RACE BIKE TESTING!! | Croft Circuit Footage & Debrief + BONUS Track Guide

Debrief from James Whitham Track Days at Croft Circuit 22-23 July 2025.
Footage and photos credit to Harry Furness and Stephen Dobson.

00:00 Intro
02:07 Prep
06:21 Sighting Laps
07:32 Tyres
10:06 Day One
13:39 Talk Show & Discussions
17:40 Day Two
24:16 Track Guide (in-depth)

Music: Powerful Rock
Musician: AlexGuz

Music: Mornings
Musician: Jeff Kaale

Heat. Heat. Heat up here. [Music] So, you join me back in the Willing to Race HQ. H hope you enjoyed that intro. A little bit of footage taken by my friends Harry Furnus and Nathaniel Robinson who came along and sort of acted as a bit of a pick group for me on the second day. H and Steven Dobson as well who took the photos at the end there. H really good stuff. So I didn’t get a chance to take much footage myself when I was at the track. Uh a couple of reasons. One is it was just very very busy. Um it’s you know you you have three sessions per hour and you feel like you have a lot of time to wait around but uh you really really don’t and uh it it comes thick and fast. So yeah I didn’t have much time to take videos and vlogs myself. Uh likewise my phone was running out of charge. Um so that made a little bit more difficult. So I thought I’d take this opportunity uh to do a bit of a debrief a little bit of talk about uh the two days uh how it was. And if you stick around to the end of the video I’ve put together a little track guide as well of Croft Circuit. So, if you’re planning on going there and you want to know a little bit about the lines to take, a few things to watch out for when you go there on two wheels, uh, stick around and, uh, have a watch through that. So, first thing we’ll talk about is the preparation made before the track day. Uh, first off, if you haven’t seen my previous video on the channel, please do check that out. Uh, that’s a walkthrough of the work I’ve done on the bike leading up to this track day. Uh, where I’ve gone for more of a committed full race bike conversion. Uh, I’ve decided that I’m not going to use that as a road bike anymore. So, I’ve stripped everything down, uh, so it’s lightweight and, uh, less things to break, you know, headlights and indicators and mirrors and stuff that can just smash it to bits. So, um, so, uh, yeah, def definitely go check that out because I couldn’t ride it down there, which to be honest isn’t advisable. I recall when I went there back in May, I just rode the bike down, so I didn’t have space for lots of tools and fuel. I just had a backpack and uh, had to rely on the kindness of strangers. Uh, so I got a van. Picked that up from a a local fellow who doesn’t live that far away from me. H massive van. Never driven a van before. It was torrential rain as well. Of course it would be. Uh, when I picked it up, brought it back home and it was a case of loading everything up, the bike included. Now, I got a ramp off Amazon. Uh, it was 2030 uh narrow rickety ramp uh that just about fits the wheels on it to get up. Uh, so never dropped the bike before. Very worried that I’m going to drop it. Uh, so what I do is off the bike, uh, I just use the clutch and the power and try to get it up. It It took a few goes because, uh, it was on my driveway, which is gravel. What happened was as soon as the front wheel was was on the ramp, uh, the back was just was just spinning up and I’m I’m doing burnouts on the gravel. Um, so I had to get some cardboard, stick that underneath, uh, so that we could get a bit of traction. And then it’s just about commitment. Uh, very easy to store cuz it’s uphill. H, you just got to send it up there and try not to drop it. Thankfully, didn’t drop it. Got it in there. Uh, ratcheted everything down. Uh, and because I had so much space, I could bring all of the tools that I wanted. I’ve got a suitcase full of tools, but then I’ve also just got boxes and boxes of bolts, spares, bits of plastic or whatever from previous bikes and previous crashes that I’ve had just because uh if something breaks, you never know what what might be useful. So, once all that was uh sorted, uh done that the night before, following morning, it’s an early start to get down to the track. Drive down there about an hour to get to the circuit from where I am. And there’s already quite a few people there already, so uh I’m not early enough to get a garage space. Um, I would recommend getting there early to try and get a garage space. They do fill up quickly. Um, and if you want power and shelter from the rain and you don’t have a a gaze thing, then you definitely want to be in there. Unfortunately, I didn’t, so I just had to put up with the rain that day. Um, at least I had a camping chair with me, which I then left out in the rain and it got absolutely soaking. So, I had a wet bump for the rest of the day. Once got there, it’s a case of unloading the bike and doing a few uh preliminary checks. Uh, main things you want to watch out for is uh tire pressures. Check your tire pressures, check your chain, make sure that’s not too loose. H you have some people with their chain dragging along the floor pretty much. Uh and then it’s a case of getting yourself kitted out uh and off to the briefing. Uh good safety briefing. Uh good chance to meet uh James Whittam uh Simo or Ian Simpson and some of the other instructors as well. Uh if you’ve ever been to a track day, h you get it. It’s pretty standard