DAYTONA BEACH, FL, DEC 5: Erion Honda’s Jake Zemke gave a qualified thumbs-up to the lighting set-up that was unveiled on Friday night at Daytona International Speedway.
The 2008 Formula Xtreme champion said the track was well lit, for the most part. The banking and front straight were fine, he said, but there were parts in the infield and on the back straight that needed attention. Working with track and AMA officials, Zemke assured him changes would be made overnight.
“Pretty much between the entrance of the dogleg until you’re into the west horseshoe,” was one of the less well-lit areas, Zemke said. “It’s kind of like riding through some trees or something, it’s striped. There’s a beam of light and then a shadow and a beam of light and a shadow, and then there’s kind of some dark areas over there in general. So they just need to reposition some lights over there, they’ll be fine.” Musco Lighting, which lit the track, brought in a number of truck-mounted portable units.
“Right now the whole back straightaway” needs more light, he said. “From what they told me, they were putting a portable in the entrance to the chicane right now, before the session was over. And overnight they’re working on making a fix for that back there. They’ve got a way to light it up even more, but it’s going to take them overnight to make the fix. They said they’re aware of the problem and they’ve got a fix for it.
“The biggest thing on the back straightaway right now is the way the lights are coming off from the bleachers, it’s casting a shadow kind of like it does here on the front straightaway. It’s just black. It’s a black hole back there, but they’re aware of it and they said they’ve got some fixes for the problem for tomorrow, so it should be better. Other than that, it should be fine. It’s obviously a lot different than racing in the daytime, but I think it’s going to be good. I think it’s going to add some excitement to things, for sure.”
Zemke said part of the adjustment was losing your peripheral vision in the infield.
“You can just basically see the track and that’s about it,” he said. “In some areas it’s a little bit dark. It’s even hard to see the track in some of the spots. Everything’s kind of blacked out; you’re kind of riding in a tunnel. So you can just see the track. So if you’re used to seeing a gate here, a light pole there, you don’t see any of that stuff. It’s just the race track itself. It’s definitely a different perspective.”
Zemke said there was also a problem seeing brake markers entering the chicane, “but they’ve got the lighting should fix that for tomorrow. But other than that, I’m pretty sure you can see all the other brake markers.”
In case the riders don’t remember where turn one and the chicane are, a larger blinking area guides them in. Zemke said he said it in turn one on the fist lap and for the first two laps “it was a bit of a hindrance, but after that you just kind of know it’s there and ignore it. The one that was more apparent was the one on the back straightaway in the chicane. That one was almost a bit annoying, because it’s so dark back there and the lights, it’s flashing with this arrow. I don’t know that we necessarily need them. It’s one of those things that once you see it once or twice you can block it out. Then you don’t have to worry about it.”
Zemke was sharing possibly the most stock motorcycle at the track with Erion Honda’s newest recruit, Chris Peris. All of the Erion Honda Supersport and Formula Xtreme machines were sold following the season finale at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. So when it was time to load a bike for the test at Daytona, they took a nearly stock Honda CBR600RR and “just put it together with parts sitting around the shop,” Zemke said, and in short time.
The bike was loaded aboard the American Honda truck which left Torrance nearly three weeks earlier, in order to make a late November test at Barber Motorsports Park.
“It’s stock. You can definitely tell a difference between our Supersport bike and this one. I was telling the boys earlier, it feels kind of like when we ride a Supersport bike at high elevation. It feels like there’s nothing there. You’re going to the throttle, OK, let’s go. But it’s still fun. It’s still fun.”
Zemke hooked up with M4 EMGO Suzuki’s Cory West to see what it was like racing with another rider. The pair gave each other plenty of room, Zemke said, because of not being able to see the edge of the track in some area. “Coming through the dogleg it’s kind of hard to see your way through it. Once you’re there you can see, but coming up to it, it’s hard to see. Once they reposition some lights and stuff, I think we’ll be OK.”
