Saturday morning comes at VIR: cold with a looming sky. Weather report still said snow. Pretty much all day. Crap.
It starts to snow lightly about 30 minutes before our practice session. I am NOT in a happy mood. Memories of my wrecked WRX (done in similar weather at this event 3 years ago) and me wishing I stayed at home go through my head. I gear up, get in the car, and visualize being smooth, keeping my eyes up, and feeling the car and grip. As we sit on the grid, it starts snowing MUCH harder. Huge flakes, accumulation on the grass, but nothing on the track. Im on my dry shaved tires. I go out with the intent of feeling out the track and coming in if Im not comfortable. So after we are out there, a strange thing happened. I was having a blast, passing just about everything on the track. The times come out and Im the fastest SM, with the guy who lent me the tire a couple seconds behind me.
Shortly thereafter Cobetto calls a meeting where he tells us that due to the weather, our qualifying session has been cancelled and will be using practice times to grid the cars. Sweet! My first pole.
By race time, the snow had slowed way down, but I decided to put my full tread rain tires on anyway, since with the track so cold, I wanted to get as much heat in the tires as I could.
We grid up and head out for what was an excruciatingly slow pace/formation lap. Ive said it before and Ill say it again, there is no feeling in the world like coming aroudn the final turn waiting for the green flag to drop.
I got a half decent start, it was impossible to see the flag so I just went when I heard other cars in front go, I headed right, and the P2 car headed left. I passed 6 or 7 cars before T1, and my strategy worked better than his because I got to T1 before he did (see video). I stuck it on the inside in T1, because in practice that felt like the most grip, but wait a second, there comes the back end around, and all I could think was "crap, I qualified on pole and now im about to blow it with a spin" but I summoned my mad doriftoruuu skillz, stuck my leg out the car door, waved to the crowd, and saved the spin. The rest of the first lap was a lot of fun, passed a few cars, and checked out on the 2nd place SM. The race went on and I got into a groove. I was probably 1/2 a straight ahead of the 2nd place guy when I thought to myself "self, Id better not screw this up, just take it easy and its in the bag" which in hindsight, was stupid (and I should have known better) Consciously thinking about driving and taking it easy is the perfect way to make mistakes, and not coincidentally, the car got loose and squirrely a couple times a lap after that, my laptimes dropped, and going into the final lap the 2nd place car was about 10 car lengths back. No big deal though, right? 10 car lengths is still a lot, and no one is going to make any silly moves in this weather.
Until we hit traffic. Slow traffic, in the uphill esses, where the line was bordered with deep standing water and no chance for me to pass offline. He got about 6 inches off my bumper. Crap.
we hit the back straight and as well as I knew this was going to be his best opportunity to pass. After getting some momentum with a draft, he pulls out next to me. We were coming up on a slower car so I moved to the left to go around, and apparently that spooked him or put him into some standing water and he slid back behind me. I late braked T14 and stuck to the inside, slid through hogpen and ended up crossing the line first by about 1/2 a car length.

It felt great winning my first race, but when the results were released, they showed Payton Wilson in 1st place SM. Now that wouldnt be too strange, Payton won the national Pro SM in 04, but he drives a 99, and they are not SM legal in nasa, they have their own class, SM2. And he also wasnt gridded up with SM. With the help of Matt and Sean, it got straightened out and everyone was in agreeance.
The awards ceremony was fun, and thanks to the work of King Rat motorsports getting sponsors, I got a Sparco steering wheel and a nice KR mug in addition to the nasa plaque.

Here is the race video, the start and first lap is especially entertaining.

Ill have video of the practice/qualifying session in the snow up later

unfortunately I showed up back at the track on sunday to pack my stuff up, and my right rear tire had deflated This is in addition to a puncture I got in a brand new RA-1 on friday, so I lost 2 tires, 1 new and 1 almost new. Anyone ever heard of puncturing tires like that? In about 4 years or so of doing this, I have never punctured a tire.

and some pics, thanks to Phil Randall for standing out in the snow!
qualifying in the snow:




race




*mad*


and again the video


Modified by Evan55 at 5:07 PM 2/20/2006


Modified by Evan55 at 5:19 PM 2/20/2006

 

Nice write up! Congrats to you!

 

Congrats on the win!

I don't know how you would have punctured your tires - are you sure you didn't roll over some dropped exhaust bits or something?

That start was sweet - nice pass on the pit exit lane. And you are the dorifto king!
I was surprised how tentative some of the cars looked on the first lap - easy pickings.

 

 

Jeez that looks scary to me! I don't even know how to drive a steet car in rain/snow, let alone run a race in it. Do my wipers even work? Hell if I know.

Congrats on the pole/win!

