Part 1 - The trip down
As I had to be at VIR first thing Friday and it's 800+ miles, I knew I needed a FULL day of travel. I had to take care of some business in St Louis on my way through, so a slight detour was needed. Therefore, I took off mid-afternoon on Wednesday, took care of my business in STL, and stayed with some family in central IL for the night. After about 5hrs of sleep, I left at 5am. It really was a normal trip passing through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. Total trip with my detour through STL was about 950 miles and 14hrs of actual drivetime. The mostly downhill 5% grades in West Virginia were ok, and the last hour had 2-lane downhill 9% curving grades (wasn't looking forward to these on the way out!). Got to the track about 7-8pm local and unloaded the car in the all sand paddock area.

Part 2 - UTCC Event
Went out for the morning practice session at VIR! Never been there before, only watched videos. I knew the top cars were going to try and put down a fast lap to get a good grid position. So I was pointing around cars and on lap #2, going ~120mph down the back-straight I see a few fast movers coming - a Porsche GT3 & 2 Vettes - come flying past me probably 30-40mph faster, bang a few gears while downshifting into the corner and gone! Just the shear closing speeds was an instant wakeup call!
Overall for my first session, minus a few key turns, I got the hang of the track rather quickly and felt comfortable at the high speeds. I ended with a 2:23x and was grouped into the '2nd fastest' rungroup which was my plan so I wouldn't feel pushed.
My prep for the first timed session was very minimal. Just some tire pressures and the required stickers for the event really, leaving my boost at 24psi. For the first timed session I put down 2:16x I think. A lot of us were heading for A/C after this session; sweat literally pouring down through my helmet and into my ears just on the warmup lap! It was at least 99 at this point; plus the humidity.

For the 2nd timed session it was around 1-2pm in the afternoon. I turned my boost up a few cranks to what I assumed would be ~26psi. Once on track, all it was showing was 24psi down the straights - just f'in hot! My datalogs showed I was already reaching 140mph on the backstraight, 142mph on the frontstraight and 121mph before the essess! This session yielded me a 2:13x. This also gave me some good comparison data from my traqmate to see where I was picking up time - and I guarantee it wasn't more speed down the sun-drenched straightaways! Have I mentioned it was hot?

Between the 3rd and 4th session I got ahold of a friend that races an Evo in SCCA T2 and got some advice about the track. I was learning that I was being a ***** at the top of the esses and definitely messing up 2 other turns badly as well. With that advice in hand, some more studying of my traqmate and the shear will of knowing my final time goes in a magazine, I went out for the final timed session. I thought it was hot and greasy before... it was horribly worse! I didn't mean to trailbrake in every corner but it felt like that's all the car would do! I thought I was going off more than once in T1 - the hardest braking zone on the track. Braking into T1 at 140+ down to 50 the car just wiggled left-right-left-right as it was fighting for grip.

The final session was about 3:30pm - by far the warmest part of the day. I tried something new - just not let up through the climbing essess - and it was soooo much fun floating through there! On my final lap of the final session I ended with a 2:12.2 which put me 29/66 cars and 14/27 in class.



Wrap-Up
I was pretty happy with the outcome. The car performed amazing, and even more amazing with the heat. I believe it was ~102 degrees all afternoon; just plain disgustingly hot. Add in the fact most of us wear full firesuits, helmets, and will run with the heater on to help cool the engine and you get the idea. My car took everything I threw at it and it tallied 100 on-track miles by the end of the day. I ran every minute of tracktime I could get and I would have taken more if I had the chance!
Temps... Water temps never budged on my car. Oil temps held usually in the normal 265 degree range - with a peak of 275 degrees from the final session. I have to thank AMS Performance once again for a quality powerful tune that kept the car safe and on-track, and AMSOIL for all my lubrication needs!

Overall, I knew I had no chance of winning (overall winner had 800+ hp and all custom built with professional hotshoe). I'm still on the stock turbo, running 350whp and ~3220lbs for this event. For full setup details click HERE. The classing structure split n/a 4-bangers against everything else - so I ran against everything else! I'm proud to say that minus the ecu tuning from AMS and big things like clutch installs or headstuds, I turn EVERY wrench on this car!
I went for the experience of VIR, to see where I stacked up and to meet a lot of good people - all accomplished! VIR was by far the best track I have ever experienced. So much that I planned to stay the weekend and run TT with NASA Mid-Atlantic. More on that and the odyssey of a trip home in a later thread - https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/mo...ml#post8549376...



Video! The only time I had my camera on and the mic working was session #2. It's not my fastest or best laps, but still give you a good feel for the track:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KwsR1Ypd8Q

 

 

Sounds like a good time. 102 degrees - holy sweaty ***** batman, that is SOOOO hot.

 

No kidding, cool suit ftmfw lol.

 

Looks like it would be a good time despite the heat. I also really need to look into a cool suit of some sort since driving with the heat on in 80*F heat is torture on the body. Sounds like even Ryan Gates Evo X would have been tested to the limits with the top competition at this event. Sounds like you were using some sticky tires based on the rocks kicking up in the wheel wells, what was the wheel tire combo?

 

I spy a track Scoobie with Rotas... hrmmm.

 

Hoosier R6's all weekend.

Just different sizes as I'm restricted to certain sizes to stay legal in NASA TTB class.

Lots of other people were running A6's, and true slicks. All-out competition!

 

What an awesome trip! Thanks for sharing the pics. That track looks like a blast to drive with the high speeds involved.

 

sounds like you had fun !

pictures are nice too

 

Thanks guys. Here's a good pic of the 'climbing esses' someone else posted:

 

Hrmmm, another one:


I can understand why Nathan might not like Rota's. But DPT's certainly have been holding up. TIC unknowingly mangled one, but it still held together. Here's what they had to say:

Threadjacking aside, good job last weekend Nathan. It was good to see you give Wonger a run for his money on Sat/Sun. Make him really earn those Hoosiers for once haha. I still think a IX would make quite the TTA car. In fact, probably one of the only cars that can touch a SpecZ06.

 

Yeah, with another few sessions I could have kept dropping time and took him I think. .03 isn't much. I'll post a separate thread here shortly on the NASA weekend we're talking about.
Oh, and by the way, I'm building for TTA next year... so we'll see.

 

Hi Nathan, sorry I didnt get to meet ya in person. Me and Skip were driving around the paddock in the golf cart looking for you, but I think you may have already left.

Justin is right... make me work for it! I got blindsided at VIR this time. First in GTS3 by Josh Smith and then by Nathan in TTB!

Nice job man, especially for your first time out at VIR!

 

That's cool. I think there were like 420-450 people signed up for the NASA weekend? I'm still working on my writeup for that! 2300 mile trip altogether probably... And I still wanted more time on track; especially more TT track time; oh well.

Yeah, the car is setup pretty well for TTB I think. Those M3's are no joke; as you've proven. I usually try to compare my laptimes with GTS3 and AI guys to see where I should be as all the power/weights are similar.

 

Nate, youre everywhere! NASA TT, RTA, and now this. Good for you man. Keep doing what your doing.

Nate, your seat worries me. It moves too much, side to side, under load. Judging by your in-car, its moving a good 1-2" to each side. That equates to a good 2-4" of side to side movement. Most people dont notice this until they see their in-car. Grab your seat by the bolster. Push and pull on it side to side and see how far you can move it.

Are you on the floor pan? Or are you on those OEM rails? If youre on the floorpan and you dont want to weld anything, id say drill some holes and bolt some bars from underneath the car. Use some heavy duty bolts and washers.