VIR Stories and Videos thread

#1

Damn that was fun. Great track, great buddies and great racing. 2 short races on Saturday and then a “fun” race on Sunday with all Lightning racers starting in a single pack. If the Sunday fun race had been any more exciting I’d have had a heart attack.

#2

I was able to follow the Sunday fun race on Race Monitor while streaming video from Carter’s in car. That was as good as I could do being remote, but it was a blast. Watching Ryan move up and then take the lead before the FCY was good and he had an awesome restart. Then watching Rob and Sandro come through and the battle for second was really good. Congrats to all! I saw that some cars didn’t make it through Saturday, was there a melee?

#3

$25 UUC gift certificates for 6th, 9th and last guy to take the checker. These don’t expire so you can save them up for a big discount. Go get yourself one of those terrific DSSR shift rods.

Race 1. Paul, Al, and Joseph.

Race 2 Sandro, Sumpter, and Rick.

I’ll get the secret codes from UUC and get them to you guys.

#4

Various isolated incidents in all races. I had a front row seat for probably the worst one which unfortunately punted Al in turn 3. I’ll try to upload video today.

Sunday fun race start was 3-wide and 30 car deep until the uphill esses where I think it finally went just 2-wide. Yeah, it was exciting to say the least!

#5

here is first 2/3 of the sunday race

started from grid spot 62

http://youtu.be/DkcOxaj02HU

great racing by everyone, a few blown yellows, that’s what I am waving my arms :wink:

#6

Yeah, I know I should check the face-space page for results.

Forums are so yesterday.

Regardless, any race results (and the stories behind the results) . Come on, help a guy with a flip phone out.

RP

#7

Race 1
[attachment=2066]4Oct14VIRRace1.pdf[/attachment]

Race 2
[attachment=2067]4Oct14VIRRace2.pdf[/attachment]

Fun Race
[attachment=2068]5Oct14VIRFunRace.pdf[/attachment]

#8

77 cars in the race group? I know VIR is long but that’s a crapload of cars for a non “fun race”

#9

Thanks, Scott.

Davidson, Grace, Whitinger, congratulations on the race wins. Fast crowd.

Did all the cars make it back okay (Al Taylor)? How did Eskew and newbie Stukas do? How 'bout the over 50 crowd with Smith? Gotta be more stories that what is posted?Jim Pantas with a 2:17 in the convertible?

RP

#10

first race sat, started 6th, finished 4th

http://youtu.be/gKH6ycI6A9c

#11

[quote=“Patton” post=78688]Thanks, Scott.

Davidson, Grace, Whitinger, congratulations on the race wins. Fast crowd.

Did all the cars make it back okay (Al Taylor)? How did Eskew and newbie Stukas do? How 'bout the over 50 crowd with Smith? Gotta be more stories that what is posted?Jim Pantas with a 2:17 in the convertible?

RP[/quote]

The Pissant decided my first weekend of spec e30 racing would not be exciting enough, so he decided to leave my rear trailing arm bolts and front swaybar endlinks loose. :woohoo: Hooray for rear steer!!

I had a great time racing Scott, we went back and forth a couple times…then I decided my tires were too round, so I flat spotted one and limped her home 12th.

Gotta figure out these dang beamers… :whistle:

Had lots of fun though!!

Ohh, and Brandon ran the 2:17 in the convertible.

#12

yea, 2.17 with 132 hp and no top at an HP track…keep trying to convince us Brandon, we will believe you eventually.

Al

#13

My second race on Sat ended in the turn 3 tires…first lap too many cars in one spot…PP loose on the exit means 2 of us checked up a bit and the guys behind could not see what was happening, I was on the outside so off I go.

Car is really not that bad, went through one tire wall at an angle straight into the second, once they extracted it was able to drive from tech shed to paddock spot, needs lots of panel beating and a radiator, tie rods and maybe a control arm on the drivers side.

Those tire walls really really work well.

AL

#14

Andrew…Who won the random Bimmerworld contingency?

Various isolated incidents in all races. I had a front row seat for probably the worst one which unfortunately punted Al in turn 3. I’ll try to upload video today.

Sunday fun race start was 3-wide and 30 car deep until the uphill esses where I think it finally went just 2-wide. Yeah, it was exciting to say the least![/quote]

#15

Nothing worse than PP ‘On The Loose’. My new theme song - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6se3xd8KCew

I did capture a bit of the melee in my rear view mirror in my video.

[quote=“FARTBREF” post=78693]My second race on Sat ended in the turn 3 tires…first lap too many cars in one spot…PP loose on the exit means 2 of us checked up a bit and the guys behind could not see what was happening, I was on the outside so off I go.