stuff. Flags, overtaking and such. I think with the James Whittam days, one of the really useful things is that it is lower numbers. Uh, and there’s a big focus on safety. So, obviously, it’s not a race day. Um, you can take it easy with the overtakes. There’s lots of space. Uh, and another good point is you can just run through the pit lane if you want to get yourself some extra space. After the briefing, it’s out for a couple of sighting laps. What they’ll do is you’ll queue up at the front of the pit lane. uh one of the uh instructors will come in front and uh take you around for two laps. Uh just you get a chance to uh well see where the track goes if you haven’t been there before. See where all the marshall post and stuff and then it’s back into the pit lane so you know how to get back into the pit lane because uh it’s it’s right it’s it’s it’s really tucked away at the at the end of the hairpin. So uh if you don’t know where it is, you might end up doing a session and then be going around track for ages trying to figure out a way to uh to get off. But after that, we were into the first session. Uh really conscious, you know, I was there for the two days and I I wanted to ease into the day. Um so we took it fairly easily. Um and then towards the end of the session, it started to drizzle, which is just totally typical. It wasn’t a wet or heavy rain, but it was just enough to get a bit of a veneer over the track surface. Uh where you can see those sort of snail trails coming from the back of other people’s tires and and you know that it’s going to get slippy. Um, I kind of kept saying to myself in my head, you know, rain’s coming down on the visor. It’s it’s probably not the track probably isn’t as wet as you think it is. You know, they always talk about mental rain. Uh, so I I took it easy, but I tried to not take it too easy and and and and somewhat stay on the pace. Uh, and then towards the end of that session, uh, coming through the final sector into complex two, uh, which is quite a tight righthander. If you stick around for the track guide at the end of the video, you’ll be able to see what I’m talking about. Um, we did have a pretty close call with the front end. Uh, it was just on the initial tip in, you know, trying to counter steer in uh, and the front just just starts to tip in uh, on the handlebars. Uh, the bike was pretty upright. Got away with it, but I immediately think, well, blowing heck, that was a close one. Uh, so let’s talk tires. Uh, tires are really important factor here and uh, expensive, but absolutely worth it. So, the tires I was on, I was on a set of road tires and they were pretty cooked. If if you’ve seen my uh last video, you’ll you will have been able to see that the rear tire was pretty much completely squared off. Uh I didn’t think the front was that bad. Um but clearly it was because it nearly slipped out from underneath me. Uh I got uh Simo to have a look at it as well. He says, “Yeah, you need to sort that uh sort that front tire out.” Uh so we fork out for the tires. Uh set of drives. I went for the Metsler M9’s. Uh really good tire. a good allrounder that I thought I can use that in the dry and if there’s a bit of drizzle I could use it there as well without having to spill out for the four wets. So I got a set of those. Uh James Wham guys have got a tire changing trailer. So I needed a little bit of help just to get the wheels off uh because I’m not particularly mechanically gifted. Um but loads of guys there to walk you through it and give you a hand. Uh if you don’t have tools and stuff, people will lend you them. Got the wheels off. Got the tires changed over. Uh terms of pricing, 14 uh about 140 each uh for the dry tires. So you’re looking at 280 in total for the set of them. Uh the feeling that you get from them is amazing. Um you know, coming out into the next session, the increase in confidence was massive. I think first off, uh just the increase in grip is great, but also the geometry of the tire. you know, if you ride a lot on the road, your tire will be be flat on the bottom and then sort of cornered off like that. So, getting getting the lean on, you sort of got to go over this corner here, and it really doesn’t feel nice. If you ride a lot on the track, it’s actually the other way around where you flatten the hose sides of the tires and then you sort of have a point at the bottom. But either way, that uneven geometry of the tire uh really throws off the feel. And I I didn’t realize how much it threw me off until I went on to the new tires and thought, “Wow, this this just feels amazing.” Uh much better on the front end. Confidence inspiring, able to get off the power soon. Um as is the case with any tires, take one or two laps to warm them up. Um if you’ve ever used new tires on a Bose, you’ll know that they’ve got this kind of greasy film when you first use them. Uh that can be quite slippy. On track, you don’t have to worry about that as much because the surface is different. the tires get up to temperature a lot quicker. Uh, and you can sort of burn through that first layer quite quickly. Uh, once you do, you’ll be able to feel it. When the tires are up to temperature, it becomes very, very responsive. Uh, and you feel like you just have grip for days. So, throughout the day, uh, after moving on to the tires, I pretty quickly got moved up a group. Um, just found myself getting caught up in too much