Cadwell OPL Trackday with vids

So another top day with badapple Adam. My last day was Donington last September and Adam has done a few since then. My first OPL and have to say Adam was right about the format being a winner. Being out of shape as I am I found this time and at donny that I got tense and developed jerky throttle and brake inputs after a few laps in my first stint. But I felt happy enough to just roll back in to the paddock without feeling like I was wasting a session. You can go out and come back in whenever you like and for as long as you like. It also felt quiet and relaxed compared to a sessioned day. I'm not the most organised so I often found on sessioned days I'm rushing to get my gear on when they're calling my group. All round relaxed day which was good. Had the feeling of being like a pretendsy race test day.

Was uncharacteristicly cold for late April and I'd not ridden in 8 months so I was off to a fairly steady start. I also had that sudden turning to jelly after a few laps in the first couple of stints. Think that's probably a mental thing or adrenaline related where as I push on I start to subconsciously tighten my grip and stiffen up. Donny last time out was my first time in the intermediate group so I was a little apprehensive about the pace of an OPL day. From about midway through this video you can see how much quicker some of them are. Though one was Josh Day (Ducati Tri Options cup winner 3 years running).

I started to find a groove later on and soon found some consistency. Though I did do a little grasstracking going straight on at Coppice.

Adam and I also had a few laps on each other's bikes. Was interesting for me because my Mille is my first bike and I'd initially gone to the dealer to buy a ZX6R. So it was like "here's what I could have won". Adam has done a very good job dialing in that bike. The suspension was well sorted and the brake upgrades certainly worked nicely in terms of power and feel. The motor was super strong too. On a par with my RSV. For Adam it was his first go on track on a gen 1 so an experience for him too.

I kept forgetting to turn the camera on so was gutted to get no videos from the afternoon. The final stint in particular I thought would be a winner because I was following Adam closely the entire time. Later in the day I started using that laptimer on the dash that's operated with the headlight flash switch. I consistenly saw low 1:52s and a 1:52.00 was the quickest I saw. My last time at Cadwell I had a best lap of 2:01 so I'm really happy with that progression.

Since the videos Adam had pointed out to me I was slow through Charlies and Park corner. I worked on that through the afternoon and though there's defintely still room for entering Park faster, I at least started to stitch Charlies 1 and 2 together. Like Adam said, it becomes one corner when you carry enough speed through it and Charlies 2 went from being a real "I don't know what I'm doing here" corner to a highlight of the track for me. 

Was a bittersweet day for me because I'm emigration to Australia later in the year and this was my last Northern hemisphere trackday. Adam will also be selling my bike for me in a couple months so I'll have to be stay on here as an alumni member or something ha. Going to miss the bike. 

Open pitlane is a great format pleased you enjoyed it and thanks for the positives on the 6R it's taken a long time and a fair chunk of cash to get it where it is now and it holds its own pretty well especially at circuits like Cadwell. 

Looking forward to catching up again at Oulton