 

Congrats on the pole/win

Great start to watch & an even better finish! (you could see the whole thing really well in your rear-view mirror )

I also have to say my other favorite part of your vid was on the 3rd lap when the poor CMC car passes you on the back-straight only to completely lose it at the left-hander heading into roller-coaster

 

nice work.

they let you go over the blend line out there?

 

congrats, my instructor (Joe dont know last name) said he raced miatas but anyways spoke very highly of you.

 

Nice job Evan. Congrats!!!

 

Hell yes, Evan. You don't play around. Great job!

AJ

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Evan55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I summoned my mad doriftoruuu skillz, stuck my leg out the car door, waved to the crowd, and saved the spin. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Great visualization.

 

i was actually working station 15 by the roller coaster on saturday. it was definitely interesting watching you guys race in the snow like that; though it was a little cold with the wind blowing snow on us. congrats on the win

 

nice.

Just as a weird coincidence, my name is Evan also and I use the number 55.

 

Nice job!
Way to go on your first win!

 

Good job Evan... i didnt even know! Next time i'll try not to hide next to the heater in the tech shed all weekend!

Evan likes the rain... his WRX did too... the bald tires didnt!

 

That opening lap in the vid is a great example of why I like the rain so much. You lucky bahstahds.

K

 

Racing in the snow/wet = looks like fun
Being a corner worker = really doesn't

God bless their frozen souls...

Nice work. Thanks for sharing.

 

Nice Job!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by thawley &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Racing in the snow/wet = looks like fun
Being a corner worker = really doesn't

God bless their frozen souls...

Nice work. Thanks for sharing.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Being a corner worker can be rough BUT it is a great spot to watch from and is a very rewarding job because you are instrumental in keeping your friends safe. It really makes a difference when you know the guy in the car who may be off in a dangerous spot and you wave like crazy to protect him.This is one of the many reasons NASA MA wants to build a reliable , regular flagging crew.The job is THAT important.

 

Congrats on your first win! It's fun, isn't it? Pretty awesome to do it in such less than ideal conditions too.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by NASAREGISTRAR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Being a corner worker can be rough BUT it is a great spot to watch from and is a very rewarding job because you are instrumental in keeping your friends safe. It really makes a difference when you know the guy in the car who may be off in a dangerous spot and you wave like crazy to protect him.This is one of the many reasons NASA MA wants to build a reliable , regular flagging crew.The job is THAT important.</TD></TR></TABLE>

yeah, i definitely enjoyed working the past weekend. it was my first weekend training, first weekend even being at a real track too and it was fun.

it was a little scary the second day, i was working station 3 and during the sprint/enduro race an m3 hit the wall, when the flat tow comes we start waving the yellow and have standing white/debris flags but everyone keeps flying down. then the ev stopped right on the racing line after the turn. i thought for sure someone was gonna plow into that thing...see them coming around turn 3 and then swerve when they see a big dualie truck in the way. i was rather surprised to see people not paying as much attention to the flags as i would have thought

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by roppetty &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

yeah, i definitely enjoyed working the past weekend. it was my first weekend training, first weekend even being at a real track too and it was fun.

it was a little scary the second day, i was working station 3 and during the sprint/enduro race an m3 hit the wall, when the flat tow comes we start waving the yellow and have standing white/debris flags but everyone keeps flying down. then the ev stopped right on the racing line after the turn. i thought for sure someone was gonna plow into that thing...see them coming around turn 3 and then swerve when they see a big dualie truck in the way. i was rather surprised to see people not paying as much attention to the flags as i would have thought</TD></TR></TABLE>
I know how hard it is to get everything in your head the first time out. If you ever see cars look like they are not heeding a safety flag ( yellow, white, or **shudder***, a red) you need to note that car number and let race control know right as soon as the net is clear. visibility was poor but that is no excuse to go bonzai around EV.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by roppetty &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">it was a little scary the second day, i was working station 3 and during the sprint/enduro race an m3 hit the wall, when the flat tow comes we start waving the yellow and have standing white/debris flags but everyone keeps flying down. then the ev stopped right on the racing line after the turn. i thought for sure someone was gonna plow into that thing...see them coming around turn 3 and then swerve when they see a big dualie truck in the way. i was rather surprised to see people not paying as much attention to the flags as i would have thought</TD></TR></TABLE>

That even made my heart jump a little.. I saw the yellow, slacked my speed down and still the car slid on me.. I *think* there was oil down, because it sure felt like it. I was only driving about 7/10ths when it kicked on me.

to the EV all weekend, they did an awesome job doing hot pulls all weekend

 

i dunno how bad it was...but i've raced where you can't even see the brake markers 10ft away from you, much less a flag 50ft away. a lot of times with new drivers in new cars they haven't sorted out their windshield fogging issues either. i'm not making excuses for the drivers, i'm just saying corner workers be extra aware that it may not be that the drivers are not paying attention, but moreso that they can't see a damn thing.

 

this was on sunday in the dry clear conditions.