A little late, but here’s how VIR looked from Car 325:
Thursday: I picked up my car from Bassen Auto Body in Winston-Salem, NC. The car was being repaired following a wreck by the guy who rented it at the Charlie Gibson enduro. Steve Bassen does the body work on the Bimmerworld World Challenge cars. He does incredible work, and made my car look like a show-car, except for the roof where my handywork with the TIG-welder is still on display. Steve even made an exact replica of my front splitter - the man is a magician!
Friday Test and Tune was fun - I ran some old rains and didn’t turn anything blistering, but got to practice some new lines and tricks 
Friday night was crazy fun. Dave Wechsler (aspiring Spec E30 racer) and I had dinner with the Beertech boys. They are the Salazar of the South … lots of fun to hang with…at least they seem to really enjoy the company of other men :laugh:
Saturday started with a slow practice. I think a lot of folks were sandbaging, but Dave Herrington and I had some good fun running together. Qualifying didn’t go very well for me - there was a lot of traffic, and lot of yellows. I came out 6th. The race went a lot better. I moved to 5th at the start with Jonny Allen, Carlton, Chis Cobetto and Scott Ferguson in front of me, in that order (Jon 1st). A couple laps in, I got a great run out of Oak Tree and came up fast on Chris and Scott. A late-starting Diasio cam flying up on us too, and passed me, but caused some confusion for Chris and Scott - they were running side by side but gave the Diasio some space. I was going to follow the Diasio through, but he checked up unexpectedly (turns out he was having mechanical issues), so I had to dart left, and we went 4-wide down the back straight. Braking into the roller-coaster was NUTS, and I came out ahead despite being on the outside. That put me into 3rd. I started catching Carlton, and a couple laps later, I made my move into the brake-zone at 1. We went side-by-side all the way to the little esses. Carlton bobbled coming out of the esses, and I got the pass up in the big esses. Just AWESOME racing - we gave each other space, and must have been less than a foot apart (side by side) for 5-6 turns…just SICK. Jonny Allen was quick and smooth and took first. I did turn the fast lap of the race, and re-broke the lap record with a 2:19.5 - it helps being pushed by the Green machine
Sunday: I had a great qualifying - thought for sure I had the top spot after 3 laps, but Jonny was quicker. We were front row for the start. I got a great jump and snagged first place. On the first/second lap, I effed up my braking up at Oak Tree, and handed 2 spots to Jon and Robert Patton, who had been running fast all weekend. I got back by Patton and teamed up with Jon to check out. We were faster in different spots of the track, which made the racing interesting. We drafted each other, and managed to distance ourselves from the pack. With a few laps to go, Jonny missed a shift in the esses, and I got by. Once again, the racing was GREAT. On the last lap, he was on my butt, and I was expecting a challenge through 3-4 where he had been killing me. Instead, he came into 1 a little too hot, locked 'em up, and went flying off. I Sunday-drove it home and took the win.
The racing all weekend was SICK - I’m already signed up for CMP, and ready to go at it again!!!
