Today dawned sunny in Zwolle, but a few raindrops spattered on our windshield some 20 km south of Assen. Latest radar shows another round of intermittent heavy rain blowing in off the North Sea. Racing begins at 11:40 this morning with the BMW Boxer Cup. MotoGP is scheduled to start at 3:30, so it remains to be seen whether the weather will clear by then.

In a country where few own cars, traffic is backed up a full kilometer before the Assen South exit by 7:15 a.m. We're told that the southern approach has by far the lighter traffic, since the towns of Assen and Groningen and most of the nearby hotels lie north of the track. Tens of thousands of spectators have been camping since Wednesday at the track or in nearby campgrounds. Many more will arrive by bicycle (the primary mode of transportation in the Netherlands), on foot, or by bus.