mallory park - sat 26th may [Archive]

two

29-05-2007, 07:26 PM

my day started by being rudely awoken by m6rk at 6.00am (as i stayed at chez swarbrick the night before)

we loaded up the car with our gear, plugged in mr tom tom and headed west
after 16 miles of specs cameras on the a14 i was glad to be heading north without having to look at my average speed every couple of miles
we arrived at 7.30am and found superkev and wizzbang in the cafe drinking tea.. how very british

this was my first time @ malory, and m6rk had emailed the lovely suzi to put me in the fast group (cheers m8)

at this stage, I wasn't aware the 3 groups were :
novice/inters
inters/advanced
advanced/acu

oh bugger... sunday was a race day and a fair number of riders were using the trackday for some last minute practise

safety briefing started at 8.00 ish...hottrax pointed out mcnninjas were in da house ... at which point superkev shouts wayhey... the rest of us
remained silent..while the whole room is now looking at superkev... lol

after the safety briefing we headed to the garages where we were greeted by bikes 1,2,3 and 4 ready to go and bike 5 sitting on a bike lift with
the side fairing off so we could take a good look under the hood so to speak
( and comment on the lack of crash bungs fitted to any of the bikes :( )

these bikes were the uk press fleet (3 of them still are) .. each bikes had only done about 1000 miles :)

the plan for the day was that we were each going to have 3 sessions

jon and steve were out first in the fast group
3 sighting laps and then they let loose... and the whole group looked worryingly fast... and i was starting to get excited :)
(and i was dying for a pee)

myself and m6rk were going out in the next fast session

now remember i've never been to mallory, never ridden a '07 zx6r, and was going out in the advanced/acu group with NO SIGHTING LAPS (as everyone else
had sighting laps in the first session)... oh poo

as it happens things were fine...i had survived the first session with no dramas 8)
(thankfully a easy track to learn... think it will take a while to master though)

initial impressions from the bike were
- its a ickle bike
- very light and flickable. 'hyperlight' steering
- but still very stable (changing lines mid corner to avoid the broken concrete was not a problem)
- likes to be rev'd higher, compared to a 636 there was a lack of mid range grunt... but this lack of midrange seemed to make the engine feel smoother...however once in the power the bike just took off and headed for the 16500 limiter
- i would have liked more feel from the front in gerrads, ... spoke to k-tech and he noted my comments and noted some adjustments for the next
session
- the slipper clutch is simply amazing and without it i think i may had crashed on my first lap
- the suspension both front and rear worked as standard

coming in after my first session i suddenly noticed i hadn't looked at the clocks once, so i had no idea weather they if they were good or bad... i didn't even notice they had a gear indicator until i was just looking at the bike in between sessions... so i made a mental note to talk a butchers next time out

in my 2nd session the suspension adjustments gave a slightly better front end feel, but it still wasn't at the level i get from my bike (adjusted by zenodamper at donny last year) so didn't feel i could roll on as hard as i'd like to ..
(in all honestly i think i could have rolled on harder in gerrads, but in the back of my mind i kept telling myself its not my bike..do not crash... do not crash... do not crash)
i briefly looked at the clocks during this session... although without being tucked right in the screen blocks the view nicely... i didn't like the gear indicator, would have preferred a number to appear in the same place..instead the gear indicator was more like a fuel gauge with bars and you had to scan the gauge to see which gear you were in. (suppose its something you may get used to, just a number in the same spot seems like a better idea to me)
i never noticed the gear change light (so that could be improved) .. what i did see of the rev counter was an improvement (db screen would sort this minor problem)
during this session i had a little slide coming out of edwinas... and the front also wouldn't stay on the ground heading up through the lake esses
(again remembering its not my bike and the tyres were road going BT015, i noted the little slide and took it a little easier for the rest of the session)

lunch came and went... very nice it was too (paid for my the nice folk at kawasaki too) ... the sun was out and all was good with the world

then after lunch the crashing began... first wizzbang highsided, followed in the next session by jon lowsiding :( :(

my last session was the last fast group session at the end of the day.... by this time the number of bikes had been reduced, and the bike i had been on for my other sessions was no more :(

(wizzbangs highside resulting in one completely totaled zx6r and jon low siding at 120mph...clearly jon should of not been looking at the clocks at the time... suprisingly the bike jon crashed wasn't to baddly damaged imo, so the new zx6r holds up fairly well to crashing)

for the last session i used bike number 4, with kwakers636's suspension setting instead of my settings
kwakers is about the same weight and i had nothing to lose by trying his setting ... the front end feel was abig improvement (although someone had the clutch pointing slightly down which was ok, but would have preferred it where it normally is..btw it looks like the levers can easily be pointed down unlike the b1 if thats how you like them)
although in this last session we only got 3 laps due to 2 red flags and our session was called in... gutted :(

Looks/styling :
The styling is one that grows on you in time. The matt black finish of the frame and rearsets look cool (shame the heal guards weren't also black)
Black forks would have looked good (although i liked the silver finish)
The tank is the right shape for my knee and worked well. (the same can't be said for the tanks of a few of the other brands at the moment)
It was good to see the return of a rev needle on the clocks, although i think the gear indicator could have been better.
underseat exhaust is now mounted above the rear light, reducing the storage space under the pillion seat to nothing.... even it you could fit

anything under the seat, it would get cooked by the exhaust.. the rear seats gone fairly hot after each session
not to sure how well a tail tidy is going to tidy the rear of the bikes due to the new layout..rear light under the exhaust

Features:
screen position blocks the clocks unless your tucked in. The slipper clutch is f**king amazing.
The brakes were excellent with lots of feel and plenty of power. But no different to the brakes on my b1.
(although better than other b1's i've ridden)

Handling:
The bike was excellent on standard track settings. The steering is 'hyperlight'. But the bike was still stable once on its side in the bend.
(although track tyres and a steering damper would have been nice additions)

Engine:
the engine looked tiny... i think the new engine could fit inside the old 636 engines...
revs, revs and more revs. this bikes needs to be rev'd... and rev'd hard
low down there was little power. If you came out of a bend and weren't at the right revs there was nothing
Once the power kicked in (i say kicked in.. but it was actually very smooth and progressive) the engine took off all the way to the rev limiter.
The standard road gearing didn't suit mallory to be fair and lead to some odd gear choices at different parts of the track

What i'd change
more midrange/torque in the engine... this was the 636 trump card that made the zx6r stand out from the others
(although I like to see how the engine is after a little tuning)

bigup to kawasaki and all those who helped organise the day
The day was very well organised, and the folk from kawasaki couldn't of done a better job of looking after us.
( although 3 sessions wasn't really enough to have any suspension setting sorted )

Would I buy a 2007 zx6r?
My initial thoughs were no.
Although once it stops raining and i can go out on my b1 I may change my mind.
Thinking back to the weekend the new 07 zx6r was simply amazing and most of it is a step in the right direction.
The suspension works straight out of the box, the engine is smooth and quiet, the slipper clutch is amazing, the steering is hyperlight but the bike is still stable. (and the styling grows on you in time)

I'd have to try one on the road, as this bike has been built for track. I'm not sure if the 'hyperlight' steering and lack of mid range would be the best thing on a bumpy british b road where most of us would be riding the bike at the weekend.