The alarms went off at 5:00 AM today to leave for our first day of competition. Registration was to take place at 8:00 AM; we got there at 6:30 and were 3rd in line. Some teams came in later and started their own line next to the already started line. The Albertans gladly took care of the problem by standing in front of the team letting us by…

Arriving at the grounds we were given paddock numbers 16-18, giving us three spots!!! We had room for the trailer, the tent and the truck! We registered immediately and ran to the pits to rush to the technical inspection.

My first moment of pride came in when we were sent to line up for tech inspection. Keith was to push the car as I was to sit in the driver seat and steer my way! It was short lived as we were informed by another team that we didn't need to bring our car all the way to tech, all we needed was a number. I quickly sent Keith to get the number and returned to the paddock. Meanwhile, we set up the tent and everything else. Keith came back with lucky number 13 for the technical inspection.

The day was hot and we were very quickly exhausted by the weather! Our source of motivation was clearly the outstanding amount of fine looking ladies walking around the paddock from various teams! It's great to see that more and more girls are being interested by these projects.

At 3:30 PM, we rolled in line for tech inspection and waited there a few hours in the hot sun and very smoggy California air. Finally, our hour to shine came and we rolled into tech inspection. Everything ran smoothly and we got caught on two things; one was the air intake restrictor. The restrictor was half a thou too large… As for the other thing, Kris' feet were sticking out of the frame, which we had assumed couldn't pass through the envelope of the frame. We argued and argued and finally got our way; as for the restrictor, Luc took it apart and added a film of epoxy and left it to cure. Unfortunately we'll have to run through tech one more time tomorrow but very quickly and we will be off to tilt test…

Today we have learnt a few things… one of which is that there are mountains in California!!! Once the smog moves around a little bit, mountains can be faintly seen.
 
Will keep in touch tomorrow as we have a big day ahead of us; Cost, Tilt, Sales, Design and Braking… We'll be busy but valuable points are available to be brought home!!! Another thing: Texas A&M, Kansas University and Auburn, three top teams, have retired… will be interesting to see…