Relocated to Wisconsin

It has absolutely no flow. The chicane was put in after the fact to keep bikes from hitting the wall if you lose it.

If you have the seeds, you can make up a ton of time in T1 and T2. On an SV, you are pinned from T10 all the way to T3. To me T2 is harder than T1 due to the lack of camber/banking.

 

The short course at BIR was designed by a car guy if that tells you anything.

 

I was never a fan of 1 and 2 but my main reason it's at the bottom of my list is the layout wasn't that fun compared to the other tracks around here. It's still a track so it's going to be fun, just not my favorite is all. Was HPT mentioned? Haven't been there in years so I don't know its current condition but I really liked that track.

 

My petition next year is going to be to bring the long course back to its old AMA format and get rid of the chicane. With airfence nowadays that corner isn't really a problem. Put a bit at the very end of the wall by the exit. The gravel trap has tons of room before the wall.

 

Go old school and get the old Turn 9 back too.

 

Ha. Unlike the chicane. The safety concern for T9 actually makes sense.

 

Are you talking about the chicane before T9? I actually thought that was a positive when I rode it its first weekend

 

Flooded is putting it lightly - over 14 feet of water on track at its highest point.

I like the people over at RPM and the track is fun. Not a lot of track furniture to hit if you go off. The track surface wasn’t great when I was there last year. I’m hoping the flooding hasn’t wrecked it much more.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/27079...14-feet-of-water-amid-record-midwest-flooding

 

It does seem like the amount of track days has dwindled a bit. I think STT is the only organization running weekends at BHF this year and their calendar at ACC seems a bit less frequent than it did last year, but that may just be my perception.

The nearest track for me was 2.5 hours, which is an easy drive. But with that being flooded this year, I’m considering picking up a street bike again as the next nearest track is 4 hours away.

 

Yeah. I think the track would be much better/flowing without that chicane.

 

Its an awesome layout/config but man did they cheap out on the paving.

 

I think thats the only change they've made that was an improvement(repave not included).

 

I lived in Milwaukee so I had more options but Mid-Ohio and Putnam Park (Indiana) are also good tracks although Mid-Ohio would have been a haul. I wouldn't make the trip for Gateway although I went there twice. Heatland Park (Topeka, KS) is another midwestern track but I don't know much about it currently or who does track days there.

If you get a twin or vintage bike you can participate in the vintage racing with AHRMA at Road America.

 

If I remember correctly, the paving company that did the work took shortcuts, unbeknownst to the track, particularly the paddock asphalt.

 

HPT is nice. Went there the end of '17. Pavement is good, fun layout, id go back in a heartbeat. Trackdays are run by guy named StJohn I think mostly on sundays. There were no tire vendors when I went.

 

We don't need more bridge deaths.

My dad has a wooden trophy on the wall from the late 70's/early 80's when he raced CRA that is in the shape of the old config.
He tells stories of wearing a homemade padded race suit with a big ductape x on the back to indicate his newbie status.

Things have certainly changed

 

I concur. I crashed pretty fast in the old turn 8, the chicane probably would have prevented it, but at the same time I wish it was gone.

I also got ran off of the turn 9 chicane once, and you run out of grass pretty fast before that gravel trap, and I think that runoff has been shortened since then.

I went to a KTM test ride day that rode the short track but without the "Joker". That arrangement was fun, but if one screwed that 180-transition left up bad enough you could hit a wall real hard. Wish that could be changed, that fucking joker is annoying.

 

They changed that turn the year before I started racing, thankfully. CRA did an ill advised parade lap in like 1985 and I jumped on a buddies race bike riding around like I just got out of Stalag 17, so I got a little taste of that turn and thought "this seems... not so smart"

Oh, and we had to have "Mr. Yuks" on our bikes as newbies. Literally Mr. Yuk stickers. And orange t-shirts until after our first sprint race.

 

I have awesome memories of being up at that track as a kid. We had a little Suzuki JR50 that we would just blast through the infield - They banned them when I was a bit older, but we would sneak it up for AMA and get chased around by the Deputies they hired for security. Good times!

 

BIR use to be awesome.