traffic. Um, so moved up to the intermediate group and felt way way better there. um pretty much slotted in right in the middle. Um you know, when you’re more evenly paced, the people around you, you don’t get overtaken as much, you don’t overtake people as much. You sort of find your own little pocket, and because you’re all lapping within a few seconds of each other, um those gaps kind of stay the same. So, I felt way more comfortable in that group. Another really useful part of that was the caliber of riders there. Uh particularly, Christian Eden, BSB rider, uh was in those sessions with us, giving us some hints and tips. Um which was really handy. I mean, just following uh is really good. You’ll know if you do track days, having a reference point like that is is really useful to get in your head just how hard you can push. Uh you think you’re pushing really hard and and then you know someone cruises around you outside dragging their elbow and you think, “Oh, well, there’s clearly still quite a lot to extract from the bike.” Uh so, as soon as I started increasing my pace from that, um it it it it came to me really well. At no point did I feel like I was taking any risk. Um, uh, felt very relaxed, more relaxed than I did last time, which is really important because if you’re tense, you get really tired really quickly. Uh, and if you’re tense, the bike will be tense and it just doesn’t feel right. Um, so following Christian, I felt really loose, comfortable, safe. I was able to just kind of let my body hang off the side of the bike. Uh, and the body position came to me naturally, and with that, uh, the knee drags came naturally. So, when you do kind of feel that scrape for the first time, you think, “Bloody hell, I’ I’ve hit the ground.” It is, uh, you feel like you’re going to fall basically. Um, which isn’t the case. Uh, but it gave me a little bit of a fright. Pick the bike up a little bit and think, “No, it’s okay. Keep committing to the corner.” Um, that was in Tower Bend. Interestingly, again, if you watch the, uh, track guide at the end of the video, you’ll have a better understand of what I’m talking about. But Tower Bend was one I really struggled with back in May. a combination of the braking zone on the back straight um and also kind of the camber of the corner where it sort of picks up towards the apex. Um but that really came into my favor uh at this time. I found that I was way more confident on the brakes. The tires helped with that massively. But in terms of getting the knee drags, it was a great corner for because it almost felt like the the track kind of came up to to meet you in the sense that it kind of bumped up towards the apex. Um got a lot more confident with that. Um once I scraped the knee a few times, uh I felt more relaxed about it. Uh could felt more comfortable hanging my lower body off uh and really great and rewarding. You know, you get back into the pit and you just got a massive smile on your face, h cuz you’re really really chuffed. When it came to the afternoon, uh I think we’re done. We were four sessions in and then there was a spell of rain that came down very very heavily. Um and at this point I could have gone out and throughout the two days I was planning on doing some wet running anyway. The only reason I didn’t go out on those two sessions was because I had the second day and I thought, you know, if I bin it and wreck the bike just before the following day, then I was essentially written off a whole day. You know, may as well keep it in one piece now just in case. And then you can push it the day after and then yeah, you if you bid it, then at least you haven’t wasted a whole day. Um, so I called it a night there. Um, just went around the garage, spoke to some people. uh had some food and then in the evening uh there was a really great uh experience at Hangar 50 at Croft Circuit. There was a really great talk show uh led by James Whittam and Simo uh in Hangar 50 at Croft. Ian Hutchinson was also there which is really really nice to see and you know there was a great turnout and it was people who were who were there for the track days but also just people locally came to uh have a drink, have some food and have a laugh. Uh it was really really good and there was some really interesting talking points uh that were great to discuss and and you know some things that I never really thought thought about before. Um I think James was talking a lot about uh the the age people are at when they’re racing. Um you know I am 21 nearly 22 uh very keen to get into racing and I watch the Moto GP and stuff and I think I’m too old for this aren’t I? I mean, I know Matt Marquez is is getting on a bit and he’s still leading the world championship. But, um, all the younger guys coming through Moto 3 and Moto 2, they’re young teenagers and you feel like if you haven’t been riding a a Minioto since you were 8-year-old, then then you’ve sort of got no chance. And it turned into a really interesting talking point actually. And uh leave your thoughts in in the comments as what you think about this. But you know children say children less uh younger than 16 year old um wouldn’t be allowed to drink legally uh or smoke or drive for instance. Um so should they be racing motorbikes? Because I think the the question is is at that age, you know, are you in a position to make essentially what could be a lifealtering decision when you race, you