A Gaggle of Yamaha R6’s

Greetings to all my fellow two wheelers out there. It’s been a while since I have dropped a story to tickle the taste buds.

Here is a picture of my mates and I waiting in the pit lane on Yamaha R6’s for race direction to open the gate and let us fly the coup.

You see at this point we were all in lockdown like you all and were lucky enough to be let out to play in amongst the fast and furious Spanish riders on Estoril Raceway in Portugal.

It was a fantastic day without incident, accept for a very near high side in the “Chicken” by me in the last session. Fortunately after my ass left the seat and my feet flew off the pegs, I was extremely happy to have landed back in the seat and continued for one more lap before pitting.

Oh sorry, the “Chicken”. You are probably wondering what that is! Ok let me explain. On our first visite to this ex Formula 1 track called Estoril in Portugal, where they have named the last corner after the World Champion Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna.

The corner is basically knee down for about 180 degrees but at around an average of 150km per hour with exit at about 165 going on 170 km per hour.

They named it the Ayrton Senna Parabólica and it is nerve racking as you crack the throttle open and see the tyre marks disappear to your left from under you where other unfortunate riders have lost traction and shot off the track. So it is a bit of gritting your teeth and hanging on behind the screen with a sigh of relief on exit as you stand the bike up.

Well it is not what you think, that is not the “Chicken”. We established the “Chicken” was race direction at briefing who were discussing the chicane before the Ayrton Senna Parabólica. After a few questions to my mates as to what was the “Chicken”, I had a little giggle to myself which set the mood.

Now all chicanes have been rebranded as “The Chicken”.

To end off, It was a great day out with the mates, pushing our machines hard and trying to find our limits experimenting with what we think is the limits of our tires, brakes and suspension. No doubt we are still far off from those limits, but we are all in an endless learning curve when it comes to being on two.

Stay tuned, in my next post I will talk about tire pressures I have found to be good for me on track and off and how they have had an impact on my tire wear. This may be of help to those who are interested.

I will also drop a video or two of us chasing each other down and terrorizing some 1000’s
on our 600’s.

Cheers for now my two wheeled friends and stay safe out there.