BUT...... I think that handful is what makes them so much fun to ride! I agree they are more work and tougher to go fast on. The back tire spinning, trying to keep the from end on the ground, and just wrestling the bike around the track! If this is up your alley, then you will love the litre bike.
As a side note, if I was looking to get bikes for track days, I would get bikes that I think are super cool, but may not fit the best into race classes (or may not have very many classes where they are highly competitive). Shit like the MV F3 800 or Panigale 959 Corse. Or maybe go with something like a Ducati Monster-R, Speed Triple-R, KTM-Superduke, modified as needed for track...just to piss off some sportbikes. When Triumph gave Staff bikes for the Speed Academy, one time we had a Speed Triple-R for a school at Jennings. I was impressed at how good it was on track, and it was bone stock with street tires.
As I age, I am starting to appreciate those parts of riding a little less. I suppose modern electronics would help with a lot of that if you left them turned on. I had a blast on a friend's SV650 for a couple of days last year. Much less of a workout, but still a lot of fun.
I put over 85,000 street and track miles on my F4i over the course of 11yrs. Stopped tracking it and got a 600RR trackbike but still used it to work and back daily. A couple months ago I got a '15 CBR1000RR. It hurts my wrists, the heat coming from the fairings is insane, it gets worse gas mileage, and it doesn't have sweet racetech and ohlins like my F4i. I don't want to ride the F4i anymore.
I started on a Ducati 999 tried a buddies r6 and absolutely hated it. Haven’t owned anything but a 1000 since.
If your brain can process the high speeds of the liter bike do it. And obviously if your wallet can handle the tire bill
Buy what you want. I doubt that anyone who bought a 1000, and had a clue about riding, ever sold it for being too much to handle. All three 1000s I've bought over the decades are still in the stable, accompanied by two of the five 750s...and not one 600. The rest are a mini, a scooter and three of the five dirtbikes. Why no 600s? Simple. I've never wanted one enough to buy it. The irony in the way we view bikes goes back way before the GSX-R. At the start of the GSX-R era, not many, if any, liter bikes broke 100hp. Some generations after that day, 750s were breaking 100hp; less than a couple decades ago, 600s were breaking 100hp... Yet it's still said today, as it was back then, the exact same words I'm hearing now concerning 1000s...you have to square it off in turns, the crank is too heavy to allow quick handling, you'll destroy the tires, blah-blah-blah... IMO, none of that shit is, nor ever has been, true. What is true are the speeds that a 1000 can develop, which leads to a necessity for good brakes, damn good brakes...a lot better than what some of them come with. Are 1000s, overall, heavier? Not really. The slope has generally been on a decline since the inception of the GSX-R. Sure they got heavier for a time, when water-cooling was added and they realized the frames needed to be a lot stronger, but today's 1000 is no heavier than an original GSX-R1100. They're getting lighter. Are the cranks heavier, compromising flickability? Compared to a previous generation, no. Do they have more power to shred tires? Duh, but tire technology, suspension tuning and the current crop of traction control electronics pretty much mitigates that concern. (You don't have to flaunt it, but you know you could.) If you looked at a list of the best handling motorcycle/trackbikes in the world, with the possible exception of an R6, I don't think you'd find a 600 on the podium. ...and still, we get the argument that a 1000 is too much. Hokum, bunkum, balderdash and bollocks! (I like 1000s. )
Different strokes different folks. You ask 100 people. You could get 100 different answers! Get your butt on different bikes and make a educated decision for you by you!
I like my 2002 sp-2 and I like my 2004 rs125! But I’m really ready to ride my 1989 vfr400 im rebuilding right now! Variety is the SPICE OF LIFE
I started track riding on my '00 R1....It was too much for my innocent skill level, buy hey, it's what I had. When I got serious I bought a GSXR 750, currently on my second one. Truth be told I still feel like there's more bike there than I usually can tap. Having said that, the new GSXR 1000 has been singing a siren song to my medulla oblongata. I've been trying to resist........My right brain knows it's not needed but the left brain just won't give up. Oh, by the way, my 750 easily lofts the front wheel over T2 at Pitt.....Don't need a big bore to do that.
the most fun I ever have on the track is when im clowning around w/ friends on little bikes. so id prob get a Ninja400 if I was looking for a track toy that id never race.