could seriously injure yourself or die or the same happen to somebody else. Um, you know, you can’t have a tattoo when you’re a kid because it could impact the rest of your life. Well, um, racing motorcycles could impact the rest of your life as well. So, I I don’t really know where I stand on it. I think as a sport, uh, I I think this is what racing has always been like, but it’s something that I’d never really thought about before. Um, you know, I guess I suppose from more of a moral philosophical point of view. Um, let me know what you think about that. I I I think it’s a really interesting talking point. Another good talking point, uh, which we’ll all relate to is the cost of racing. Uh, you know, you go back to British superbikes in the 80s or ’90s, and it was so much easier to to get yourself in there. You know, you didn’t have to come from a ridiculously wealthy family. you didn’t have to have uh all the best sponsors in the world. You could build your own bike and you could race it and you can do pretty good. Uh if if you had the skills, but um now it it’s so difficult where um I’m having to work a long job uh and pour pretty much all of my money uh to get to where I am now. And I’ve still got a long way to go uh in terms of getting to BSB, which is my final goal. Um so is that going to kill motorsport? Is that going to kill bikes in the UK? the cost of it. Um, a lot of the guys in BSB are very sort experienced riders, more senior riders. Uh, for the younger guys, it’s getting more difficult. So, um, it’s interesting to see what’s going to happen there. I think something’s going to have to give eventually. Uh, you know, when if if you’re spending £10,000 on a on a race weekend. Uh, last talking point from there was, uh, why is there no British Superbikes at Croft? Uh, there used to be. In fact, this morning uh I watched 2004 British Superbikes at Croft on YouTube and it was fantastic. I mean, what a brilliant track to watch racing and uh you know the support it brings for the track. Uh hasn’t been there at Croft in a while and uh same with Angles International Circuit as well. Uh it would be a really great circuit for British superbikes. Um so don’t know whether that’s going to happen in the future. It is possible uh but we just don’t know. But I’ll keep my fingers crossed because uh it it would be lovely to have a local round at Croft and Angle Sea is a beautiful circuit as well. Would be great for PSB. Anyway, bit of an introjection there into uh the evening talk show and discussions that we had uh at the end of the first day. Slept in my van. Uh air mattress got very very cold in there. Uh so I uh slept in my clothes basically. Uh which were already pretty sweaty from the day before. Got up uh early start. didn’t need to set an alarm clock because my alarm clock was the sound of vans showing up and uh people slamming car doors shut and putting ramps out and uh and then I thought all right okay it’s it’s time to get up in the morning then uh so I didn’t bother set an alarm on my phone got up at about half 7 uh because I’ve been there overnight and a lot of people had uh taken off who were either staying in a hotel or weren’t staying for the second day meant that I got a garage space get in a good one as well Um, so I was able to bring my van up to the garages, get myself a little spot. Uh, and it was nice to be in the garage as well, just to, uh, to chat with people. Um, there was a fellow there who I was chatting to the day before, uh, at Hangar 50. Uh, he was having some trles with his bike, so uh, we just spent a couple hours, uh, working on it and stuff. Uh, doing my normal checks, checking tire pressures, etc. Um, the forecast for that day looked pretty rough, so I took the opportunity to go and buy some wet tires that morning, which just happened to be the last pair of wets uh, that they had. So, pick those up. Reassuringly expensive. Um £450 for a set of wet tires. Uh but they they do the job. They’re really an absolutely incredible tire. Anyone who’s tracked them or raced them will know that um the the science and the grip behind them is really incredible with what what you can extract out of them. So, it is worth the money and and they’ll last. You know, if if you’re racing or track day in the UK, uh let’s be honest, you’re going to have to put up with a lot of wet sessions. Uh so, it’s something that’s worth having. Once we got onto the track, there were actually a couple of dry sessions in the morning and these were the best sessions of the day. Uh very much like the afternoon of day one. Uh I talked to Christian Hidden a lot. Um he did a great talk on body position uh lines uh overtaking opportunities as well. Um and those those were definitely my fastest sessions. Um I think because I’d been quite relaxed the day before as well. My body wasn’t too achy. I still felt comfortable on the bike. Uh and I was just gradually up in that pace. Um, but not to the point where I ever felt like I was at risk of coming off or never had a skid on the rear with the power. Um, just staying really really smooth with it. And being that smooth is where the pace comes from. Um, by midday on on day two, I was very much towards the front of that group. Um, so, uh, I did a few laps with this fellow on a KTM RC8. Really, really fast guy. Um, very fun to ride with, but our pace is very evenly matched. We were both sort of towards the top of that uh of that