Had an excellent day yesterday, ended up being much later than expected in getting to the circuit after spending three hours chatting with the friends who were rumoured to be having a 'surprise' party tonight and it turns out to be nothing of the sort. They are on my way over to Snetterton and I spent the morning drinking coffee and talking. Got to the circuit at about 12.30 and the first item on the agenda was to find a loo after all the coffee and got shown to a portaloo. Ah, the day has started downhill then? Well no, it was clean and completely odour free, what it would be like at the end of Sunday might be another question? When I eventually found a spot to have a look at the action, at the Bomb Hole, within three minutes the session came to an end for a 45 minute break for lunch. Which gave me a chance to have a wander around and see more of the circuit. I settled on a place about half way down the Revett Straight and waited for the action to restart. Next out were the Supersport boys and as the session went on I made my way down the Revett Straight towards the braking area for The Esses in anticipation of the Superbike session. This was just eyepopping, watching as the big bikes went from about 170 mph down to about 50-60 mph, I guess, in order to take The Esses. I then went over the bridge to have a look at The Esses from the other side and the run on to the Bomb Hole. Even though it was free practice, plenty of riders went straight on and made use of the run off area.

At the end of the session I went over to the back of the pit lane and it was really nice to see some of the top riders, past and present, wandering around. Niall Mackenzie, John Reynolds, Paul Young and the man of the moment, Senior TT winner, Steve Plater. Leon Camier got collared for a few photos on his paddock bike and seemed very happy to do so. At the end of the pit lane I got a closer look at the some of the Superbikes as the came back from scrutineering. There were a couple of downsides to the day, being practice day many of the concession stands were either not fully set up or not open and this meant limited burger offerings, very limited, and the one I got was crap.

There were lots of good viewing places, at least good on a practice day, the braking point down Revett, The Esses, inside and outside, the Bomb Hole and another spot gave a good view of Russell's which leads onto the Senna Straight past the pits. But very little of the viewing areas are banked and with many more thousands of spectators on the circuit for race day you may have to get there early, get a good spot and stick with it for the rest of the day and I would not be happy doing that.

I took a load of photographs which I haven't loaded on to the PC yet, but I know that there are many of empty tarmac as the time the little Canon takes to write to the memory card became an issue and it only released the shutter when it had finished the write and not necessarily when I pressed the button. It's never been a problem before, but a fast moving bike could be at the next corner before it had finished it's housekeeping and was ready for another shot.