Thunderhill Trackday

February 23, 2004

by Jimil:

Rain was in the forcast. 2 weeks before the actual day, I was looking at the 15 day forcasts and all I saw were pictures of rain. 1 week before the day, all the forcasts from 3 major weather sites were forcasting rain. 3 days before the trackday, they were all saying rain still. Do I cancel? Do we still go? DAMN! Rain Rain Go Away!! The CanyonStrafers want to play!

I called Thunderhill and talked to Shannon who is their Operations Manager.

Phone rings.....

Shannon: Hello this is Shannon.

Jimil: Shannon, this is Jimil.

Shannon: Jimil!! How's it going?!

Jimil: I dunno about this weather, I'm thinking of cancelling. All the weather reports from all the websites I check are forcasting rain.

Shannon: Well, I think you guys should come up anyway. The weather at Thunderhill is never what the weather forcasters say it is. If it does rain then you can decide then.

Jimil: Sounds good. See you on Monday

Hangs up phone....

Its a go!

Because of the weather forcast, quite a few guys who had expressed interest had backed out. The trackday the day before ours was run in the rain. We lucked out big time. Felt sorry for the guys who didn't make it. Boy did they miss out big time. We arrived at Thunderhill and the sky was clear, the track was dry, the weather was PERFECT!

Arrives at Thunderhill....

Shannon: See! I told ya so!

Jimil: You called it bud! It doesn't get any better than this!

At midday, the temperature was hovering around 70!!! In February!!! Some clouds moved in around lunch time but it was still mostly sunny throughout the day.

18 riders total.....running an OPEN format trackday. Just 18 of us. When you went out, you practically had the whole track to yourself. It was like we were a factory and we rented the track for open test. There should have been a few more but some backed out last minute. Too bad for them cause we had conditions that were close to perfect. Open track, LOW LOW rider count, and perfect weather. It doesn't really get any better than that.

Unfortunately we did have a few crashes. The Cyclone claimed a silver '03 R1, and there was another crash (same guy on a different bike) in Turn 8 in the afternoon. There was a guy on a RC51 who went down as well.

Dito Milian, from gotbluemilk.com was present to take our photos and once again he did a phenomenal job! Thanks Dito!!

Dave Moss from the Yamaha shop in San Mateo, Bay Yamaha, was also present to work on suspension setups. Thanks Dave!

I wish there were more riders to join in on the fun, but as it was, those who did make it had a blast!

Thanks to everyone who made it out and hope to see you at the next one.

The following pics were taken by Dito Milian who is our official photographer for the 2004 season.





			If you attended this trackday and you have pics you'd like added to this webpage, please email them to me. Email Jimil
I took very few pics this trackday. Here are a few of our paddock area.