well... I drank a ton of PBR on July 4th and watched the fireworks show from my back deck.
Some embers hit the hill side on the row of houses right next to me
It was interesting watching all the drunks trying to get their cars out of the fire zones before the fire dept and cops got there.
loaded up after the drama was over and headed to the track at 5am the next day
I signed up in A group literally the day before, which was pretty cool. There's always spots open in A group, so I never have to worry about signing up for a spot 2 months beforehand. I looked at the list and there were only about 14 people in A group for that day. Lots of open track!
I got to ride a couple laps and play around with different lines, braking points, and basically slow down a bit to see what worked and what didn't. I sort of regret not borrowing a lap timer, but oh well.
It was about 100 deg out and no cloud cover, so the black suit was like wearing a garbage bag. Next year I'm getting a white suit. Picked up the pace a little later on in the day and had some fun playing around with some of the control riders that were on literbikes. I felt really good throughout the day and didn't have any "oh craaaap!" moments. Tires were gripping really well and my suspension was working well too. I finally managed to calm the bike down in T8 (about 140mph entry speed) and get the front tire to stop dancing around so much.
Around lunch time, I ran out of gas in the generator and couldn't figure out how to get the cap off the damn thing (I had borrowed the genny from my roommate). It was hot enough that a half lap would have the tires cooking anyways, so it was no big loss.
Lots of fun!
My clutch is pretty much toast and there are some other little things that need tweaking (like fixing a nasty exhaust leak), but it's pretty fun being able to just tear around and have fun. There were a couple of red flags, but fortunately nothing too serious. Very smooth day and I am excited to go racing again on the 20th!