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Most of the really fast guys actually live there, and ride the course year round. There are no speed limits outside of the towns, so they can ride at a pretty good pace any time they like.
Most who don't actually live there arrive a week before formal practice starts. Formal practice, with roads closed, lasts for a week before the qualifying begins. They all very much "creep up on it" over the course of practice and then qualifying. Every one of them says it takes them awhile, no matter how many times they have been there, to work up to race pace. It's a real mind game, for obvious reasons. Every time they go out may be their last. That thought is always there...
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