Dad,
Glad to finally meet you in person last night. This is one of your better posts, in my opinion; everything you said about the evening's festivities is spot-on. To "dry" and "smooth" I'd add to the description "flat" - certainly a ton flatter than Montpelier and Gas City, the first two stops in what seems to be turning into my "Hello Tour", and possibly flatter than a Dark Ages map of the Known World. Personally, I struggled a little to find grip, but felt like I was learning every lap.
I wondered why Doug pulled off so suddenly in the Main, but understand how things like that can happen in the heat of the moment. A.J.'s drive was near-epic and I echo his sentiments that Mini Sprints put on a much better show with the wings off, and that's not biased by my personal preference.
Back to my own experience, I had a great time running with you guys, and hit a couple of milestones, that being my first experience qualifying, and (barely) avoiding getting lapped in both of my events. I had such a good time that I was seriously considering coming down to North Vernon next Saturday, but a morning inspection of the hot rod revealed that my close encounter with Jack Shipman in the heat tore the nerf spuds out of the right side, so it's gonna need to be stripped down and trailered over to Leader's Edge for a little R&R. Jack was very gracious about the incident, thinking that he had me cleared, and even went so far as to offer me his ride if I couldn't answer the bell. Racers. What a great bunch of people.