Well, as yours truly was one of the first people out on the newly repaired WGI pavement Monday and Tuesday (WGI has been closed for two weeks while the old "new" pavement was fixed with new "new" pavement), I know some of you would like a report. Like anything, there is good news and bad news. <p>Bad news first: Up your tire budget. 800+ linear feet of concrete patches (ala Summit, Mid-O, etc.) that are all very sticky, but also very abrasive. Patches are also where the NASCAR boys might put their cars, but there are a couple of corners where my line puts me "2-on/2-off", with the "off" side being the loaded side. Hmmmmm. Also, the patches aren't particularly wide. In fact, they only seem to be 1 car wide. That should make passing under race conditions a real adventure. Even more of an adventure if it's wet. Hmmmm............<p>Good news: The concrete is really sticky. <p>After we ran on them Monday, they had a "miller/grinder" thing out there taking the top layer off the concrete. Apparently, they wanted to soften up the surface, and level it back down to the asphalt level. Tuesday, the grip seemed the same, just had a lot of concrete dust (from the "milling") to clean off the cars. <p>No concrete patches in the Downhill Left (Turn 6), the Toe (Turn 7) or the Heel (Turn 8), although the Heel has the same sort of single tire width concrete "topping" line like last year (it just reappeared in the last two weeks !) that is really sticky in the wet or dry. It might sound as though they only cared about the NASCAR goobers, but they did put a full concrete patch in the Off-camber Left (Turn 9), so that must be their one concession to roadracers. <p>It's gonna be interesting having cars transitioning off the patch in the Outer Loop (Turn 5) when the concrete does "Short Course" and our cars do "Long Course". YeeeeeeHaaaaaa.....stack some extra tires in front of the Armco opposite Flag Station 10 !!!. <p>I'd like it a whole lot better if they'd made the patches at least 1.5 or 2 cars wide in the Bus Stop, the Outer Loop and thru 10 and 11. It's gonna have a big impact on passing for those cars at the front of the grid who are really hanging it out. <p>First actual racing on the new pavement is Friday, July 30th - EMRA is running a 1 day sprint race and 1 hour enduro. Saturday the 31st and Sunday, August 1st it's us SCCA rat-boys running a regional, which should be a really interesting show. It's the SCCA MARRS show (Mid-Atlantic Road Race Series), so there should be a lot of cars wadded up. It'll be a good indicator of things to come. Don't know if I'm going to race that weekend (might do the EMRA thing), as I'm headed to Mt. Tremblat the following weekend. Life sucks, doesn't it ?<p>John<br>Trained Seals Racing