Sonoma Raceway, 6 Years Later

Tracking progress at my home track, Sonoma, 42 days of riding

I first put a data logger on my first track bike in the 2nd half of 2018. I started with a 2013 Daytona 675R, then in 2020, moving to a Daytona 765. Power differences between the two are noticeable but it’s not huge. Sonoma Raceway (formerly Infineon and originally Sears Point) is my home track, it’s about 25 minutes from my driveway to the entrance gate at the track. This is the only big track I’ve fallen down on, a cold February day in 2019 with cold tires on my out lap (rookie move).

About 3 years ago I made a post about my progress 2-1/2 years into the track program. Now I’ve logged 42 days at Sonoma Raceway since 2018, all the while continuing to work my program with coaching and data review.

August 2018 (blue) - After having done a handful of days at Sonoma, I got down to 2:09, a decent B group pace. The speed graph is a mess though, I was rolling off in areas I should have been accelerating, precision/apexes and control timing weren’t really on my mind.
May 2021 (black) - I’d been studying for a while and had done a YCRS 2-day school, probably had 2 or 3 listens to all of the Ken Hill podcasts, and had become much more deliberate about doing this thing with a technical orientation.
June 2024 (red) - I’m continuing to work on doing it better—getting to and away from the slow point faster, using more technique that’s become more natural to me. This particular lap I know I had a lot more to go but it was as good as it got for that day. Traffic was heavy and track conditions were not great (cars had laid down a bunch of oil the weekend before and there was still a lot of sweep on the track).

Looking at more data points, I still see lots to improve, and that’s a huge part of what keeps me interested in this.

I’d struggled with traffic all day, it wasn’t until the 3PM session, lap 6 I got one clean lap. 2024-06-24 3PM session