Thunderbolt Reviews

[FDNYDANO18]

Well, myself and NYCSTRIPES were at Thunderbolt raceway yesterday for TPM's first excursion on this new track. It is an inspiring layout. It is fast AND technical. Lots of LOOOOONG sweepers that decrease radius at the close of the corner so VERY late apexes. Lots of steering with the throttle. . Really hard on tires.... that is to be expected. Just like Lightning, its gets better as the speed increases but its by no means a hard on the throttle everywhere layout like lightning. It's got some elevation changes that can be a little unsettleing at first. The layout we ran yesterday was with the two chicanes included. This will be my favored layout. The exit of the first chicane is over a blind entrance right hander. If you get it wrong you will be going off road to the left. At speed my bike was getting a little unsettled there but I suspect that has more to do with the inferiority of my stock suspension. This track will show you the limitations of your suspension.
There are LOTS of GREAT passing areas. This is gonna be a great place for dicing with another rider of equal skill. Fast guys are gonna be really fast here, as expected.
There is a short strait after the exit of the second chicane that has a hill in the middle that I found I had to short shift before the top of or the front was going skyward. It took me about 2 sessions before I knew where the track was going. It's gonna take me a long time before I will be able to really be aggressive with this track. Me and Kenny were doing steady 1;46's by the end of the day although my laptimer was only picking up till around 2:00pm. Think we may have been going a little faster the following sessions but not much. Fast guys I'm sure were quite a bit faster.

All comments.... either positive or negative are happily welcomed

[NYCSTRIPES]

*getting on the road at 4am for the"early" track start..sucked
*arriving early at NJ MSP and not getting onto the track until after 930AM..sucked even more
*TZ250 clutch locking up...just about got me in to a frenzy
*falling in love with the new track...Awesome
*riding the TLR on Thunderbolt in great weather-Awesome
*ending early for twilight..sucked again

[FDNYDANO18]

riding on a great new track without having to drive 700 miles.....
PRICLESS

[lateapex]

Agreed, super track. Took a few session s to get a flow but once you get it, it's a great place to ride.

There were a few of us that did Beaver on Sat/Sun and ran to NJMP on Monday. What a great 3 days of riding. .

[FDNYDANO18]

You've got the right screen name for that track....

[Jake]

Originally Posted by lateapex

Agreed, super track. Took a few session s to get a flow but once you get it, it's a great place to ride.

There were a few of us that did Beaver on Sat/Sun and ran to NJMP on Monday. What a great 3 days of riding. .

Yes but who did the twilight as well?

[MarioB]

Show off

[FDNYDANO18]

Ahhh ..... the "Twilight" of my "loyalty"...

[ffejtable]

Surprisingly I liked Lightning more than I liked Thunderbolt... It may be because I had higher expectations of Thunderbolt. I wasn't blown away like I had hoped. Pit out was in an odd place which is why I couldnt tell what direction the track would be run in from the aerial photos.

The never ending right with the dcreasing radius is nice, but took a few sessions to get it right. They had a green cone out there for the third session, which was nice to have something to aim for, although I was turning in much earlier. The also found shifting helped in the uphill section as it loads up the front a little to keep it down. I had one scary incident there with headshake. The right after that is much faster than I was taking it as well.


Pavement was smooth, but I thought I was hitting slight bumps in the first chicane.

I liked the chicanes, but I would like to give it a shot with only the second one. This should give riders already on track a better opportunity to get around slower traffic coming onto the track. On two occasions I had slower riders coming onto track holding me up. One was a coach (CR, actually) who was aware of the situation and stayed off line to let me though.

I will be back Oct 20!

[lateapex]

Originally Posted by Jake

Yes but who did the twilight as well?

I did!