...what with the weather, which started the day having soaked the track, and then sprinkled a bit throughout the day, and a whole sequence of people who simply couldn't keep it in their pants long enough to let their tyres warm up...

I don't think I got more than a couple of sessions which didn't get red flagged at least once, and the fast group managed three red flags in a row without completing more than 5 laps total! One guy broke his femur when he highsided at Hatchets on cold tyres after the first red flag and helpfully ground through the crankcase of his Bandit at the same time, oiling the track. After an hour to get him scraped up and off to hospital, and the track hosed off, second lap out, somebody lobbed it on the wet track, and then the session after, when we finally got back out on track, it was a mere 6 laps in that some geezer's XR650 'motard shat itself big-stylee at the end of the main straight and laid a neat line of oil and engine parts through the braking zone... and right round Hatchetts hairpin!

As an aside, and quite luckily, since I was about quarter of a lap behind him, I braked down from about 140-odd on the far left of the track about 6 inches outside his little present to us all, and turned in much later, judging by the strip of cement dust they marked it with for what remained of the day. Also luckily, I wasn't going to commit myself too hard round the hairpin at the time, given all the mayhem that had occurred there, meaning that when I crossed the strip of oil I only had the full inside-foot-off-the-peg-WTF-happened-there moment, instead of a monumental bin...

Anyway, what with weather, red flags, a couple of sessions in the morning getting up to speed and remembering where the track went and re-learning how to ride the TT600 properly (it has almost nothing in common with the BMW bar number of wheels, and I haven't been on the track for over a year), plus a whole session spent carefully scrubbing in a new set of Pirelli Diablo Corsas (Mmmm... loadsa-grip!) and I ended up feeling seriously deprived of tracktime. My plan before the day was

a) get back up to speed,
b) shift up to the fast group
c) start improving lines, reference points etc
d) DFC (Don't ******* Crash!).

A full day of 8 sessions on the track is normally more than enough to scratch my track itch for a while... except it was only on the last session of the day, a ten minute blat before close of play, that I managed to achieve a), and I've been left unfulfilled. Which probably means another trackday at Pembrey before winter closes in...

Ah well, here's a picture of me just before lunchtime, just as I was starting to think about trying to go fast...