Fort Worth Motorcycle Riders

I had read but I guess I just didn't see the water, but noted elsewhere are comments about how deceiving it can look on pavement (maybe rain riding thread).

Its at about 4:38 in the video, the last large patch that he clips before rear loses traction.

Okay I saw the damp spot; that sucks. I have fishtailed in dampness before but at such low speeds it wasn't a problem, at a higher rate of speed, in your experience, is there a way to correct that, or, by the time traction is gone is it essentially to late?

Relax is the best thing you can try to do I believe.

Well, obviously I didn't manage it very well. But honestly, I was completely oblivious to it happening. It wasn't my first time through there, I'd been through that same area before, and if you watch, I THINK I'm pretty close to Striple's line as I follow. I don't even think I was leaned to far. I believe it was a misapplication of throttle ( and torque...the 1050 has it in spades. Get rid of any of those three variables and it doesn't happen, but too much twist on the grip was the root cause in my uneducated opinion.

At exactly the same instant in exactly the same situation I'm sure there are riders, maybe some on this board, who could have salvaged it. All I know is I was hanging on until the rear tire bit on dry pavement, then it chunked me quicker than I could react.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

ALL of the best track riders I know on this board have been down. I guess this just means you will be one of the best soon. Seriously though you never know if anyone could have saved it. Its something that WILL happen eventually.

I agree that it was likely the combination of clipping the water while applying throttle input into the bike that caused the loss of traction at the rear tire. I made a conscious effort to avoid the water in T2, and distinctively remember clipping it on one lap early in the day, which caused my rear tire to slip. If you find yourself in the position where you are unable to avoid the water and have to run through it (because you messed up the line or there is no dry line), the best approach is to keep the throttle steady and to not give any significant inputs into the bike. You will usually feel some degree of slip, but you tend to avoid the complete loss of traction that can cause you to crash. Water in a turn is treacherous--even a small amount can lead to significant traction problems.

LonestarCBR wrote:And this almost hurt my feelings the most...but it did it's job well. I'm honestly confounded as to how it is that it's not in worse shape.

Spoke with Arai tech today, the helmet is now deemed unusable since it compromised the fiberglass, which is what I thought, but it was only $20 (cost to return ship it, they paid for the shipping to them). So now, another helmet for the display case. Me thinkest I need a track-day helmet.

And I finally figured out why it wasn't even in worse shape...I Pirouetted on both shoulders, left elbow and my suit back hump (this may explain getting the wind knocked out of me). The suit took a lot of the impact, which kept the helmet off the pavement more, especially on the back.

My suit hump helped protect my head as well