Sonoma is a special track for me, it’s my home track (25 minutes from my driveway to the gates), it’s highly technical, it’s physically and mentally exhausting, and it combines a lot of different types of corners with few truly fast high lean sections with a good dash of elevation. Days at Sonoma are expensive, second only to Laguna Seca in the West. Weather is usually pretty decent but there are hot days and can be pretty cool in the morning. Sonoma got a re-pave in 2024 but that required several patches. Lap times from the last 2019 MotoAmerica races show that liter bikes don’t have a huge advantage in terms of lap times. I’ve had the most fun on my supersport and the Ninja 400. The Tuono is pretty good here, having handlebars and such, but really, I prefer a 400 or a supersport.
My favorite and most special day at Sonoma in 2024 was the Volant Vivere day and it was my last day there for the season. We had 30 minute sessions on-track and classroom coaching with Jason Pridmore (JP43) and crew. On this particular day I hired Mike Canfield (MC Technologies) as my in-garage crew chief/technician while riding the Daytona. Mike made some very substantial setup changes to the Daytona which were very worthwhile for me and got the front suspension working the way I wanted and some shock work to keep the rear wheel on the deck. On this particular day, I was fortunate enough to get data from a recognized MotoAmerica racer to take the Daytona out for a few laps.
Due largely to the weather being just right, me being in the right frame of mind, and a relatively low headcount day, I was able to put everything together for a couple of laps in the 2nd or 3rd session of the day and knock 2+ seconds off my PB that session for two laps with laps that were pretty high quality for me.
The net result in that one day is that I did made a significant step and I was able to get data from a high quality source. The only caveat with the reference rider’s data is that he had traffic in turn 8 so there’s a brief bit in his data that isn’t optimal but the rest is solid. I’ll comb through the data for hours comparing no doubt but at first glance, it’s hugely reaffirming to see that what he and I are doing is fairly similarly.
A couple of initial notes on this before I add in the screenshots of the data. This racer has a LOT of laps around Sonoma and is a pro, he knows the track well and has raced very competitively here. Before heading out, he asked my approximate lap time (probably to set a time in the ballpark). I think for me, the most impressive thing is just how quickly he got up to speed on the Daytona. He did an out lap, a flyer (with traffic in T8), and an in lap and went well on a bike he’d never ridden. He had meaningful feedback for Canfield and me, particularly in ergonomics. That’s a professional rider—someone who can go out on an unfamiliar bike and in just a few corners get the bike figured out and knock out a solid lap. Give him a whole day on track and working with a quality technician and I’m sure he’d be within a few seconds of the supersport lap record.
The first and main thing I want to look at is the speed trace (GPS speed). The smaller graph below GPS speed is deceleration G force, this reflects the slowing of the bike using brake pressure. This just gives me a sense of the riding and pace. Reference rider in red, my lap in blue.
Just a quick glance at this tells me that he and I are doing most things similarly—slow points are lined up pretty well, acceleration slopes are similar, etc. This is a huge validation for what I’m trying to do at Sonoma. Even in T8 where the reference rider had traffic, the shape of his data is parallel with mine, which speaks to the concept of ‘degree of application.’ Because I have corresponding video and GPS positional data, I was already able to validate the data—i.e., both riders were hitting apexes and were on what the right lines.
Now if comparing a reference rider’s data to an amateur’s and we don’t see slow points lining up for the most part, we can stop here and that’s where the work on technique happens because trying to go faster without having fundamentals (apexes and control timing) figured out, the risk goes up exponentially if you try to add speed.
Another way of looking at data gets more granular, but as I mentioned, if slow points and lines aren’t lining up, it’s not really worth going deeper. In this case, things are looking good so we can dive in and here’s where we see some differences.
In this set of graphs, we have GPS speed at the top still but we add throttle in the second, front brake pressure in the third, and finally rear brake pressure in the last.
There are some differences in throttle usage here. Again, the reference rider has never ridden this bike so the data shows that he was shifting well short of redline and I we had some slightly different approaches in a couple of areas. The throttle usage, while it looks significant, doesn’t result in dramatic differences in GPS speed though. Part of it is gear selection, part due to the track’s elevation changes, etc. The bottom is rear brake pressure and he uses it, I seldom do and the few times that I do, it’s for wheelie control, not on corner entry. He uses it for corner entry going into T3 a small bit coming into T7 and a some slowing for the esses in the middle of T8. I’m not sure I have the brain space at this point to consciously use it for slowing, I’m still almost exclusively a front brake rider but I have higher priorities than sorting out rear brake usage. Our front brake traces are pretty close other than his traffic in T8. There are some differences in brake initiation and release points in T2 and T6.
My big takeaways from this exercise:
The reference rider and I are doing things generally pretty similarly—simple affirmation is great to have so I can continue working on my own degree of application. This is by far the most important part to me.
Reference carries a bit more speed into T8, and that’s something I’ve been consciously working on but there’s room still.
Not sure if the brake initiation and release on T6 are worth looking at, I’ll have to ask my coach on that. Reference rider sheds less speed at the end of T6 to get direction, that might be an area I can work on; with the 2024 re-pave, I’ve been playing with my trajectory in the last third of the Carousel (T6).
Reference rider carries a small bit more speed out of T10, I typically get to about the same speed but seeing that I didn’t in this lap shows that’s an area where I need to be more consistent.
Reference rider doesn’t shed as much speed as I do into T9 and does a slight blip of throttle in between the two apexes. I sometimes do that, not sure if there is a ‘right’ answer to it, but there is a small bit of time there potentially. This is a fairly minor thing since it’s more important to get in there with efficient braking and get out of it as the exit of T10 and through it are more important.
Just looking at my own data, particularly throttle usage, I’d like to clean that up a bit by reducing momentary pauses and consistently getting to WOT where applicable. I also just need to hold WOT out of T8 and stop worrying about the wheelie. It’s getting better but that’s definitely an opportunity.
As I start going into T5 a bit faster, I’m making adjustments to my lean angle part way through. I really want that to be more of one smooth movement of adding lean angle to the maximum and reducing it smoothly in one motion.
Here’s a lap: