Make everyone ride R7s
At Cadwell’s first evening trackday of the year learns two John Westlake significant things: 1) Don’t be an idiot. 2) On track the R7 is a class co-conspirator…
The male brain is a curious device at the best of times but on trackdays it behaves even more erratically than usual. And at the first evening trackday of the year it seems to have vacated some people’s skulls altogether. I’m at Cadwell Park, two days after the clocks sprung forward, and am struggling to find any semblance of rhythm because every time I clamber into the swing of things, someone crashes and the session is red flagged.
Lap three of the first session: crash. Four laps later: crash. Two laps after that: crash. End of session. For an old boy struggling to persuade my creaky brain and body to adopt the shapes necessary to get round the wondrous Cadwell above dawdling speed it’s all very troublesome.
Chatting to some lads in the paddock there are multiple theories: 1) It’s bright but cold, so people forget to take long enough to warm their tyres. 2) Because you only get four sessions in an evening, there’s a pressure not to waste them with such trifles as, for example, learning the track. 3) The fast group is made up almost entirely of track bikes (I’m one of only two who rode there), so there’s less incentive to stay in one piece, and slicks need a lot of heat to work. 4) Nolimits trackdays seem to attract a gung-ho crowd. 5) Some people are just fricking idiots.
The next session is little better. Something with white race fairings – a ZX-10R possibly – tears past me on the start finish straight, enters the wickedly fast uphill Coppice and I tip in just in time to see him cartwheeling across the grass towards Charlies and, possibly, the nearby town of Horncastle. Back to the assembly area we go to let our tyres cool down again.
It’s a shame because the R7 feels close to the perfect track tool for an out-of-practice twonk like me. The power is so
‘Every time I clamber into the swing of things, someone crashes and the session is red flagged’
predictable and the torque curve is so flat that you don’t have to worry about throttle openings – just crack it open as early as you dare and the tractable MT-07 engine will do the rest. Yamaha didn’t put traction control on the R7 for good reason – you don’t need it. Well, not once the tyres are warm. And it feels deliciously nimble, dancing through Hall Bends and gaining metres on bigger bikes that have to be muscled rather than flicked from side to side. That same feeling builds confidence on corner entry too, letting me gradually turn in later and later until I’m almost doing it in the right place. With more weight over the front than the MT-07 and better controlled suspension, it steers beautifully. The brakes are good too, though the ABS triggers with just a whiff of the rear wheel coming off the floor.
There are only two downsides to the R7 on track, and I’m being unfair with both. The first one is that 72bhp doesn’t feel like much. Even Cadwell’s short straights are enough to have litre sportsbikes whistle past so fast it feels like you’re on a bicycle. The speed differential can be terrifying. But, on balance, I’ll take that trade-off for the fun you have going into and out of corners – plus I outbraked plenty of those same 200bhp monsters simply because it’s difficult to judge your braking marker when you’re doing 160mph…
The second gripe is the riding position. The footpeg to seat distance is relatively civilised because the saddle is high, but the bars are low and that means my neck is killing me after 10 minutes of pretending to be Franco Morbidelli. But, it is a sportsbike and if you’re young and/or flexible it won’t be a problem. Plus, of course, no sooner had my neck started complaining, then some loon would crash and I could cruise back to the holding area for a rest.