Thursday morning arrives with out much outward fan-fair. It's still raining, it's chilly and its dark. But inwardly I am very nearly buzzing with excitement. Back to the track, another quick drivers meeting and then it's time to get down and find out how we all stack up at the end of the day.

Our first event for the day was the ATV course. With the rain steadily falling, we geared up and listened to Ike give us a quick run down of what was changed from the day before. He informed us that due to all of the all of the rain and the ground being clay based that the track was not draining at all. Every where that was just low from the previous day now had standing water in it. The grass that was simply a low traction area before was now no traction. Ike also recommended that we try out the 4x4 on the track to see which we if we liked that better than the 2wd. What I found was that I could muscle the bike around when it was in 4x4 mode and while it didn't accelerate as quickly, I was able to get back on the power much sooner. So, 4x4 it was. 2wd was reported to be ultimately faster by our pro riders but, I don't have enough skill to make that work.

We all got two laps; one to see the course and find out how had changed from the day before and one to get serious and turn a fast lap. On my first run I found out that everything we were warned about was true. There were a couple of times that the whole way through corner felt like it was as if I was driving through the marbles and I quickly found that the fastest way around most of the corners was to do all of the braking very early, get the bike pointed in the correct direction and then nail the gas and charge off at the next corner. There were some very slight corners that it was possible to stay on the gas and accelerate all the way through and put the bike into a little bit of a slide. However, these were all made more complicated by having either a dip or a jump at the end of them. I saw Colin McRae at X-Games 12 so I know what happens when you come off a jump sideways, "setup" for the next turn. No thanks!

These pictures show one of the spots on the course where there was standing water. Some people went left, others went right, but if you had the balance, the fastest way was straight down the middle.

As everyone was going for their practice lap I, along with the Clark(e) brothers noticed that the start line was starting to have the grass worn away and the exposed clay was slippery. When it came for me to start I came to the line far enough to the right that I found some ground wasn't that too chewed up.

As I got the countdown before the flag went up, I preloaded the gas against the brake and waited "3-2-1 GO!" said Ike. And I was off. Over the whoops, slight right into an easy left, hard on the brakes as to not fly off a steep drop off, back on the gas going down the hill then flat out until hitting the brakes to scrub a little speed just before climbing the hill with rail road ties buried in the face like stairs. Then back on the gas to bring the front of the quad up and carry it over the hill. Off the gas at the bottom of the hill and on the brakes hard for the first turn in the grass, point the bike left nail the throttle and head for two logs spread about an ATV length apart. I understand that it was possible to clear the second log by jumping off the first, but I wasn't able to. Then a hard right and over another hill, this one made of large rocks and what looked like cut trees. The next bit was quite tricky because the ideal path through the area was actually part of an off camber turn. If you went too low through the corner it was nearly impossible to set up for the following left hand hairpin. Head through the middle and the quad felt like it was going to slide down to the bottom of the corner. It was possible to do, but you had to be on the gas and hanging off the right side of the bike to keep things pointed in the correct direction. I chose to go high through the corner. I ran the risk of taking out the flags marking the course and having a DNF, but if I was committed to the corner and held my course I wouldn't have to fight a sliding ATV and I would have plenty of room to set up and get around the next corner. Thankfully everything went as planned. I came around the hair pin, down the straight, made a sharp left and hit "Steve's pools" as they were called. Out the end of those and through a section of whoops and a number of jumps along with a few dips that were full of water. There was one jump that I felt like the quad was a good 3ft up in the air! Into a sweeping up hill right and across the finish line.

My best time in practice on Tuesday (in the dry) was 1:42.407. My time for the competition (in the wet) was 1:38.923! I was really excited about dropping nearly 3.5 seconds off of my previous best. It was at this point that I was especially thankful for the hours I spent back in Michigan riding in the rain and sand. It wasn't easy, it was fun and it seemed to really pay dividends.

Lee Clark was on the grid a few people behind me and had a bit of a rocky start to his run. While he was on the back section of the course, the ATV that he was riding somehow stalled. No one is really sure what happened, maybe some odd combination of locking the rear tires and hitting the gas at the same time? It's possible, after all, Lee did drive rally cars for many years and that sounds like an e-brake slide to me. What makes it even stranger is that all these ATV's were full automatics! I know that I got confused quite a few times and grabbed what should have been the clutch, only to find that I had a handful of brake. At any rate, Lee was undeterred. He got directly on a new bike and took off again. When he came back from his full competition lap, he was the picture of excitement. I can't hope to do it justice here, but he jumped off the bike pumping his fist and telling us all how great that run was. Apparently there were a few sections that he hit perfectly, specifically the corner before Steve's pools and all the way through the twin pools. He was able to cut the corner just right and shot straight down the center between the two ditches. Early reports had Lee timed at a blazing 1:19 and change! This was later revised, but no matter what the clock showed he had the time of his life and wore his grin for a solid 10 minutes after the run was over.
As the riders went through the course the rain slowed and finally stopped. Would this be the end of our rainy fun? I know that I prayed that it would! Next up was the karting event...