SammyTheSnake

I'm riding a motorbike around a race track that has a couple of twinges of familiarity to it [when I wake up I recognise it as being similar to one in a dream I had a year or so ago] As I go around the track it alternates between being realistic and exhibiting various unlikely features, such as being very narrow, having junctions, going off-road and through bushes etc. Sometimes I'm catching up on other bikes, or even overtaking them, other times I get a corner wrong and lose ground. (One corner in particular surprises me by being a sudden narrow dirt track up a steep hill, with a hairpin and an un-signposted junction!)

[Gap - probably a micro awakening]

I'm in the canteen of the race track and I'm very excited to know that I've been selected as a wildcard entry in the MotoGP! I managed to qualify on the basis that I could keep up with the traffic, even though I was pretty inconsistent.

The canteen is full of motorcyclists and their various entourages - parents, managers, wags etc. I recognise a few faces, including some that I'm surprised to see here until I rationalise then as being friends of somebody less unexpected.

Everyone is wearing their leathers and boots and tucking into food and drink. I realise I haven't brought anything to eat and the race is about 40 minutes of concentration so I'll need to eat something. I pinch some left over bits from somebody else's snack but it's not very satisfying. I notice that there are some huge loaves of bread on the counter at the end of the canteen, but I notice just to late to take some because we all have to go and get ready to race.

As a total n00b, I haven't got my own leathers and bike, so I try to find out where I get kitted out. Eventually I end up with some rather fetching dayglow yellow leathers and an orange safety vest that I shove into a pocket on the thigh of my trousers. We're all jostling around trying to make sure we have or bikes and kit in order and so on. I realise I'm going to be starting from the back of the grid and on a weaker bike than most, but I'm still excited to be able to join in with Valentino Rossi (who I see on the grid) and I assume Marc Marquez is around somewhere nearby, too. I'm also quite pleased that at least in some parts of the track I'm quick enough to be competitive, though I'm a little nervous that I still don't know the track at all as well as I might.

Unfortunately, I wake up in the middle of the grid walk and miss out on racing! Boo!