It is sunny and hot at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City for the double-header race weekend, with Grand American Rolex Series and NASCAR Busch Series.
All the trailers and haulers have arrived and are set up in the paddock. Grand-Am has two practice sessions Thursday afternoon, while the Busch drivers arrive tomorrow in time for their first session Friday afternoon. No doubt some of the NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers entered in this weekend's Busch race are still in Tennessee for the Car of Tomorrow test at Bristol Motor Speedway. They should welcome the dry warm Mexican weather - all but 90 minutes were rained out Thursday at BMS.
Grand-Am is running the same course as last year, which is 2.5 miles long. There is no chicane this year, for either Grand-Am or the NASCAR Busch Series, and both series are running the same configuration. NASCAR felt no chicane would improve the show for the fans. To accommodate the change down the long front straight, the Busch cars will run a longer gear ratio. The Champ Car World Series runs another configuration when it races in November.
The first Grand-Am Practice got off to a late start due to lack of radio communication with the safety crews. The session was stopped after fifty minutes for debris clean up which proved to be more time consuming than planned, so the session was chequered. The track was dusty, as was the pit-lane and paddock. Dust flew every time a car moved.
MAX ANGELELLI was fastest with a lap of 1m 23.495s. Other DP drivers who led at one point or another during the session included OSWALDO NEGRI; MEMO ROJAS; PATRICK LONG and MARC GOOSSENS. Angelelli led twice and lowered his time more than once. The top five DP drivers were Angelelli, NIC JONSSON, BILL AUBERLEN, Goossens and PATRICK CARPENTIER.
![Angelelli/Taylor/Magnussen/Gordon - SunTrust Racing Riley-Pontiac [pic credit: GM media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/285944.jpg)
