Cadwell Park: June 15, 2015

Cadwell Park:

June 15, 2015

Normally I wouldn’t waste my time writing about a track day, mostly because there is rarely anything exciting to write about, and I wouldn’t want to waste your time. Normally I wouldn’t get the opportunity to ride on one of the most exciting and notorious race tracks in England, or perhaps even in the world. Well this isn’t a story about a normal day, it’s a story about that one time I got the opportunity to do a track day at Cadwell Park, one of the most exciting and recognizable tracks in the world.

I must start off by saying that to do this track day, I broke my own cardinal rule: I rode someone else’s bike. Some of you may know (but most probably don’t) that I will not ride someone else’s bike… even if offered to me by a good friend, I just can’t do it. I’m not sure why… I think it’s partially because I’m afraid of destroying something that isn’t mine, and perhaps part of me doesn’t want to like that bike more than my own. However, I obviously didn’t ship my R6 to England to do a track day at Cadwell Park. Instead, I did a little research and found that there are actually a few options available for renting a track bike in England. There were a number of options available, some vendors offered R6’s, some offered older Honda CBR’s, and one rented Suzuki GSXR’s. Since I happen to have a number of years of experience on both R6’s and CBR’s, I decided if I absolutely had to rent a bike, I might as well rent something I had never ridden before.

That decision pointed me in the direction of Smallboy Trackbikes, a small company with 7 nearly identically prepped GSXR track bikes. Having never rented a track bike before, but after hearing some stories, I really didn’t have very high expectations for the machinery that’s available to rent. I expected to ride an older, out of date, poorly maintained track bike. To be fair, to get the opportunity to ride at Cadwell Park, I would have ridden nearly any sport bike I could throw a leg over as long as it looked safe. However, my experience with Smallboy Trackbikes was nothing like what I expected. All of their bikes were 2014 model year GSXR’s with aftermarket exhaust, levers, rear sets, bodywork, race tires, etc. They give you the option to use standard or GP shift, and can even quickly change the quick shifter to suit your preference. They keep all of their bikes pretty generic in terms of set up, but are more than willing to change things around like control locations and suspension settings to suit each individual rider. Matt, the owner, even sent me down to his suspension tuner after a couple of sessions to give the tuner some feedback as to what the bike was doing, and he made several adjustments to make the bike behave more like what I wanted.

Not only were the bikes better than expected, but the service was as well. I wanted to make a number of adjustments to the bike early in the day to make it more comfortable and easier to ride, so I asked Matt a couple times if I could change some stuff around. He would always reply with something like “sure, but if you give me a minute or two, I’ll do it for you.” My normal response would be some kind of “joke” about how I didn’t want to get spoiled because I had to go back home where I had to do most of the work anyways. I should have told him that I get a kiss from Denise each time I go out right before I put my helmet on, but to be honest, Denise is far better looking than he is.

Josh Brookes cresting "The Mountain"

Cadwell Park Track Map

Enough about the awesome experience with the bike and owner, on to the awesome experience on the track. I’ve had the opportunity to ride on a lot of race tracks, but none like Cadwell Park. If you’re reading this, chances are pretty good that you’ve watched a BSB race online from Cadwell Park, or you’ve at least seen the occasional clip on Facebook with bikes being launched over the famous “Mountain,” more than likely the Australian, Josh Brookes. From the videos, the track looks narrow. In person, the track is unbelievably narrow. So much so that it was tricky passing at a track day where my pace was significantly faster than the rider I was overtaking. I can’t imagine making safe passes on this track without just punting someone out of the way during a race when your pace is so similar to the rider you’re trying to overtake. Oh… and that word I just mentioned, “safe.” Well, I’m not sure that word is even applicable at this track, there’s really nothing safe about it. There’s a decent amount of runoff in turn 1 (they refer to it as “Coppice”) going up the hill and a little bit in turn 2 and turn 3 (referred to as “Charlies”). After that, well… good luck. The other crazy thing about this track is that when you really start getting up to speed, it seems like the only place you’re able to brake with the bike straight up and down is turn 1, and maybe turn 4 (“Park”), but you’re so crossed up from coming through the kink and cresting the hill on “Park Straight” that I don’t know if that’s true either. Turn 5, “Chris Curve,” is fast, almost deceivingly so. You have to slow down enough to make that initial tip-in, but as soon as you tip in you can almost instantly get back on the gas pretty hard. In fact, you almost have to. Early in the day while I was learning my way around, I picked a line through turn 5 and held maintenance throttle to turn 6. I am almost embarrassed to admit this… this is the first time I’ve ever done this, but I actually ran off into the grass on the INSIDE of the track because I didn’t get back on the gas to push my line outward like I needed to. Turn 6 and 7, the “Gooseneck,” is pretty fun, but pretty easy to figure out. The trickiest thing about this section was picking your line as you quickly flick the bike from the right to the left going down the hill. I forgot to mention earlier that everything on this track is completely blind due to such dramatic elevation change, and this section is no different. Going downhill into turn 8, “Mansfield,” reminded me a lot of a left-handed version of the new turn 12 at Road Atlanta. It’s a heavy braking zone and perhaps a good place to overtake once you are comfortable at the track.

