alone, and I've, never been so alive" (Motorcycle DriveBy,
Third Eye Blind)

Turnworking was also fun, we'd have to watch for folks passing
unsafely, or even doing the drill incorrectly. I had to do the drills
too, so as not to confuse the students, so you couldnt ride like you
might if you were doing race practice -- which was fine, I appreciated
the chance to do the same skills lessons as I did on Sunday... so I
got tanner and better at picking out stuff that folks were doing
wrong... as well as really having a good time...

all in all, I hope they call me again -- it was great getting to meet
some of the instructors, and the other turnworkers. 
The stars from the track were gorgeous at night, and I sat a few times
just looking up...

Its definately going to be hard to be there for WSB and not get to
ride the track. 

Gayathri
>--------------------------------------------------------------
 gayathri@world.std.com          Calamari Club #002, WSMC #158
 '88 FZR400 ('gurlzbike')        '98 T595 Daytona, "huckleberry"

  "and we laughed, at the world; They can have their diamonds
	And we'll have our pearls... " -- Jill Sobule