group. The interesting thing is is I was still on the M9’s at this point and some people were on raising slicks and uh I was able to keep up if if not past some of them uh because of the body positioning that Christian had taught me. Um being way more committed with my body meant that I was carrying more speed uh without leaning the bike as much. So uh I didn’t have to push those tires as hard, but I could be as fast as some of the guys on slicks who were perhaps a little bit more centered on the bike. Um so that was really really encouraging stuff. Uh again followed uh Christian for a couple of laps too. Uh continue with the knee drags. Really comfortable pace. Uh frustratingly this was the session just before lunch. Uh I did get the old meatball flag uh to have having an issue with the bike. Uh so I had to come in for that. What it was is at first I was terrified. I thought is there fuel or oil leaking out the back of my bike? Have I blown up? Uh so uh I was frantically looking around me trying to figure out if something was wrong and it didn’t seem like it was. So, I came back to the pit lane and thought, I don’t know what this could be. Anyway, it turns out uh some of the bolts that hold in the fairings that I just fitted had rattled themselves loose and part of the fairing was sort of hanging and flapping off. Uh which meant that I had to repair it. And unfortunately, I couldn’t get it repaired in time to get back out for that session. It was actually quite a bit of work I needed to do. I needed to drill some holes, uh loads and loads of cable ties. If you’ve had issues with fairings before, you’ll be very familiar with that. Um, by that point it was lunchtime and the rain came down pretty hard. Got ready for some wet sessions. Uh, really, really keen for it. Really excited. Uh, you know, I knew I knew I was going to be doing some wet running over the weekend and I I was I thought it would be a great uh learning opportunity. So, I go out onto the wet track and the grip feels good. Feels good. Um, doing everything the same, but just a little bit smoother. Smoother on the brakes, smoother on the throttle, smoother on the lean. But uh everything else is is is more or less the same. Uh just breaking a bit earlier and and such. The issue I had was I did about one lap uh and a half and it was when I was coming uh up to the gym Clark S’s it became an issue that I could not see where I was going because my visor had steamed up so badly. It was already starting to steam up and I thought this isn’t too bad. I can get away with it. Um, but it was when I was coming towards the gym caress as which is a very very quick uh set of corners in excess of 100 mph as you tip it into the lefthander. Uh, and I couldn’t see where I was going. I could just about make out the white lines on the side of the track and I thought, “Bloody hell, this sucks.” So, I had to bring it in, though it would been absolutely stupid to continue. Um, brought it in. I tried to wipe out my visor, get rid of the moisture, work out, could only do a lapper, and it was the same issue. So, I came in h don’t have a pin lock in my visor and that’s why everyone said, “Why haven’t you got a pin lock?” So, that’s something I’ll definitely be getting for next time. And sadly, it meant that I did have to call off the rest of my afternoon. Um, be plenty of time to sort the bike out, get everything back in the van, pack up. Um, but it was frustrating that a we didn’t really get a chance to fully utilize the wet tires and feel what they were capable of and just disappointing to miss out on the running. But um at the end of the day uh I had a very safe very safe two days on track. Learned a lot, made really really great progress, made a lot of friends and connections. Um so I think keeping myself safe at the end of that day is the best thing that I could have done and I will definitely find an opportunity to use those wet tires because uh I’m in the UK so it is absolutely going to happen. Uh just need to make sure I get a pin lock. So that wraps up the two days. Heading myself back home and then uh once I did get back home, I stopped to feel it in my legs. Absolutely. And uh had really nice uh long after a couple of beers that night. So I hope you enjoyed that. Uh if you’ve been on track days before, this will be very familiar. If you haven’t, I hope that maybe this helps or it’s maybe a bit interesting. Um sticking on for this long. Uh I’m going to switch over now to the Croft track guide. uh if you’re interested in that. Uh for now, uh follow my Instagram for any further updates on upcoming truck days. Next one’s in September. Uh other than that, hope you have a great day and I’ll see you all later. So, thanks for watching the video. Uh if you stuck around this long, I’m going to be doing a little bit of a walkrough of the track. This is the beautiful virtual circuit. Um I don’t yet have a GoPro on the bike, so this is the best thing I can get, but I’ve done my best to try and replicate the lines that I’ve been taking. So first point that I want to raise is on the start finish straight. The final corner is a left-hander, the hair pin. Uh and the first corner is a righthander. So we are naturally going to be moving from the right hand side of the track over to the left to set ourselves up. The reason this is quite significant is because the pit exit is on the left hand side. So there is a direct clash of lines