NASA-MA March 23-25, 2012 - Virginia International Raceway

[JustinG]

Will be there by 6:30 tomorrow, can't do dinner since casey is on reg and I'm in tech til 9:30

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[navin]

I have a favor to ask of DJ or Jake: Could you guys pick me up 2 VIR stickers from the shop, and possibly snag a NASA sticker. My new car looks so blah.

Please and thank you.

*ahem*

[JustinG]

I'm headed to walmart now, do I need to grab condiments or cheese? Chips?

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[NTIman]

Sorry if its too late... I got some chips, multiple bags.

[JustinG]

No reply, so I didn't buy anything.

Cars all packed, see you guys tomorrow evening.

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[Jewels]

I'll try to pick up some condiments if no one else has. We have a grocery store right by our house. We aren't completely packed, but all the bags are packed and waiting for the car to come home.

[Jewels]

Well we are home, and what a freakin weekend it was. I think every session had someone go off. Once you hit the grass, even after the track is dry you just keep sliding. I know this weekend alone, DJ and Jake both had an agro session. But the worst thing that happened was definitely the spec miata hitting the EV truck while he was trying to scoop up an E30 and then 5 other miatas blew through the red waving flag.Therefore, the race went red/black/checkered. That was on Saturday. So Sunday we had no hot pulls by EV. So when a car needed to be pulled we had to go full course yellow, which eats up track time. Good time Saturday evening with the MMers, grilled some food drank some beer and caught up on life in general. If it hadn't had that tornado warning and horrible thunderstorm we probably would have hung out longer.

[ScottyB]

i was wondering how you guys were managing with the weather. we had pretty decent hail + serious downbursts of rain on Sat. afternoon and all i could think was...all that's heading north...

[NTIman]

It was a great (condensed) weekend for Ash and I. Had a great time partying in the VBD garage during the monsoon. Glad I missed the train wreck Saturday though.
Sunday was definitely cool though, the Corolla saw a real race track for the first time (even if it was only Patriot Course). I picked up a lot of speed despite the slick wet track. Also, had my first "don't lift" moment off the last corner but since, you know, they told everyone not to lift there, I followed instructions and didn't clobber anything. Guess I was wrong a few years ago when I used to tell people a FWD can't ever oversteer.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Wow what a rollercoaster of a weekend. From a flat on my truck, to a hit and run on my trailer, to going agricultural in qualifying, to hitting a CMC car in the saturday race, to not making qualifying on sunday morning, to a messed up alignment on the car from hitting CMC car, to coming from last place and winning the race sunday.

[NTIman]

Wow what a rollercoaster of a weekend. From a flat on my truck, to a hit and run on my trailer, to going agricultural in qualifying, to hitting a CMC car in the saturday race, to not making qualifying on sunday morning, to a messed up alignment on the car from hitting CMC car, to coming from last place and winning the race sunday.

Jeesh... Sounds like a Rex excursion.... :lol:

[Goodspeed]

Nice DJ :lol: I was sending you those extra 5 horsepowerz thoughts on my way home so I'll take credit for the miraculous turnaround.

So that was an interesting, at times tumultuous (has that word ever been used on an internet forum?) weekend, and looking back overall it was an absolute riot. My drive down was fairly miserable - I had no choice but to hit the road at about 4pm Friday and immediately hit 28/66 traffic. Clear of that, I made my way into Cville and the goddamn Jason Aldean country concert at JPJ arena kept me at a standstill for at least an hour on 29 :finger: . I arrived at 10pm fairly miserably.

First session on Saturday was during a heavy downpour with the top down, slip 'n sliding from puddle to puddle. I think I and one other Miata with the top down were the only two cars to stay out for the entire session :thumbup: . Still, that wasn't a great start to the day and I was completely soaked through from sitting on grid in my 4-wheel bathtub, so the miserableness increased.

Then, I got in a good dry session later in the day. I had one 4-wheel off in turn 3, but other than that no drama. And Sunday was bang-on - weather was much improved, I had a more productive (less) wet session, and climbing the esses "clicked" and I was more and more giddy with each stab at them, and the rest of the course as a whole.

So, weather largely sucked, but the driving and hanging out with everyone won out. Good times!

