Friday post qualifying

For some reason I was concerned with the attendance in Edmonton this year. I don't know why, but boy was I wrong. They had a great crowd here on Friday and they were really enthusiastic. In fact, very early this morning I knew I was wrong, as the paddock was nice and packed early.

The qualifying session was actually pretty exciting, as many drivers took over the top spot, at least momentarily. Then the red/checkered flag dropped and that's when the confusion began. Nobody knew why. Not the teams, not the drivers, not us sitting in the radio booth. We saw the red flag earlier and saw the ambulance go on the track and speculated that it might have had something to do with Tristan but frankly nobody knew for sure. He was on his first lap, it seemed several minutes after he actually had an incident. But I guess when it happened, Jimmy went on the radio and asked him if he was okay and Tristan said no. Anyway, Tony Cotman decided that by the time they would extract him and all that, the session would be over anyway and since the 20 minutes of green had elapsed, he made that decision. it was kind of funny though to see everybody's reactions. The good news is that he was cleared from the hospital and will be checked by doctors at the track in the morning. I suspect he'll be okay to drive.
All that was good news for Seabass, as I think Will is the fastest this weekend, but Bourdais isn't certainly aren't far behind.

Speaking of fast, I was thrilled to see Alan Sciuto be the fastest in the Atlantics session today. I know he spun, caused a red and lost his fast time, but he knows who was quickest and that should give him confidence for tomorrow's race. I suspect he'll be aggressive for both Atlantic races and hoefully he'll take the checkered. The kid came in two years ago with a lot of promise and while it hasn't been easy, he's still very young.