Originally Posted by solidus

Agreed, I was big into the R1-Forum, we did Deals Gap as our convention and after a few visits I thought I was relatively fast on the street. Locally I also thought ( Thought is the operative word.) I was fast. I got talked into a track day and told them I should be Intermediate because I was pretty fast on the street. They giggled and had me run with the Novice group "To warm up". The warm up lap put it all in perspective. First, you absolutely do not know the real capability of your vehicle until you've run it at 8/10th or better in a controlled environment. Second once exposed to those capabilities you realize the futility of trying the same thing in a sea of clueless mortals. After a year of track days I stopped riding on the street and rode track 98% of the time. When I did ride on the street it was frustrating knowing that I was holding so much back. Same principal applies with cars.