Left for the track at 4:00AM Saturday from Atlanta. Arrived right on schedule at 7:30AM. Get registered and set up the pit. Hit the first practice to try out the new PM's. They seem to be alot better than the stockers. Finish out the morning practices and crack a beer open. Ah life is good. We hang out for the day watching the races. Seen some serious carnage in both the MW & HW Solos from my T5 pit area. I am glad that most everyone walked away from those. Head to the hotel to check in and go grab some pizza and beer. Come back from stuffing ourselves, watch a little of the tube and go to bed. Sunday practice I am using a old set of tires and make a switch to some new buns for the second practice. Barely get everything back together and third call is annouced. Struggle to get my leathers on since I am sweating like a whore on a Saturday night. Scrub my tires in and start to put in some hot laps. I notice that I have a front end bounce that I didn't have before. It's nothing too bad but not confindence expiring. There is nothing I can do about before my race so here we go. I am gridded on the 2nd row and get a killer start. I am up to the front row when 2 SV's blast by me. These guys came off the 2 rows behind me and I thought I would see a meatball for them. No meatball though, they must have ESP or something to get a start like that. I am in 3rd going into T1 and running pretty good. The bounce I was getting in practice is not as bad as before but I got some serious bounce in T5. It's really a dog fight with about 3 of us trading places every lap. The top 3 guys slowly leave our battle. I am all over 4th and I am planning my move. We came through T3 to see a waving yellow in T4. That slows me up a little and I get passed before the front strait. I have a good position now as coming onto the front strait both riders ahead of my are battling and the Aprilia doesn't have the HP to pass the SV. I say to myself watch these guys as I use the superior HP of my 400 to blast by both of them. That move put back up to 4th. I keep the position and take the white flag. Then in T2 the Aprilia passes me on the outside. That was a very gutsy move and there is nothing I can do about it. I know he doesn't have the HP to stay a head of me on the front strait so I try to stay on his tail. We encounter lapped traffic and he pulls out little gap. I couldn't get close enough to make a move so 5th it is. Get back to the pits, crack a cold one and watch the rest of the races. Pack up and head home after the last race is done at 3:15PM. Next adventure is Talladega in 2 weeks see you all there.
Cracking open a cold one was my theme for the weekend, after watching the restarted MW Solo from the air-conditioned comfort of the ambulance. Those EMT guys were so cool! The theme carried over to Sunday, but that was after breakfast which consisted of a Nutrigrain bar, cup of coffee and a percocet. I came up with a rather ingenious way to keep the beer cold in the Savannah heat. I just rested it against my ice-packed knee between gulps.
