Congrats on the new ride karate girl, what year is it, the crew i was in at southern IL everyone had a 600 double r.
You need all your gear, the group I rode with are track day nuts, so whenever we would go out it was like motogp. Gloves helmet a good jacket and good pants and shoes are really important.
For your first bike I wouldn't recommend anything really nice, you should build your way up and max out the bikes potential before moving up to a newer bike, because new bikes are so light and quick that you can get into trouble before you know how to get out of it.
I bought a 1987 Yamahe FZ700 for 400 bucks, dropped about 1k into it with new tires and paint and tons of other stuff. Not trying to sell you mine but it would be a great starter bike. Get something that won't break your bank if it falls over once.
Don't start off with a nice new powerfull 600 or thousand your sortof asking for trouble imop.
And when it comes to performance and handling you can't beat a japanese bike, but if u wanta a little extra down the line get a duke as it's frames are hand built compared to the japanese are machine built . The duke can out handle supposdly most jap bikes I haven't riding one or been past by one so I don't know yet.
Start off with a early 90's bike for 2-3 k and work on from there, a lot of people by a new bike only put on a couple thousand miles and then garage it because it scares the **** out of them.
Good luck and be safe and smart.