Toronto

Everyone was puzzled looking at the race track today. Tim Ferry designed the track, and the layout is fine, but something funny happened on the way to building the course. The dirt up here is frozen, and then when it came into the heated building, it started thawing, which threatened to turn the whole course into soup. A whole bunch of sand was dumped in to try to utilize less of the thawing dirt, but it's still going to be wet.

"It will be like a mud race just without the mud," said Travis Preston during the track walk.

"I think we're actually opening up natural springs once we get down into the surface. There's water underneath," said Kevin Windham.

This will lead to an unpredictable track that's slick and wet and soft and rutted in some areas, and then sand in other spots. Everyone is concerned with the ruts, knowing that jump rhythms that look good earlier in the day may not be around by the time the main events begin. It should be tough, it should be technical and it should separate the riders. Reed even told us it reminds him of Indianapolis, where he laid out the track but the whole race really came down to the rutted soil instead of what direction the track went. We'll see if this plays into Reed's hands like it did in Indy.

Reed did go home to Australia during the weekend off, he said he spent his first Easter in Australia in eight years. He didn't do much riding either, because at this point he's been riding for so long that a week off won't make a big difference anyway. Maybe he won't be so sharp. Maybe it won't matter. Honestly I think at this point Chad is just trying to control the championship and winning every race isn't so important.

Which leads us to Ferry. He's back riding after three races off with internal injuries. He looks good, in fact, he notched the fastest lap time of anyone during the second practice session. I can't remember the last time Timmy was the fastest in practice. In fact, this may be the first! Timmy told us he's got some hope now that Hill and Millsaps have gotten their first wins. Could he really come off the couch and do it?

I wouldn't count Reedy out.