VIR was a blast this past weekend. On Friday I was entered in the Grassroots Motorsports Ultimate Track Car Challenge and was able to take home the win in the Independent/JV class with a 1:40.5 and John Whitaker took home the win in Shop/JV with a 1:40.7. Congrats John! My car was in the usual Honda Challenge prep with exception for the 150lbs of weights I took out of the car for the event.

Grassroots and NASA did a great job with the event and everything ran smoothly. There were some seriously fast cars out on track, Tommy Archer drove the Dodge Viper Competition Coupe and pulled a 1:28.4!!! Even though there was about a 25 second difference in lap times from the fastest to the slowest everyone was good about getting clean passes and watching their mirrors. Overall a great event and some really cool cars! Look for the full article in November's Grassroots.

Saturday and Sunday was the usual Honda Challenge racing. Our race group "Thunder" was maxed out with 75 cars, this made for some interesting qualifying and racing. For Saturdays race I qualified 2nd, just a tenth off Scot Burner but during the standing start the C6 Z06 Vette in front of me bogged the start. I bumped him then got all flustered and couldn't get back in gear, by the time I did about 9 cars went by. I was able to fight my way back to 2nd and set a new H1 track record in the process with a 1:40.10. Go figure, I run .4 secs faster with an additional 150lbs in the car.

Sunday's race started the same with Scot on pole and me in 2nd. This time we all (Honda Challenge H1/H2) started behind the GTS cars on the second rolling start. IMO, this was a mistake not only did we get caught up in their battles but we caught the back markers of Thunder within 1 lap. The whole race was a battle with traffic. 2 laps before the end I spun in turn 1 but was able to get the photo finish with Pete Curpier for 2nd. Unfortunately Scot had a mechanical failure braking into turn 1. The car had some serious damage and could not finish the race.

Here is the in car video of Saturdays race.

http://video.google.com/videop...51283

Why didn't I just go left!!!!!

Oh yeah, and the BBQ Friday night was awesome. I have to give it to Chad Slagg on the pork, ummmm. Thanks John W, John Olt, Chad and everyone else who helped out with the nights festivities.



Modified by 6ghatch at 2:42 PM 7/31/2007

 

excellent vid. looks like your bumper got used a couple times in saturdays race

 

Good comeback fast car. Fast driver.

Edo

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 6ghatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">VIR was a blast this past weekend.
</TD></TR></TABLE>


Ditto!

The #62 will be a force to be dealt with in September! That's one well driven, super-damn fast and reliable race car/ driver combo.

The H1 HC race at Mid-Ohio will be one for the books.

Congrats Chris.

 

Thanks guys!

 

cool video. Pete is good at making his car wide. I remember last year at Mid Ohio, took me a couple of laps to finally got by him in one of the practice session.

 

Chris,

So you didnt like running behind GTS? Any thoughts from the other H1 guys? Perhaps on a longer course it would have worked better? The plan was:

a) when you caught the thunder back markers, they'd be more spread out.
b) the GTS cars you encountered wouldnt be battling for podium positions.

The only time I ever saw H1 guys was when Scott and Kevin were battling. That was tough because me and Doug (red BMW) were battling hard in front. I was being super defensive which prolly slowed things up quite a bit and made their battle tougher. Kevin did end up getting around me when I left the door open down roller coaster.

Unfortunate to see Scott's car banged up. Any word on what NASA is doing about that incident?

My Sun video: http://brakeswapracing.com/eri...h0707/

Comments and criticism welcome. Enjoy.

 

is that a white mini truck i see?!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by magnetic1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Chris,

So you didn't like running behind GTS? Any thoughts from the other H1 guys? Perhaps on a longer course it would have worked better? The plan was:

a) when you caught the thunder back markers, they'd be more spread out.
b) the GTS cars you encountered wouldnt be battling for podium positions.

The only time I ever saw H1 guys was when Scott and Kevin were battling. That was tough because me and Doug (red BMW) were battling hard in front. I was being super defensive which prolly slowed things up quite a bit and made their battle tougher. Kevin did end up getting around me when I left the door open down roller coaster.

Unfortunate to see Scott's car banged up. Any word on what NASA is doing about that incident?

My Sun video: http://brakeswapracing.com/eri...h0707/

Comments and criticism welcome. Enjoy.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Don't get me wrong, I didn't mind racing with you guys personally but comparing traffic Saturday to Sunday, Sunday was worse. On Saturday Scot and I finished 5th and 6th overall. The few guy in front of us were faster and it took almost half the race till we hit lap traffic. And most all of the GTS guys were fast enough to not be caught. Sunday we were right up on the back of you guys then right into the back of Thunder.

 

i personally didn't like the Sunday format due to being in the CMC mix within the first 2 laps.... from there it was basically zigzagging past them forever....sometimes a train of 5-6 of them..... curses....

Saturday being in with all the cars of similar speed was better in my opinion.... the problem was that it split up the HC guys from each other.....

O ya.... congrats Chris on the UTCC win! dick! .... Hopefully you and John W get some coverage for it.

no love for the ticking s2000.

 

Congrats on your GRM win and the H1 lap record !!!! John, congrats on your GRM win too!


Although the bbq was great on Fri night, I think I'm bbq'd out .....eating bbq leftovers for the next 2 days was too much.

It sucked getting home at 7am after dropping my car off at Kevin's house sunday night. I hope to never have to do it again.

 

Hmmm, I watched your video for the second time. Seems to me that right before the start, you're breathing heavy from nerves or you have a hooker in the car with you out of sight of the camera.

 

great video!! The fact that you lost so many positions on the start is what made the video so cool to watch as you moved back up the field. Maybe you, and/or the guy in front of you should do that more often.

I really need to make it down to VIR some day.

 

good video! i love that k24!

 

so are you going to bring that car out to the Time Attack Final's later this year to Buttonwillow?

 

Awasome video! Nice driving... See you at Nationals

http://video.google.com/videop...51283

 

All I heard about the UTCC was from Chip Herr on Friday night after a half gallon of Jim Bean

 

Do you know the winning time for the Independent/varsity class? I didn't get into the UTCC and I'm just wondering if I would have been competitive or not.

I also heard a rumor that they where allowing walk-ins at the track to compete? Any truth?

 

Don, what kind of times do you run on the north course?

 

Thanks guys!


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mrlegoman &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Do you know the winning time for the Independent/varsity class? I didn't get into the UTCC and I'm just wondering if I would have been competitive or not.

I also heard a rumor that they where allowing walk-ins at the track to compete? Any truth? </TD></TR></TABLE>

http://www.nasaracing.net/VIR_....html

1:31.0 was the winning time but 2nd and 3rd was a 1:38.7 and a 1:39.2. I don't know about any walk-ins but they did add Tommy Archer and the Dodge team at the last minute.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Another Drew &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Don, what kind of times do you run on the north course?</TD></TR></TABLE>I don't know off the top of my head. I've got video somewhere from last year. I'll pop it out and time myself. I was on street tires at the time though, so I'll have to do some estimations as to what my current lap time would be.
I'm hitting 2:12's on full course.