I broke Gunther!
On Monday, I went to a track day at Gingerman. It happens to be the end-of-season “Trackfest” for the midwest sportbike tracktime. Immediately after that weekend is the “Johnny Moto Day”, a dealership (Motoworks Chicago) sponsored event. Gunther and I did great!
I got knee down in turns I’d never gotten knee down in before- the left turns, 8 and 9. That means that I picked up my pace, yay!! Maybe next time I’ll bring a lap timer that I can use. I got a cool one for tecnicomoto for his birthday, but still don’t have one for myself.
Lack of data notwithstanding, I felt much more confident at Gingerman this weekend than at the races earlier this year. It was much more fun. Plus, there were other girls! These two lovelies next to me are both instructors at Ride Chicago, a motorcycle riding school.
Unfortunately, I also killed Gunther.
During my last session of the day, as I was accelerating out of the blend line to get to Turn 3, Gunther died. I still had electrical power, but no motor movement. And since that’s a really really bad thing to have on a racetrack when there are possibly people behind you that don’t know you can’t move, I got the hell off the race line and hung out for the rest of the session in some weeds.
Ultimately, two other people crashed in that session. The track only had a one-vehicle carrying capacity for its crash truck, so I would have been the last pickup due to my issue being mechanical. Instead, a friendly corner worker helped me push the bike all the way back to our pit. In the full punishing, sunshiny, 85* heat. (Way to go above and beyond, GMan corner worker dude!)
Later this week, we’ll take Gunny apart and see what the damage is. Hopefully, it’s something simple.