Advice on drag nights at Cayuga | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Advice on drag nights at Cayuga

I've been to St Thomas once when I had my FJR1300. Went on a Saturday and ran it a couple of times. I thought it was sketchy as ****! Track was a bit bumpy, not a whole lot of room to slow down at the end of the 1/4 - had to be pretty hard on the brakes, and the return road was awful! That was a few years ago and I've never been back since.
Fast forward to this year and one of our fellow GTAM members was there with his bike. He lost control at the end of the track and ended up dying. No official word on what happened so I'll stop short of saying track conditions may have lead to the accident. He was a seasoned rider, rode track and knew what he was doing. Read into that how you will.
I'll stick to Cayuga.
 
Fast forward to this year and one of our fellow GTAM members was there with his bike. He lost control at the end of the track and ended up dying. No official word on what happened so I'll stop short of saying track conditions may have lead to the accident. He was a seasoned rider, rode track and knew what he was doing. Read into that how you will.
I'll stick to Cayuga.

That was my first thought when he mentioned St. Thomas as well. I also have no insight into the root cause but you don't hear about drag fatalities (on the track) very often.
 
Not to belittle the event but people die at all kinds of tracks. High speed = risk where ever you go and we all know that or ought to. If there was no risk there wouldn't be much rush.
 
I've been to St. Thomas for their drag nights before and it was a pretty good time, I thought the track surface was decent enough. This was on a 09 R6 running low 11's with no steering damper. Although, this was about 3 years back so things may have changed since then.
Return road was pretty bumpy but I didn't care too much about that, you're only going about 35-40 there

There's definitely an element of risk to drag racing and it's even more pronounced on a bike. It's up to you if you decide it's worth it. For me personally, once was enough :D
 
On drag nights, practice walking at home in high heels first. Sorry wrong forum......
 
I can't speak for Cayuga but at St Thomas Dragway Friday night is cheap - 20$ because they don't prep the track w/ adhesive or whatever until Saturday morning after that the price is double. St Thomas is really laid back. Tech inspection is minimal at best. You can run at night with no lights. If you're persistant you can get in tons of runs. I got 24 or 25 one Sunday. I always did a burnout just because it's fun.

Stripped 1981 GL1100 (GoldWing) with bone stock motor - best run 12.67 @ 105 MPH

You drag race an old goldwing???? Cool. This proves that you can go out and have fun with anything. No excuses.
 
You drag race an old goldwing???? Cool. This proves that you can go out and have fun with anything. No excuses.

Not just an OldWing but one covered in zebra stripes. It was a hoot to beat on that thing. Redlining gear changes. Who knew they would take such abuse.
 
With a stock shortish wheelbase sportish bike with an uprightish riding position (yours), and with decent tires on it ... you should not need to do a burnout. It will want to wheelie before it will want to spin anyhow.

Stock wheelbase and ride height, I couldn't keep the front wheel of my bike down. I couldn't use more grip if I had it.

Stretched and with shortened gearing, it needed the tire warmed up or it would spin.

This is another thing to play by ear. Ease into harder launches a step at a time as mentioned above. Eventually it is going to either want to wheelie or spin the tire. If it wants to wheelie, do whatever you can to get weight down and forward (mostly determined by your riding position, although lowering the suspension matters also). If it wants to spin the tire, especially if it wants to go sideways, you need to do a burnout first.
I was running a stripped old 1100cc GoldWing (don't laugh - 12.67 @105mph). I never missed the burn out. Did I need to? Who knows but it part of the rush. This was at St Thomas and tech was pretty lax. Even at night I didn't need any working lights.
I never did more test and tune runs but what a blast. Hard to explain the feeling of sitting there with the pre-stage lights on waiting for the lights to drop. Go for it OP.
 
anyone else still wanting to drag race. I've run my 1985 cb650 and I was going to do bracket racing this year since it's not all that fast I can do consistent 13.6 at at 95 mph
 
So what's the deal with them nowadays... i have a buddy of mine who just picked up a bike and wants to go... i dont reaaaaally have any interest in it but i might try it as, sometimes, i try new things in life lol.
 
Probably little different from how it has been in the past. Obviously not open yet due to coronavirus shutdown. Be on the lookout for test-and-tune nights. I've been hearing that the owner of Grand Bend Motorplex (Paul Spriet) bought St Thomas Dragway and has made some improvements to it - don't know the nature of the improvements, but Paul has been good to us, and good for us, at the Grand Bend road course.
 
Cayuga test & tune is listed to open May 22!
Same schedule as always - Fri nights start at 7pm. Sat & Sun start at 11am.
 
Cayuga test & tune is listed to open May 22!
Same schedule as always - Fri nights start at 7pm. Sat & Sun start at 11am.

That’s good.
I made it out once last year with my bike and I would like to get out again this year.
My best was 11.005 @ 129mph. I was so mad at myself for not breaking into the 10’s, but it was a ‘new to me’ bike and I was still trying to sort out the launch control....
 
Is the fee like $50 for unlimited runs within 4 hours ?
How many times will we get to run on average during those times ? As m assuming there is a lot of waiting
 
$30 to use the track, $10 to use the stands.
How many passes you make depends on how many people show up, and whether or not you want to hot lap your ride.
Count on 3 - 4 minimum. Sometimes, you get the place to yourself (figuratively speaking).
Another couple things that cause delays are crashes, someone leaking oil. Serious injuries and deaths usually cause closure.
 

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