Experienced TWO track school with my 2018 Aprilia RSV4 RF in Chennai

Have just scratched the surface in terms of her handling and I can only say she's got lot more in reserve.

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Couple of weeks back, we had a Level 1 track school & open sessions conducted at the Madras International Circuit. The heat was predicted to be scorching but I still went in knowing that I'll be roasted all three days of riding. 

The air temperature was 40+ and track temperatures were 65+ C. The first day was open track day i.e just open riding sessions and no coaching involved. I used that time to rebuild my sense of the track and re-familiarize myself with the bike. This time around, I was trying out the Metzeler TD (track day) slicks - they are more like endurance slicks that promises longer life, predictable grip and quick warmup in terms of working temperatures. I came away very impressed with the levels of grip offered, I'm no pro-rider but this was almost on par with the regular Pirelli slick tyres. The icing on the cake was the tyre life. With the regular Pirelli slicks, if you are riding at or close to pace, then you can expect approx one and half days from the rear tyre. With these TD slicks, you can easily do 2 weekends of track riding on one set of tyres. And the grip level is predictable. It does not drop off as the tyre wears out.

The bike was in good shape all weekend and propelled me below 2min mark for the first time. She was in the mood to shave off some more time, but I was exhausted by the third day. There was a bit of hesitation when I opened the throttle aggressively around 9k rpms. This was the first time since applying the DEF gold tape on the airbox that I was able to ride aggressively. So, I had a hunch that there was something to do with the secondary fuel injectors. Nevertheless, found out a work around by opening up the throttle gently and that kept everything going fine.

After coming back to the garage, we opened up the airbox and checked everything from the secondary injector resistance, to voltage continuity, to the relays that activated the secondary injectors. Turns out, when the airbox was re-assembled, the injectors were mixed up in terms of the cylinders. Each injector has a color coding and that maps to a cylinder in the bank. Since the injectors were mixed up, the fueling wasn't turning out to be precise - the wrong cylinder was getting the fuel because firing order matters. One more lesson learnt and discovered additional checks in this process. Now looking forward to the track school in June to see if I can improve myself.

Have just scratched the surface in terms of her handling and I can only say she's got lot more in reserve.

Open track time

Classroom session with L1 students

Running with the L1 students

Ghetto AIM mount with zip ties

You can see the dimple on the rear tyre is very much visible, indicates that there is lot more tyre left to be used.

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