Life's a beach.  The Iceland-Aspen ski vacation conditions of two weeks ago have passed on by, leaving citrus farmers in tears and Pirelli proud of tires that performed beyond the call of duty in 31 to 38 degree temps prevailing back at the 3 day test.

It's 70+ and sunny today with a small breeze and almost no clouds as one-eleventh of 2010 already draws to a close, while America debates and absorbs President Hollywood's State of the Mortgage Market speech last night.  John Pew and I treated a handful of Skip Barber friends to a steak at Gene's, Paul Newman's old hang out, for old time's sake.  We all left early enough to catch the President's speech, loaded with rhetoric and lofty promises with no sign of a calculator within 50 feet of the podium - hope you all noticed that Congress happened to pass a bill today lifting the national debt ceiling by $2 trillion to a mere $14 trillion (these aren't Zimbabwe dollars), which our politicians assure us should see the country all the way down the road through till the end of 2010.  Not a misprint.  No racing grid ever cares about increased deficits because that's the way almost every race team operates all the time.

In these strained economic times, it's indeed heart warming to see 45 cars entered for the 48th Rolex 24 hour endurance race: 15 Daytona Prototypes, 12 with brutally competitive driver line-ups and 3 that'll do just fine; and 30 GT cars brandishing Porsche, Ferrari, Mazda, BMW, Corvette or Camaro badges.  Again, compare this to Le Mans where the entry list is capped at something like 55 cars divided into 4 classes on a world famous track 2.5 times the length of Daytona, so their field is mostly spread out like a Sunday afternoon drive.  This Daytona venue even with this slightly abbreviated 2010 field produces far better racing and with only 2 classes, far greater potential for driver error and crashes.

Smatteroffact, guess what happened in the 2 morning practice sessions?  Two of the top DPs (95 and 99), attempting to evade GT cars on errant lines, ended up gasploonshed (technical term) into tire walls, unable to complete repairs in time for the 3:45 pm Qualifying stint.

But before we get to the practice sessions, both of which topped by the MSR 6 car's Michael Valiante, our massive indoor 9 AM driver meeting hosted by Mark Raffauf was cluttered with TV crewmen stuffing large lenses and microphones covered with dead fluffy squirrels on elongated poles into famous faces like Jimmie Johnson, who apparently won some races on oval tracks before, or Patrick Dempsey and his unshaven dreamy TV-movie looks, or Juan Pablo Montoya who can be quick even in a wheelbarrow.  On the side, away from the drivers, the world's quickest caricaturist plied his trade (Steve Hartley on 206 786 8880), sketching some famous racing faces for ego or charity, like Alex Gurney or Hurley  Haywood.  I wandered over to watch him nail Max Papis, who remembered I'd sketched him a long time ago and egged me on till I borrowed Steve's black felt tip pen and nailed him (Steve) relatively well too.  Use him for your next party - you won't be sorry.  The sketch may show up on the MSR website in a few days.

Practice 1 finished with Valiante out front by 0.6 seconds with a 1:41 flat.  Top engines were Ford, Ford, Porsche, Chevy, BMW, BMW, so we can expect a very close race from an engine point of view.  Quickest to slowest DP had 6.5 seconds between them, though by Qualifying, first to last had only 2.6 seconds separating the times.  Everyone knuckled down and got quick.  Valiante also took Practice 2, but this time only by a tenth - in P2 was the other MSR 60 car followed by the 59 Brumos Porsche, last year's winner and then Ganassi's 02 BMW Riley.  All good so far.

3:45's Qualifying session quickly had Valiante out front, being chased by the SunTrust 10 car (Max Angelelli), who jumped from a 1:42.3 in the first session and a 1:41.4 in the second, all the way to 1:40.7 in Qualifying, taking pole position.  No sandbagging there.  Ozz Negri clipped Valiante on the last Qualifying lap for P2 with a 1:41.100 versus Michael all the way down there with a 1:41.110 - this track is 3.6 miles long and they're just a breath a part.  Neither objects to the starting view with lots of open scenery and very few tail pipes.  The top engines are Ford (P1 to P3) and BMW (P4 to P6), with both Ganassi's cars in P4 and P5, and Scott Tucker's expensive driving team of Collard, Bouchut, Sebastian Bourdais and Sascha Maassen taking P6.

During the 2 hour night shift starting at 6:30, AJ Allmendinger and I took our first laps of the day and I had the privilege of going out on cold tires and cool nerves.  Quite a challenge, no spins, but ugly times until lap 4.  Then I encountered GT traffic in all but 2 laps, which is great for race practice enjoying OK times (1:44.5), but nothing comforting for reaching good race pace.  John Pew walked by that time on his last lap by 2 tenths, which was humiliating, but the night was already dark and few people noticed as I slinked from the pit box with a cap drawn down tightly over my face.  AJ took over and peddled us up to P1 after bedding in some brake pads, only to be beaten to P1 by Ganassi's Jamie Murray in the 02 BMW on the last lap or two.

All in all, we have 2 good cars that can run at or near the front for the least important part of the race: the first 20 hours.  Then we will see.  New engines being dropped into the cars overnight and we run some easy tests tomorrow to ensure all is working smoothly.  Then we're in the hands of Fate, who chose to strangle both cars early in last year's race, while leading.

The good news is both the 99 Gainsco Chevy (Jimmy Vasser, Jimmy Johnson, Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty) and the 95 Crown Royal/NPN BMW (Scott Tucker, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Christophe Bouchut, Lucas Luhr and Richard Westbrook) will have their DPs fully repaired and on the starting grid on Saturday.

Tune in to Speed TV at 3 for the 3:30 PM start on Saturday with Dorsey Schroeder, Chris Neville, Miss Twinkletoes, Brian Till, Leigh Diffey and Calvin Fish who will all bring you another 15 hours of Sat-Sun broadcasts and elevate an exciting race for those not able to be here.