My day started at about 7:30am yesterday. Portland International Raceway was having its re-grand opening and it was a beautiful day. After running my car through the car wash to get all the seagull poop off of my car (they really did a number on her Friday), I headed out to meet up with my car club, Portland Club Grand Prix, at a Burger King near P.I.R. We all met up and paraded together over to the track. We took a parking spot in the pits near where we normally do for race nights and got out and wandered over to the track.

We stood at the starting line area for a while before they herded everyone into the grandstands for the ribbon cutting ceremony at 10am. The bleachers were COLD. The ribbon cutting ceremony was nice and included a nice speech about the history of PIR.

After that we got to walk the track. Most everyone walked the whole track, but a few of us only walked the dragstrip and back. The new pavement is NICE. They did an awesome job on the new pavement... very flat and smooth.

12pm came and FREE lunch was served. Free hot dogs and pop and boy was the line long. I waited nearly a half hour to get my free dog and pop. In fact the line was so long that quite a few spectators missed lunch because everyone who wanted to tour the track was called to their vehicles.

Then after they took our $10 (for 3 laps) we got to drive the track. That was the first time I had ever driven a road course and all I have to say is holy crap, I want to do it again!

Each group was semi-paced but we were all able to play just a little. I "toured" the road course 3 separate times and each time I pushed the Monte harder and faster and it was fun. The first time it was an okay pass around the course, but still worth the trip. Unfortunately, my power steering started whining meaning it was low on fluid, but I didn't care. It probably sounded like a retarded supercharger to the spectators, lol. My second time around I pushed harder and took the turns faster, squealing the tires and mashing the gas on the straight aways.

I decided to head to Baxter Auto Parts after that trip to get some power steering fluid. I left, dumped almost a whole bottle in and headed back to the track to do one last road course trip. On my last 3 laps around the track, my buddy Jake finally showed up and I let him ride shot gun since he didn't have money to take his car around like he expected to. I was squealing my tires the entire time on the last tour, pushing 60 mph in the corners and 90 on the straight aways. I really really wanted to go another round, but sadly they stopped the touring to begin prepping for late night drags. I can say that was the best $30 I have ever spent in my whole life.

After they announced that they were getting ready to prepare the track for racing, they had everyone leave the park. As we got nearer to the gates and we all say the line going clear out onto the street, we all decided to go eat dinner at Hooters rather than wait in the line for an hour before they opened the track. So the six of us that were left went to Hooters and two additional members, who were heading for the track for late night drags, joined us. After the good meal and lovely view (hehe), we headed back towards the race track a little after 6 and only waited a couple minutes to get in the gate. It was a long wait in between runs (probably a half hour to 45 minutes).

I was disappointed on my cars performance during the drags. They didn't prep the track for drags. Traction sucked big time with my worst 60' time EVER being a 2.73 and my "best" 1/4 mile time of 15.40 @ 88.xx mph for the night. I wasn't too happy about that, but there are plenty more race days to come. I decided to make one last run after my last pass of 15.47, but the weather couldn't hold out anymore. It started sprinkling and they had cars in the lanes cover the pad in case the weather let up, but about 5 minutes later they called it and canceled the