Practice day is in the books for 2008, only racing on Tuesday remains on the GNCC Florida tour. It was a fun day, with the pros going out for press photos in the morning, and then everyone running some laps for practice and testing later on. Who looks fast? Well, everyone, it seems, which is the way it always works on the eve of season openers. Everyone knows that David Knight will be plenty tough, and Travis Pastrana is here and ready to go. But look out for the standard challenge from Yamaha's Barry Hawk and Suzuki's Charlie Mullins, and then throw in a few darkhorses like Red Bull KTM's Nathan Kanney, Florida flyer Garrett Edmisten, and Yamaha's Jason Raines. And who knows about some of the riders that chose not to practice, like Paul Whibley, Josh Strang and Jimmy Jarrett. And Shane Watts is here, to...

There's an XC2 battle brewing as well on the Lites bikes, with Justin Williamson defending his title on the #1 KTM, but Thad DuVall was absolutely flying out there on the track toda--and he has a broken thumb!

All of the racers were surprised by the track conditions. Yes, there's sand, but the roughest part is all the tree roots crossing over the trail, and the massive palmettos. Practice allowed everyone to switch from sand-whoop style suspension to a more traditional woods setup, designed to handle small chop and square edges instead of the big roller bumps.

Most of the GNCC regulars are happy since the tree roots will lead to more technical conditions, which is what they're used to. Travis, meanwhile, knows this track won't cater to his specialty, massive sand whoops. But he's just hoping to have fun (of course).

One more factor: it's supposed to rain tomorrow.

We'll be racing at 8 a.m. We hope to have the live timing and scoring back up and running properly this time, so tune us in.