Reminded me of the old trackdays ....

[Kingy]

Rummaging through my desk draw at work and found a couple of things, which when put infront of my work mug (courtesy of Roger) left me reminiscing about the brilliant time I/we had at trackdays ....

[jollyjoiner]

I still use my mug most days
We've had some laughs in the past

[Jonny]

The good old days

[Kingy]

I remember discovering Croft Circuit. Long ride upto Darlington and then quite amazed at the little set up that was costing us £79 for the day.
That was back in 2003 when there were three well defined groups on track. You started in Novice and moved to inters when you were lapping Novice. Fast Group was mainly club racers and experienced track day folk with 'track bikes'. Most of Novice and Inters were roadbikes with a smattering of (old) ex race bikes.
You could take your pick of venues/ days as we had Hottrax, No Limits, 100% Bikes, Track Time Promotions, MSV and many others offering days at all tracks.
The way that changed over the next ten years was unbelievable. Both in costs and people/egos attending days.

I certainly think we got the best of it and had the most laughs out of trackdays and def the best value for money with the original prices.

[jollyjoiner]

I wasn't around in those days. My first monkey fest was 2009 and Donnington when I first met loads and have stayed good friends with quite a few. After that day i've done loads of trackdays and race days with many monkeys and enjoyed every single minute of if

[Kingy]

This was before we started the Throttlemonkey website or later the original forum (2005).

Three of us (Bill, Kev and I) started to do trackdays. I went on a pretty quiet Ducati forum (v-twins.cc) and chatted with Yella and Rocket on there and eventually bumped into them at trackdays. It was Croft where I met Yella for the first time if memory serves me right. It should have been Mallory on my 996 with DSC (Ductai Sporting Club) for my first ever track day but I couldn't make the day and had to sell my place so didn't go to that one.

Back then, I was meeting people and arranging meeting up again by text and email. That all got too complicated so I put a 'Throttlemonkey' website up and posted dates of trackdays we were going to along with TDO and prices. I added reports once we'd done them. We painted our three bikes up red and got 'Throttlemonkey' stickers on them. It got folks attention and we started to get people joining us on the days just for the craic.

Once we had 6-10 folks meeting up regularly I decided to start the forum in 2005. The rest, as they say, is history and now we are back again!

[jollyjoiner]

Good stuff that man
lets hope we get a gathering of monkeys again somewhere

[Rocket]

(10-08-2014, 07:34 AM)Kingy Wrote: This was before we started the Throttlemonkey website or later the original forum (2005).

Three of us (Bill, Kev and I) started to do trackdays. I went on a pretty quiet Ducati forum (v-twins.cc) and chatted with Yella and Rocket on there and eventually bumped into them at trackdays. It was Croft where I met Yella for the first time if memory serves me right. It should have been Mallory on my 996 with DSC (Ductai Sporting Club) for my first ever track day but I couldn't make the day and had to sell my place so didn't go to that one.

Back then, I was meeting people and arranging meeting up again by text and email. That all got too complicated so I put a 'Throttlemonkey' website up and posted dates of trackdays we were going to along with TDO and prices. I added reports once we'd done them. We painted our three bikes up red and got 'Throttlemonkey' stickers on them. It got folks attention and we started to get people joining us on the days just for the craic.

Once we had 6-10 folks meeting up regularly I decided to start the forum in 2005. The rest, as they say, is history and now we are back again!

The good old days kingy :-) going to Mallory on a track day with yella camping think it must have been the dsc one was pissed as a fart. Got up the next morning with a stinking headache. Never went out on track it was wet changed my tyres but felt so ruff. All yellas fault getting me drinking that smelly bow.

Going to Oulton on the srad I had for about 2 months, flamin bill charging it with 2 wires on the car battery. Being sent out for one session as it was too windy coming out of she'll bend and getting blown from one side of the track to the other with the front wheel in the air. Then they cancelled the day and said we had all had track time.

The first time out on the zx636 at track after farting about with allsorts of bikes and finally tok your advice at croft. Can remember the grin on my face coming into the pits for the first time I could not smile any harder. Did not sell the bike and was sat in my garage till may this year. I have since put it on the road and took it to Mallory and I bloody love it make me feel twelve again.

I still have a vtwins.cc t-shirt , also remember he tried to sell us that site when there was only us using it.

[picasso]

Bumped into a old school mate who was starting track days the same time as me about 2005. we did about 3or4 days a yr and was loving the whole experience that the track had to offer. So much so that i started racing this yr in EMRA Roadstock 600's and having a pb at cadwell of a 1m42 and a 2nd and a crash all in the same day and to get a 3rd place trophy at mallory this has been a totaly awesome year . and a lot of what i have learned has come from this site... listening to storys and getting help around mallory from feen and shelly and p.o. was a great help.. and getting tm discount always helps

[Kingy]

Heres another blast from the past. A certain Mr Walker no less during his days at Kwak WSB ...