Posts
183
Joined
5/5/2010
Location
Madison, CT
US
Edited Date/Time
1/26/2012 3:29am
If you haven't checked out the helmet cam on the home page, please do so.
http://www.vitalmx.com/videos/features/Southwick-Preview-Ridealong,1631/GuyB,64
That's some really nice smooth riding. They make it look so easy - you'd hardly know it's deep sand. ...and then I was like WHAT!?!? Did I miss something? Sure enough, next lap...there's a new corner that they're calling 10, 11 and 12 on the track map.
That's a nice addition, even for a C rider. That straight there was always sort of a throw-away, rut management, nothing that was in the way of the next corner. But I always had more speed at the end of the straight than I could carry into the corner, so I'd be backing off into a sandy, rutted, uphill right. And you don't want to be backing off there. That new chicane will actually add flow to the track, I think.
Good work Ralph!
-Dean
I'm missing the race - going to a funeral.
http://www.vitalmx.com/videos/features/Southwick-Preview-Ridealong,1631/GuyB,64
That's some really nice smooth riding. They make it look so easy - you'd hardly know it's deep sand. ...and then I was like WHAT!?!? Did I miss something? Sure enough, next lap...there's a new corner that they're calling 10, 11 and 12 on the track map.
That's a nice addition, even for a C rider. That straight there was always sort of a throw-away, rut management, nothing that was in the way of the next corner. But I always had more speed at the end of the straight than I could carry into the corner, so I'd be backing off into a sandy, rutted, uphill right. And you don't want to be backing off there. That new chicane will actually add flow to the track, I think.
Good work Ralph!
-Dean
I'm missing the race - going to a funeral.
After watching the helmet cam a couple more times, I'm thinking that corner went from one of my least favorite on the track to a really sweet looking sweeper. And turn 11 looks like such a... Southwick corner.
And I guess the hint that it's deep sand is in the audio. Listen to that bike fighting the friction. Man, that place eats horsepower.
In case it doesn't go without saying, forget track records or comparing lap times to last year except to determine how much the corner changed the track. Or maybe I'm wrong...
*insert wandering mind music*
As my memory drifts back to the climbing turn at Lime Rock Park and Jacques Villeneuve in a Canadian Tire Frisbee GR3 decimating the track record... I want to say 48.9 seconds on the 1.5 mile road course. Goosebumps on top of goosebumps.
They added a chicane on the climbing turn shortly after that because cars were backflipping off the lip when the ground effects broke the seal with the pavement. And so we thought nobody would ever break that 'old track" record with a new chicane. But now I just went and looked and HFS!, I found this:
" Lime Rock Park, the challenging 1.53-mile road circuit nestled in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains in northwestern Connecticut, bills itself as the fastest road racing course in the country. How can that be? It's very simple: the track record of 43.112 seconds, turned by P.J. Jones in 1993 in a Toyota MkIII GTP car, is 128.595 mph. No track in the U.S. Can boast a one-lap average speed faster than that."
The Shop
Southwick Preview: Ridealong - More Motocross Videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHLv8HycCyc
This guy is not using the chicane at the climbing turn (which they've changed again, I guess). You can hear him get light at the top.
**************
Southwick was looking awesome today. I love the new turn. The cameras seem to flatten out the elevation changes.
Yes, that helmet cam stuff is top shelf material.
BT went straight through corner 12 after he fell off clashing with Metcalf in Race 1 & took a rider with him, I was amazed they didn't fall off.
Good job>those guys are haulin!
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