Up to this point, parts of this track can be compared to parts of other tracks I’ve ridden, like the Road Atlanta reference above. However, from this point forward, there is nothing to compare this track to. After Mansfield is a chicane meant to slow you down entering turn 11, the left hander directly before the “Mountain.” This chicane is the most intrusive, awkward chicane in the history of the world. Is it successful in slowing the riders down? In my best Sarah Palin voice, “oh you betcha!” But there isn’t one good line through that chicane. Do you know why there isn’t one good line through it? Because there is only one line through it, and it sucks. Not only that, but if one were to lose the front flipping the bike back over to the left, there’s nowhere to go but right into that wall. Once you come out of the chicane and approach turn 11, all you can think about is the nastiness that is inevitably coming up that hill. You enter turn 11 like any other left hander, the entrance is pretty generic. However, once you turn in you start to climb the hill that is the “Mountain.” Once again, on videos of this section, it looks pretty cool but the hill doesn’t look all that intimidating itself. That’s not to say the “Mountain” didn’t look intimidating because I think it’s fair to say most people would say that it does, what I’m talking about is the hill before the “Mountain.” Wrong again… This hill is surprisingly steep, steeper than any hill on any tracks I’ve ridden, at least off the top of my head. But wait… there’s more! Now that you’ve made it up the small hill in the left hander, you have to flick the bike over to the right and continue climbing up the “Mountain.” Again, this looks intimidating on videos. In real life, I don’t think half of the general population could walk up this hill, and here we are ripping sport bikes over it.

Josh Brookes in 2013 on his Tyco Suzuki

I’ve ridden tracks that have “wheelie hills” and I’ve raced at Grattan Raceway where you catch some pretty good air riding it counterclockwise. You might get both front and rear tires off the ground 6-12 inches. This hill can’t be much worse than that, right? Go ahead… I know you want to ask. “Did you chuck that bike over the mountain like Josh Brookes?” Hell no I didn’t. I could barely hold the throttle long enough to get the front wheel in the air, it’s that intimidating. Even just holding maintenance throttle over the crest, the front wheel would easily raise 6-12 inches, and that was with me crawling all over the front of that bike to try to keep the front end on the ground. Because of the steepness of the hill, it quite literally felt like I was going to “loop out” with the front end raising off the pavement even an inch. Ok, now I’ve gotten past the “Mountain,” the rest of the track should be a breeze, right? Turns 13-16, or “Hall Bends,” are a series of “esses” with basically one line through them, and guess what, no run-off. The scariest, most unforgiving turn on the course is turn 17, the “Hairpin.” From “Hall Bends” you’re hard on the brakes to get slowed down enough for this turn, but guess what, the bike isn’t straight up and down like you want it to be, so braking into it can be pretty sketchy. Oh, and there’s ZERO run-off, I mean there’s a tire wall probably about 10 feet from the pavement edge. Once through the “Hairpin,” the last turn is turn 18, or “Barn.” Trees cover this turn in the afternoon, so the pavement here doesn’t get the sunlight and heat up like most of the rest of the track. It’s a fairly fast turn that opens up as you come onto the front straight, but again, there’s hardly any run-off, so making a mistake here could be costly.

Ok, ok, I’ve probably beat this dead horse enough… the track is less safe than Nelson Ledges, I think you get it. Early in the morning all I could think was “what in the hell am I doing, this is crazy.” By the end of the day I realized there is a reason this track is loved by so many riders. Is it sketchy? Yes. Is it scary? Yes. Is it unsafe? Holy shit, yes. Even with all of that said, there is a flow to this track like I’ve never seen, the pavement was terrific, and overall I had a ton of fun once I started going faster. I can’t say yet if I would consider racing here… the lack of run-off when pushing the limits of your ability and traction is a little concerning. But given the opportunity to ride here, I would push any racer/track day rider to do all they can to try this track out. It was a fantastic experience and I hope I get a chance to ride on it again, maybe this time I’ll take that mountain like a man.