My weekend at VIR just wrapped up and it was a great time. I'm unskilled enough to warrant the slow group, but that's probably still a good thing. The weather could not have been better, high 50s in the morning, high 70s maybe low 80s in the afternoon.
My biggest discovery of the weekend is that my (our) cars will get fuel starvation starting at about a half a tank. Turn 1 at VIR is a moderately wide u-turn and coming out of it I would get some starvation but no issues anywhere else on the track.
I also got a lot more comfortable with the oak tree turn which people apparently struggle with for extended periods of time. I also mustered up the confidence to get deeper into the braking zones and get a little into trail braking. On the second day, once the track got hot things got a little more slippery for me and I had to fight some understeer on a lot of turns.
My front tires on the fence of needing to be replaced by the end of the summer before I got on the track, now I'll be surprised if they'll make it through July.
Quite out of the ordinary for the weekend, there was a wreck in the instructor group during exercises. They were doing side-by-sides and the one car dropped two wheels off the track and hit the start of some curbing. That, of course, upset the car, may or may not have wrenched the wheel out of the drivers hands and sent the car into the side of its exercises partner. No injuries, but decent, but repairable damage to both cars.
One of my track friends blew two front tires, one on day one, the other on day 2, left, then right. and another in the group of friends came in from his session billowing steam from his hood. The radiator fan in his WRX decided that it didn't like the upper coolant line and ate away at it until it broke. I discovered the leak by putting my face near the line and squeezing it, would not repeat.
My big scare of the weekend was on the last run of the weekend. There was a car on the track where the driver never got comfortable with speed, braking, or really learned the line. I came up on her in the last third of the track, and had noticed a c5 or c6 vette hauling ass and knew he would be on me by the front straight. Front straight comes, slow car gives me a point, just as I was going to make my move I checked my mirrors and saw the vette flying out of the turn and rip by me and the slow car.
I don't know how any of the DEs that you guys do work but this one has a no point, no pass rule. He was definitely the asshole in the situation and should have come in behind me and I probably would have pointed him by and tucked in after him to pass the slower driver. If I hadn't checked my mirrors and just come out he would have probably ended up in the back of me and very well may have pushed me into the slow car. I may not have been at fault, but my car still would have been totaled.
I have a couple videos from the first day and once I get them encoded I'll pick a good one and put it up.
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Originally Posted by TigerTater