when you’re coming into turn one. It doesn’t mean that you have to be all the way over to the right hand side and compromise yourself into the first corner. Just be aware that there could be people coming out of there. And likewise, when you’re exiting the pits yourself, give a glance over your shoulder and just stay right up against the white line on the on the left hand side there. Uh just in case there is somebody faster coming up behind you. It’s a nice straight. Get up to pretty pretty decent speed here along the pit wall. We’re looking to break just about the end of the pit wall there. Or at least that makes a really good reference point. Uh, my Suzuki is 135 horsepower and I’m towards the top of fifth gear at this point. Uh, and I find myself able to break probably about here, just after the end of the pit wall there. If you’re on a smaller bike, you could probably break really late because it’s not a particularly tight corner. Uh, likewise, if you’re on a 200 220 horsepower super bike, then you’re going to want to be breaking a little bit earlier. What I’d recommend doing is break before the end of the pit wall here and then just knock it back a few meters uh each lap and get a feel for how late you really can break. As we come down into turn one, there is one thing you need to be aware of, which is on the apex about right there, there is quite an awkward bump uh that will unsettle the bike. It depends how firm your setup is. If you’re on a road bike or if you’re on a track bike, most of the guys uh on race bikes will sort of take a line like that and miss the apex ever so slightly just because h it can upset the bike. And when you’re on max lean, it is enough to tuck the front. If you’re on a road bike, you can probably get away with it. Um but but if you’re pushing it, uh yeah, try and just go a little bit wide through there because it’s not a tight corner. You can still carry quite a lot of speed, uh quite a lot of midc corner speed whilst still missing that apex. As we come through there and into turn two, turn two sort of isn’t really a turn, as in you shouldn’t find yourself having to turn left uh for this little kink here. What you should be able to do is as you come out of turn one is set yourself up so that you can just go in a straight line like that. The next corner is uh is a really long righthander. So you want to make sure that uh you’re not on the left hand side of the tire when you’re going into the right cuz that’ll compromise you. the curb here on the left because the bike is going in a straight line. It is one of the few curbs on the track that you can use. I wouldn’t recommend it in the wet. Uh you can just clip the white line, which is what I tend to do. Um but uh on a dry circuit, you can take that curb and it gives you a nice wide entry into the next corner, which is a really important one as it takes you onto the back straight. The initial turning for this corner, we’re taking quite an early apex. Use this part of the curb to be your first apex. and then the corner will progressively open up. So once you do get past this point, you then start accelerating and it feels quite strange because you are right on the side of the tire at this point. What will happen is if you aren’t getting on the power at this point, you will find yourself getting sucked into the inside uh which isn’t what you want and we’ll talk about that because of the entry into the chicane which is really important to get a good run onto the back straight. So, at this point, you’re trying to accelerate as much as you can uh on the side of the tire and let yourself run out. Run out almost towards the white line. What that’ll allow you to do is when you get to this point of the track, you should be all the way here basically. And that’s so you can open up the entry into the chicane here. By being wide, we can get ourselves lined up to be sort of taking this line here. What that means is once we go over this bit, we have a much more open line to get through the left uh part of the chicane, which is important in terms of getting a good run onto the back straight. So, any time you can gain here on the exit, you will gain all the way up the straights. I found this was a really strong corner for me actually. Um I think some people were taking it quite narrow. uh going really wide through the righthander and opening up this left. Um you know, I was I was sort of underpowered compared to other bikes, but was able to overtake on the exit here just by carrying that corner speed. You do get very close to the curb there. Um I’ve ran over it on this video cuz I’m on a cuz I’m on a game, but um you don’t want to touch that curb, but you can get quite close to it. Uh and then you want to let yourself run out wide to the right hand side of the track. On this back straight, you want to stay on this right hand side of the track. The reason for that is because coming up to tower bend, there is a slight left kink. And particularly on a bike, it is a difficult breaking point because you’re leaning to the left slightly and then breaking and then trying to get into the right hand there. So, it’s about trying to straighten yourself up. So, we stick to the right hand side of this back straight. We’ve got the rally crossair circuit on the right. And we come into this little kink by staying on this side of the track. What it means is is we can sort of straight line it and get ourselves