Cross your fingers that my bike's oil leak is nothing but a busted seal. If not, that picture above will just be wishful thinking.

I've removed the fairing (without breaking any little plastic bits), cleaned up the oil spill (a long and deeply embarrassing story), put the fairing back on (with no extra screws left over and no bleeding cuts). Now the slow-but-real drip is just clean oil, so there's gotta be a leak somewhere. The bike will be at the shop early tomorrow morning.

Leak found - loose crush ring. Whew! The CS debuts at Laguna Seca on Tuesday.

A recent Friction Zone article addressed the question of finding a good motorcycle dealership. CalMoto (formerly CalBMW) is a great dealership. James in service gave me a syringe so that I can fix an overfill, he and Paul (the service writer) commiserated with me over the oil sump pump, they cleaned the oil gunk off the radiator, and they reviewed the check oil procedure with me in a way that teased me gently about my overfilling but didn't make me feel like an idiot.

The plan was to ride Laguna Seca again in the fall. In April, the opportunity appeared to ride at Laguna Seca in May and I jumped on it for both Peter and me. He rode the F3, I rode the CS. The CS did great.

I have a new understanding of tires now. I've been riding on tires that are great for the track, but the tire material is pretty soft for the street. The ride to Death Valley cooked these tires and made them square. The long hours riding upright creates a flat ribbon in the middle of the tire. Not a problem if your normal position relative to the paved surface is perpendicular. "Normal" is a relative term; normal riding angles on the street/highway and normal angles on the track are worlds apart.

I should have put new tires on the bike before going to Laguna Seca but decided to wait and feel it out. Trying to lean the bike through a corner felt pretty bad. Each time I'd lean the bike over, instead of rolling over a rounded surface, I'd "klunk" over an "edge". I was fine in the corner (leaned over), but leaning over and straightening up the bike was an awkward sensation.

I also found out about "vulcanization" or hardening of tires. The mileage and conditions of the Death Valley trip were enough to vulcanize my nice soft rubber tires. The bike-handling in Turn 9 was already challenging because of the wind blast on the turn's apex. Add hard tires to the mix and you have a tense moment in a high-speed corner. Not good.

Last time on this track, Dennis and I wrote down our reference points. They held up, mostly. On exiting Turn 3 I looked for the Yahoo! banner, expecting to point at the first "o". A Mazda banner was hanging there instead. The BOSCH banner was still in place; exiting Turn 4 I lined up under the second "s" (the banner says BOSCH BOSCH). The most reliable reference point is the tree in Turn 8, sometimes called "the middle tree", sometimes the "right-most tree", depending on how you carve up the copse. Everyone knows this tree.

During lunch, I took the bike over to the Dunlop guys, but they didn't have a stand that would fit my bike. As usual, my BMW was the only one of its kind at the track. I bought new tires and will put them on before my next track day.

The B- group met with Lance Keigwin after lunch to review the track. I had been treating Turn 2, the Andretti hairpin, as a single apex decreasing radius turn, and doing it badly. Lance described an alternative approach, a double apex, in which the second apex comes quite late. He also talked about keeping good drive (maintaining speed) through the Turns 1 and 6, which have blind crests. What you see is that you and your bike are going to hurtle into free-fall. What you know is that the tarmac is there, after all, it is a track. Still, it is natural to want to slow down until you can see over the crest. Staying on the gas deep into these corners takes determination and an act of faith.

I tried the double-apex approach to Turn 2 in the next session, and came away demoralized. The more I tried, the wider I went. At a loss for something different to try, I came in one lap early rather than face that corner one more time. I went out with one of the Keigwins' teachers, Phil Rusin, for the next session.

During the riders meeting, Lance had remarked that in general, he prefers that fallen bikes come back to the paddock on their own power. Sending out a crash truck requires that the track be shut down and cleared which takes a lot of time. "We don't need (the bike to have) handlebars or foot pegs, " he said, "just a working engine with nothing leaking." Later in the morning, one of the riders had a mishap with her bike. She rode Phil's bike in and had to be caught because his bike was too tall for her. He rode her bike in. The left handle bar was intact but the throttle assembly was hanging loose in his hand.

Phil led me for the whole session and showed me how to do the double-apex on Turn 2. I used the telephone pole reference points Lance had mentioned coming through Turn 1 and added a third, a triangular cement platform, that set up the midpoint apex of the first apex nicely. Debriefing with Phil afterwards he said that it is important to be able to do both the double-apex and the decreasing radius strategy. You decide which to do based on the traffic around you at the time and whether or not you are protecting your line. On my own I was able to repeat the double-apex strategy twice. Good enough.

Laguna Seca may replace Thunderhill as my favorite track. Dennis says that as soon as I get used to Sears Point / Infineon, I will have a new favorite track. We'll see about that in November.

Riding home from Berkeley at night on the Bay Bridge a big boat sedan veered into my lane, nearly nicking me. I swerved into the lane next to me, staying as close to the left as I could because I had no idea if I was veering into someone else. Nobody got hit, but it felt like a close call.

My first thought was "thank goodness for track days". What I've learned about my bike undoubtedly saved me from over-reacting. My second thought was directed as the driver of the car and was none too kind. Due to bridge traffic, I couldn't find a safe escape route. I chose to stay where I was, just to the right of the car's front bumper. I could feel the passenger's discomfort; she knew the driver had almost hit me. As soon as a path opened up, I was outa there.

I'm now motivated to look into giving Motorcycle Awareness talks. Had that guy hit me, he would have told the cop, "I didn't see her." I don't think he looked, and if he had, I doubt he would have seen me because he wasn't looking for a motorcyclist. Before I started riding, I didn't see motorcyclists either.

The Motorcycle Safety Foundation has a video tape entitled "Cars, Motorcycles & A Common Road" (use the search facility to find it). Amy Holland, the editor of Friction Zone recommends that speakers show this video at the beginning of their talk, then take questions as a way to start the discussion.