I was fortunate to get invited to Silverstone yesterday with SW Superbikes for the 2010 Yamaha R-Series Experience. Yamaha had booked the southern circuit with California Superbike School and laid on 20 brand spanking new 2010 R1's for us to play with
. The bikes were all box fresh, completely standard other than the free Akro cans and Yamaha crash bungs, and all had less than 20 miles on them
. We also had the CSS R1 school bikes and a load of 2010 R6's to play with too.
After the safety briefing it was time for action. I was in the blue group which worked out to be the equivalent of advanced. I jumped onto one of the new R1's and we set off for two sighting laps then they let us loose. On the second proper lap I made the mother of all fuck ups and ended up low siding the R1 at the tight left hander of Vale
. I honestly didn't think I was going that quick but obviously the tyres thought otherwise
. I honestly could have died from the embarrassment
. I'm normally the one calling the first person to crash all sorts of names and there's me laying in the middle of the track and the day hadn't even started yet. Up to that point the bike felt really good. It felt a lot more comfortable than my 2008 R1 for some reason and it also had a good amount of thrust off the initial quarter turn of the throttle. Sounded awesome through those carbon Akras too. Gutted
.
The bike only had minor damage, it's a slow corner and the bike only just reached the edge of the track, so I rode it back to the pits for the mother of all bollockings from one of the CSS guys
. I was the last thing I needed, I felt bad enough as it was without someone wagging their finger and talking down at me
. He took my wrist band off and that was the end of the day for me. Oh well rules is rules. Fair play to Dave from SWS, he wasn't having any of it and he had a word and they let me back out for the next session
.
We were getting ready for the next session and I had to use one of the CSS school bikes as all the others were taken. This one hadn't been used yet, it was stone cold, and so were the Dunlop GP Racer medium compound tyres (no wamers). Obviously the first session incident was still very fresh in my mind so I was going to take it very easy. Out of the pits and coming out of the second corner, with the bike virtually upright I fed the power on gently and the back end spun up and kicked sideways about six inches
. I've never experienced that in the dry before and that was it for me, my bottle completely went and I ended up riding like a complete fanny for the rest of the session.
My spirits were rock bottom and I was going to give up bikes completely at this point
. I was chatting to one of the other lads with us when he mentioned that he used an R6 for the second session and suggested I did the same. So I did and it was superb
. It reminded me how good my 08 one was on the track. Sublime handling and just completely effortless. It was great fun bouncing it off the limiter trying to keep up with the R1's who would only very slightly pull away on the straights, but were easily reeled in in the corners
. During this session Andrew Pitt and Dan Linfoot came out to play and by fuck are these guys quick. They are not just in a different league to us lesser mortals, but in a completely different sport
.
After lunch, Andy Ibbott posed a load questions to Rob Mac, Andrew Pitt and Dan Linfoot, and Cal Crutchlow turned up too. It was interesting to hear what he was saying about Rossi's test at Brno when he rode Cal's WSB R1.
Fourth session and I decided to have another crack at another R1. The bike felt good but not as good as I remembered the first one, and after the R6 in the last session it felt like a bit of a barge to be honest. Not enough front end feel for my tastes and too soft. Suspension and tyres could probably change that but it didn't feel as sharp as my 08. Would probably make a better road bike though.
There was one more session but I decided to call it a day. I was starting to stiffen up from the earlier off and didn't want to chance my luck further. The last session got red flagged and the ambulances went out onto the circuit, when we got worried because one of our party failed to come back in
. And we were right, Gwyn had a coming together with someone else on track and his right hand clip on got hit, ending up with him breaking his collar bone in two places. Okay, these thing can happen but the annoying thing was that the other rider didn't even come forward to own up or see how he was
.
To end our day we were all given a goody bag which contained a disk with all of the days photo's on. We then proceeded to North Hampton General to see Gwyn, and he got discharged at 7.30pm with his arm in a sling and dosed up on painkillers
.
The overall total carnage for the day was 5 trashed brand new R1's, 40% of which was the doing of us Welshies
Would I buy a new cross plane crank R1? As a road bike yes, but for the track I'd take an R6 any day of the week. And a big thanks to SW Superbikes for the day
.
There were 1,348 photo's on the disk, this is a very small selection. See if you can spot the quick lads