lined up with the direction the track’s going after that kink like that. So at this point we are past the kink and on a bike we can now be picked up in a straight line. Uh what as soon as you’re in a straight line here you want to get on the brakes. You want to get on the brakes quite firm. Uh it is quite a tight corner and there is a little bit of off camber into tower. So, get yourself right over to the left, hard on the brakes and into tower bend. This was one of the corners, this part of the track is what I really struggled with back in May, but as it happens, was actually one of my strongest points here. Uh, I think getting the brakes right into here, so staying wide for that kink, getting the bike upright, getting hard on the brakes, uh, it makes makes it easy. If you’re braking on the left hand side of the tire and then trying to move over to the right side, it it feels horrible and it feels like the back wheel is going to pick up and it’s just not nice. Get yourself upright, break, and get yourself all the way over to the outside here. Opening up and using all of the track. As we turn into the right hand there, there’s I don’t know if I’d call it a bump or maybe a little bit of off camber, but when you get to about this point of the corner, roughly where the apex is, the inside of the track picks up a little bit. So, it’s sort of sloping like that a little bit. Um, so there is a touch of off camber there. Um, which makes it a really nice spot to drag knee actually because the the the floor almost comes up to meet you, which is a really great feeling. There’s a lot of room on the exit of this corner. Um, you can get on the power a lot earlier than you think. Um, obviously be smooth with the power. I think someone did light up the rear and and high side coming out of here. Um, so get on the power gradually, but you can as soon as you’ve hit the apex, you can start to get on the power and let yourself run all the way to the outside on this curb here. Use all the track. You know, you see a lot of people who kind of just come to here uh cuz they want to stay on the right for the Jim Clark S’s, but uh no, you can carry way more speed. Uh you can carry more speed on entry just by coming out w there. So, let yourself use all the track as you come up to here. The next section of track is probably my favorite. It is a brutally fast piece of track. Uh first off is the Jim Clark S’s. It’s a chicaneish, more of an S, uh which goes left, right. So, we’re coming across and we want to get all the way over to the right so we can open up our entry into this corner. The line that we take through the lefthander is really important to make sure we can take the correct line through the righthander so that we don’t come out wide. This is a really fast bit of track. So, the last thing you want to be doing is coming off. At the point you turn in, you’re aiming to to sort of hit a late apex and then stay as far over to the left as you can. by staying to the left. If if if you if you come out wide to this point, then you are really narrowing your entry into the righthander and you’re at risk of going off to the left there. So, what you want to do is comp is is not take a wide exit. Take that late apex and then stick to this left hand side. And what that allows you to do is really open up the right hand there. Uh, and you can take this um pretty much almost flat if you’ve got the right line. You can let yourself run out pretty wide. Uh, this next corner is also a really fast one that it’s it’s not flat, but you don’t really have to break for it. Uh, depends what bike you’re on, but what I tend to do is lift about here, kind of let the bike coast through, and then once you’re on the other side of the corner, it’s a very small run into Sunny in. So, as soon as you’re out of the corner at about this point, you’re going to want to start braking. And because the because Sunny in is so close to this corner, if you’re on the pace, the bike won’t be getting fully upright. You will you will still be carrying some lean uh as as you come out from here and then and then come into the right hand of Sunny in. So, just be careful with your brakes. Don’t grab the brakes. It is a trail breaking section uh because it is a short run into. So, you get yourself all the way over to the left. Uh, at this point you’re trail breaking into these two right-handers, Sunny in and Sunny out. Beautiful corners. Um, good camber, particularly into this first one. What you’ll find is that the the track sort of dips in a little bit, which hooks you in. And then when you come from the other side of the apex here, from about there through to there, there are a few bumps. It’s not enough to really unsettle the bike, but um when you get on the power, it it might move around a little bit. Once you come out of sunny in, it’s a short run into sunny out. And these two righthanders you almost treat as one corner. Um you will be uh that’s a rubbish line. You will be going like that. You will be turning. It’s not a case of you’re going to come out of Sunny in, go straight, and then turn in. You want to smooth it out. And you’ll find that you’ll be at lean the whole time. Uh so you can carry you can carry a lot of speed through sunny in to make sure that you are getting all the way to the right hand side to maximize your exit and to maximize your entry into sunny out which is the following corner. This one again it does