By Allison Kennedy

Skyline? What skyline?

Only one thing is certain in Calgary on Friday afternoon, it's raining. With 80 to 100 mm of rain forecast by Saturday, the teams were busy digging trenches and waiting to hear about the fate of Saturday's program. Calgary has gotten an unprecedented amount of rain in the last few weeks and despite a few sunny days this week, it's back. There were heavy rainfall warnings Friday afternoon with rain expected to continue into Saturday. Sunday sounds sunny and warm but the National crew will have to solider through until then. Billy Whitley's Kawasaki crew were busy levelling a load of gravel in an effort to keep their pit area mud free. Everywhere you looked, mechancics and crews were digging trenches and hoping that this was all a bad dream.

Billy Whitley does a fine job with the shovel Friday afternoon.

Besides the attempts at preparing for the wet weather, there wasn't much action around Friday afternoon. But one keen Quebec rider was working busily to swap the #884 to a nice single digit #8 on his bike under the KTM tent. Marco Dubé makes his return at the Calgary national. Is he excited? "I'm not sure yet," smirked Dubé, who added that he didn't race the opening two rounds because he wasn't ready yet. "I'm ready now," said Dubé who seemed pretty pleased to be back despite the muddy conditions. Guy Giroux had also planned to race the Calgary national with the KTM team but was unable to nail down a bike for the weekend.

KTM Canada's Marco Dubé makes his return.

There were a wide variety of opinions circulating on whether Saturday's practice and qualifying program would go ahead. Some teams claimed to have been given the official word that Saturday was cancelled while others hadn't heard much. I called the CMRC's Brett Lee while he was en route to the team manager's meeting Friday afternoon. "The truth is I'm looking at the track right now and it's perfect," said Lee. "I know it's going to be crap tomorrow but I can only make a decision based on what I see right now...so that's what I'm doing," said Lee confirming that as of Friday afternoon, the Saturday program was a go. Lee said there are only three reasons a race can be called off: if the track is impassable, if the medical staff deems it unsafe and feel they can't respond to calls, or if it's lightning. "So far the track is far from impassable, I haven't talked to the medics and it's not lightning so..."

So the final decision on Saturday's program will be made Saturday morning. The rain continues to fall here in Calgary and most people have left the track for the comfort of the Blackfoot Inn lobby bar. I like to think that somewhere some brilliantly talented mud rider is grinning away to himself... there has to be something positive here somewhere. I'll keep you posted on Saturday's decision as soon as I know. See you at the races...

FXR/Factory Stock rider Aaron Wiebe was still smiling Friday afternoon.