[Jake]

WOW. What a weekend.

Saturday started off on an okay note other than the dampness. My interior got SOAKED but it's been rained in before, so I don't care. The car isn't nearly as nice as Goodspeed's, so a little rain won't hurt me there. Anyway. The Azenis I got from Evan may have been made when dinosaurs walked the earth. Not a ton of grip or tread remaining. The tread was the issue here. I was careful and had a good 7/10ths first-HPDE-3 session.

The car was great in the dry later that day. And for my first weekend in HPDE 3... hooooly crap, this is where the big boys play. I had SUCH a great time. Tons of point-bys, but everyone is pushing you in every part of the track, instead of just the two or three passing zones... so your speed increases everywhere, so you run of gear in funny places, so you learn a ton.

It was a blast.

Sunday morning was relatively dry, although the grass was still wet. This is crucial to later events.

So after our StingerBahn gaffe on Saturday (it was more than a gaffe, but I like that word), Aaron and I discussed how pacing and no-hot-pulls was going to work. If anyone went off and needed to be yanked, it's a whole-course double yellow, pace goes out and collects the group at 35, car gets yanked and we go green again. We discussed this before the first session of the day. My first HPDE 3 session was the like... third session of the day.

We go out, get the pace lap, I'm groovin' along and stringing out my 98 whp for all it's worth. Get a few good laps in, and I give a Corvette the point right before the Uphill Esses. He takes it, off-line, and I remain on-line to do my thing. But something happened (probably due to my slight lost focus in giving that pass) and I entered the Esses a touch "off" compared to normal. This threw me by the top of them. Coming out of the last 'bend' there, the back end started to go right. I counter-steered and tried saving it, but the car said NO! and we took a ride off track left. That wet grass was sure slippery.

Of course, no pedal or steering input did anything. I looked to my right and noticed the tire wall and guardrail. Lots of four-letter words were uttered. I then looked where I wanted to go (i.e. not that way) and somehow, some traction appeared. Just enough to pull me away from the wall and zing me across the hot track (with cars coming) and off track right. I ended up ass-backwards, track right, and unable to move thanks to the wet grass.

So who caused the first pace-car-tow-truck practice of Sunday? This guy. Pace 2 driver/NASA official. I felt like such a tard, sitting there as Aaron puttered by.

I'm very very glad I didn't hit anything or anyone, and that I didn't go home having purchased a chunk of VIR. Video is forthcoming. I'm checking the car out tonight to see if anything bent when I suddenly gained traction again. Alignment seems... different. So maybe I bent something.

Otherwise, I had a blast as per usual. Saturday shenanigans were lots of fun and the grilling was a great idea. Thanks to Mike D and Goody for keeping Levi entertained - he's wanting to bring the GTI for April so he can drive too, so I guess we got him (sort of) hooked? Looking forward to April now - hopefull with less rain and less cars-in-tires

[BLINGMW]

sounds like an exciting weekend!

sideways at the top of the esses is pretty darn exciting too :thumbup:

[Kaan]

Everyone with wet interiors... go buy Damp-Rid at home depot. close up all the windows and leave the open canister in the car.

[Jake]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/39222580[/vimeo]

Oops.

[Scott]

. But the worst thing that happened was definitely the spec miata hitting the EV truck while he was trying to scoop up an E30 and then 5 other miatas blew through the red waving flag.

To keep it honest it was a E30 that hit the EV truck after being pushed by another E30, the Spec Miata's had nothing to do with that part........

[Jewels]

. But the worst thing that happened was definitely the spec miata hitting the EV truck while he was trying to scoop up an E30 and then 5 other miatas blew through the red waving flag.

To keep it honest it was a E30 that hit the EV truck after being pushed by another E30, the Spec Miata's had nothing to do with that part........

Fair enough. I heard it both ways, and since i was in the tower when it happened I didn't see it, I just saw video of the 5 spec miatas that blew the red flag and had to start both races at the back of the pack. But yeah, it was a big clusterfuck, and I know the people who weren't responsible got hosed pretty badly because of it.

[BLINGMW]

Oops.

THAT was creative! :lol:

[Jake]

Oops.

THAT was creative! :lol:

At least I was farther from the guardrail than I thought...