FIRST PERSON/OPINION Via e-mail: I don’t know what the hell they were thinking, but the powers that be over Blackhawk Farms decided that last week was the perfect time to replace pavement in 4 KEY corners of the track. Did the pavement need to be replaced? Well, maybe. It wasn’t the best stuff in the world (bumps in T2, patches in the bus-stop & T1 & T7), but at least it was rideable. I was not a part of the crash-fest known as practice on Friday, but I did manage 5 CCS races on Sat/Sun. Many races on Sat were red-flagged because of crashes in the new corners due to pavement coming up, or in the immediate following corners due to asphalt being embedded in the sides of the tires. I guess I just don’t get it. I commended the Irwin’s (BHF owners) when they repaved the track a few years ago, using apparently a very high-grade of asphalt which had great grip and held together excellent in my opinion. However, to replace corners just DAYS before a race (with BLISTERING heat I might add) seems pretty stupid. The surface did get better on Sunday (or maybe I just got used to it) after they steam-rolled the corners Saturday night and washed them down both Saturday night and twice on Sunday to cool the asphalt. However, if you got out of the rut, known as the race line, you were definitely in for a wild sliding ride. After coming off the track as well, you could run your hand across the right side of the tire and come off with handfuls of asphalt about the size of sand granules. It pretty much sucked. Since it was black, you couldn’t see it, but it made the tire slick as hell. There were a few people who managed to nail the line consistently lap after lap, and run respectable times. The rest of us suffered a 2-3 second per lap setback. The playing field was fairly level, as was the frustration shared by most all of the racers this weekend. The sad thing about it is that with the heat continuing, and events scheduled almost every day for the next 2 months, I can only imagine that the track will deterioriate beyond what it was this weekend. Jeff Kufalk CCS Midwest Expert #42 Sussex, Wisconsin