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What a great day. Aside from the fog in the morning (which made the 2 hour drive at 5:30am rather … challenging, and kept the choppers from coming directly to the track in the AM), the weather was perfect. Warm and clear — hot, even, in the afternoon, which kept the tires nice and warm on the track. I pulled in around 7:45, and Mike, Maria, Larry and Ralph had a spot saved for me. Jimmy was already there, teching folks in, and Dan and Sharad joined us shortly after in the pits. I couldn’t miss Jimmy, what with his huuuge All-State pavilion set up.

The CBR was running very well, though I have to say I noticed the bumps and ripples on PIR East more than ever before. And the Red group seemed so slow … maybe everyone was taking it easy after a few nasty crashes in the AM, or maybe Ralph was right and we’re just moving faster now than before. I don’t know, on the lap that Jimmy followed me I was reassured that I still need to “twist the facking throttle, you poooooosie”.

Mike’s right, he and I had a blast tearing around the track after each other. I would follow him for a session, then he’d follow me, occasionally passing each other, and passing some of the others in the group. I got off a great pass between turn 5 off the NASCAR straight and the kink before the double-apex, as Mike was coming off the straight a bit easily … it’s an awesome place to gain some ground. I only saw Dan when he passed me on the brakes on the NASCAR banking. And Jimmy, when he followed us for a bit, passed me like I was in reverse. Man, it’s good to be a coach!

I spent a lot of time working on my STAR School body positioning (versus my previous horny-monkey knees-out a-flailin’ style), which works very well for me. But it turns out it hurts my left knee for some reason, perhaps because my inside knee is bent more than I’m used to and PIR East is all lefts. By the end of the day I found a compromise position which worked well for me. And Ralph gave us some great advice on a turn-in spot for turn 4, which set me up for the straight very well.

I had some more contact lens problems, which led to me (a) throwing a hand up on the straight as I couldn’t see, blinking madly to try to fix them, (b) blowing turn 5 and continuing on the NASCAR straight, turning around (safely) and getting waved back on by a corner worker, and (c) continuing down the track slowly but predictably with one eye, and coming off to fix the eyes. I have made up my mind, this has happened too often, I’m getting LASIK in the off season. I get really focused and blink less than I should on some laps, which dries out the contacts and causes problems.

After the day we shot the sh!t at Woody’s over burgers, ribs and buffalo chicken. A great way to unwind before a long drive home.