Crashtastic Track day

I always tell people that the track is a much safer place to ride than the street. No minivans, gravel in the corners, and no unexpected corners...

The weekend started with the company golf tournament and picnic at the Evergreen air museum. I golfed horribly.

Fast things...

Then I hit the road north. Coming out of a terryaki joint in Shelton I spotted a rider getting coffee at a stand. I asked how he was going to hold it, and he indicated that the woman on the back was his cup holder.

I got to the track at sunset and unpacked as much as I could. While wandering the paddock I met a man from Victoria, BC that had ridden his Ninja 1000 down to camp and ride the track. Here I thought I was ruffin' it by sleeping in my car at the track.

You might be badass, but are you Honda Grom in A Group badass?

Now I get to the crashtastic part. No, I didn't crash, but a lot of  other people did. Out of 9 sessions (they ran a bonus session at noon and at 5 to make up for lost time) 7 sessions of B group resulted in a red flag ending the session early. B group is a special place that intersects Intermediate riders, with A Group riders and racers that couldn't get into a full A-group, and riders with more money than experience that have a brand new liter bike and don't know how to use it. There were sometimes 2-3 low side crashes in a session before the red flag came out.

The Ambulance was called out several times for injuries, but fortunately nobody had to go to the hospital. The worst part of it was that the PSSR staff blew off my concerns when I pointed out a rider that was riding dangerously. Fortunately the last session was incident free and I finished my day on a high note.

This is a case where the TD provider should have either sold fewer spots, or broken the day up into 4 groups with 15 minute run sessions. The track was crowded until late afternoon when people got tired. The other issue was the corner workers throwing  a red flag for a lowside crash that neither resulted in debris on track or required an ambulance.