feel like the track drops in a little bit to the apex and hooks in really really nicely. Again you can get on the power really early out of here. Um you don’t have to use much brakes into it. It’s a very flowing section but there is a gravel trap on the left so just be cautious of going out wide. getting on the power early. Um, actually, I don’t know if there is a gravel trap or just a curb, but anyway, it’s you can get right up to here, but it is a fast section, so just make sure that you aren’t going off the other side of the curb there. I can’t remember if there’s a gravel trap there or not. From here, we’re on a fairly short run. Oh, one thing to mention is pretty much right here where the camera is, uh, there is a slight crest. If you’re on a highowered bike, you might find the front wheel picking up a little bit over that crest. So, if you haven’t got traction control or anti-wheely, you might need to roll a little bit coming over there because uh the bump can lift the front wheel up a bit. It’s difficult to find a braking marker into this lefthander. Um on the actual track, there’s not really much on either side uh that you can use as a reference. Uh if people have been riding on it all day and you do get a bit of a rubbed in line, you can see where people are starting to break. Um this one does sort of just come down to feel and you have to get a feel for how late you can break. The left-hander is deceptive. So on your first few laps, I would really take it easy into here. Uh as we come into the complex, which is a very technical and tight section of track, uh and it’s easy to run wide through this lefthander, particularly because all the way from the Jim Clark S’s through Sunny in and Sunny out, we’ve been on the right hand side of the tire. The left hand side will be a little bit cooler as well. So that’s one thing to watch out for. As we break in, we can take a really nice swooping line. And it is sort of a late apex on this one. The curb comes to you quite late at about this point. And once you’re at this curb, you then sort of pick up and go in a straight line into complex two, which is the righthander. It’s a dab of the brakes and a gear down about here. Uh, and this is quite a tight righthander, and you sort of make a V out of it. It’s It’s not a double apex, but it’s you do have to sort of veer off. You’ll take a first apex there. And then you come out a little bit wider. And then you don’t you don’t clip an apex here. But what you don’t want to do is come out really wide because the hair pin comes up very soon. And you want to be over on this side of the tracks and maximize the hair pin and make sure you get a good run down the start finish. So you can see I haven’t run it out over to that side. I’ve kept it on the right hand side and then you are pretty quickly on the brakes uh into the hair pin. What gear you take here, it really depends on what bike you’re on. Some people take first, some people take second. If you’re on a smaller bike, you definitely want to be taking second. The only reason I can get away with taking second on the SV is because it’s a twin and it’s just got a ridiculous amount of torque that there’s no need to use first gear and you just risk hitting neutral going between first and second, which is never nice. Uh if you are on a superb bike, you might you will probably need to be taking first. It’s a really late apex, so you want to break quite deep on the right hand side there. Uh which presents a really good overtaking opportunity. What you will sometimes find is a number of bikes traffic kind of queued up h and you can send it up the inside. Just be cautious that you will not be able to you you won’t be able to carry as much speed on the exit without running wide. So just be cautious of that. But in terms of uh going for pure lap time uh break quite deep uh on on the full right hand side there. And then we’re aiming for this corner of the curb, which is very noticeable, is the apex you want to be hitting. So, you’re really trying to straight line it out of this final corner to get a good run. Once you hit that point, you can get on the throttle pretty early. Uh there is, I believe, there is a a standard red and white curb uh here. Now, uh that I that I wouldn’t run onto. Uh but you definitely want to be getting onto the white line here to maximize your exit. And that then brings you back onto the start finish straight. So, that’s just a bit of an insight on my approach to Croft. Um, obviously this is on a set of Corser. Next time I go there in September, I will look to fit a GoPro and I can give a more comprehensive overview for what it’s like on the bike. But it gives you a bit of an idea of how you want to be approaching the track. Uh, where the bumps that you need to watch out are for uh, and just the nature of it. You know, on two wheels, it’s a really fantastic track because it’s so flowing, particularly um, after Tower and through the Jim Clark S’s. uh really quick, really flowing. Uh you can take a lot of speed, but just be careful because it it’s not somewhere that you want to be going down. I hope you found that somewhat helpful. Uh if you enjoy these sort of track guides, um I appreciate I’m not the expert of experts. Um but I know a fair bit about a few racetracks. Um so if you want more information about uh about how to approach certain tracks, I’d be happy to do that if you’re interested in it. [Music]