Car is really not that bad, went through one tire wall at an angle straight into the second, once they extracted it was able to drive from tech shed to paddock spot, needs lots of panel beating and a radiator, tie rods and maybe a control arm on the drivers side.

Those tire walls really really work well.

AL[/quote]

#16

[quote=“FARTBREF” post=78692]yea, 2.17 with 132 hp and no top at an HP track…keep trying to convince us Brandon, we will believe you eventually.

Al[/quote]

I’ll show you the video, I swear man drive my car you will find out that it has really good J-stock suspension and only 132 HP. Plus a good driver helps too, as many people can a-test for me…

you can find my 2.17 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HjoblMh1jY

#17

As promised here are my videos, with some commentary.

Quali was cut short so the starting order for all races was kind of jumbled. Fast guys mixed throughout the field. That’s my excuse as to why I lost so many places on both starts. :whistle: In reality, I do need to work on my starts. Not just the initial green, but managing traffic a few corners in. That being said I still have an “R” next to my number so I was doing my best to stay out of trouble.

Race 1: http://youtu.be/sSlhoP65Efs

I start 11th, lose some places early on, and then claw my way back to finish 11th. The highlight move of my racing career thus far begins at about 15:30.

Race 2: http://youtu.be/tRePxblHlVk

This shows Al Taylor’s assisted exit from the racing surface on the opening lap. Thankfully, my race was clean and relatively boring except for a good last lap battle with Bains starting near the 9:00 mark. I was absolutely thrilled when I found out I finished 8th! One of my main goals for the weekend was a top 10.

Sunday fun race:

I finished 10th in class and emerged unscathed from some harrowing situations. Luck was definitely on my side. I have video, but I forgot to turn on my external mic. Huge disappointment as it’s otherwise fun to watch. Maybe I’ll do a highlight reel with a circus music soundtrack. It seems fitting.

#18

What a fun weekend! This is such a great group!

The winners this weekend of the Bimmerworld drawing are as follows:

1st place Matt Herd
6th place Ryan Whitinger
11th place Sandro Espinosa

drive-gear.com

#19

Nice video of me going off at T3 on Lap 1. Clear to see what happened to Al in Race 2 at :33 to :35 into the video.

[quote=“AndrewK” post=78697]As promised here are my videos, with some commentary.

Quali was cut short so the starting order for all races was kind of jumbled. Fast guys mixed throughout the field. That’s my excuse as to why I lost so many places on both starts. :whistle: In reality, I do need to work on my starts. Not just the initial green, but managing traffic a few corners in. That being said I still have an “R” next to my number so I was doing my best to stay out of trouble.

Race 1: http://youtu.be/sSlhoP65Efs

I start 11th, lose some places early on, and then claw my way back to finish 11th. The highlight move of my racing career thus far begins at about 15:30.

Race 2: http://youtu.be/tRePxblHlVk

This shows Al Taylor’s assisted exit from the racing surface on the opening lap. Thankfully, my race was clean and relatively boring except for a good last lap battle with Bains starting near the 9:00 mark. I was absolutely thrilled when I found out I finished 8th! One of my main goals for the weekend was a top 10.

Sunday fun race:

I finished 10th in class and emerged unscathed from some harrowing situations. Luck was definitely on my side. I have video, but I forgot to turn on my external mic. Huge disappointment as it’s otherwise fun to watch. Maybe I’ll do a highlight reel with a circus music soundtrack. It seems fitting.[/quote]

#20

Great weekend at VIR!

Qualifying went pretty well on Saturday morning. Ended up P3 behind Davidson and Grace.
Race one started off great! Ran really hard in second place behind Davidson for 5 or 6 laps. Didn’t want to race too aggressively as we were able to get away from third place by about 10 lengths. My big plan was to try and make any moves to gain the position on the last lap or two. Davidson was super strong so the likelihood of successfully gaining the position was slim but I didn’t want to do it too early and have Grace take advantage. Unfortunately for me, while attempting to pass a lapper I took the inside line in 5a and at the exit of 5a my left rear wheel hit the lappers front right wheel, which broke my wheel and instantly deflated my tire. It was an aggressive move on my part but I had hopes the lapper would allow more room. My bad. This took me out of the first race. Very disappointing. The lapper was able to continue and contact paperwork was filled out after the race.

Race two was an eventful race. Hard racing for the first lap or two. Sandro and I battled really hard for second as we watched Grace pull away from us. After a very scary slide coming out of South Bend, Sandro was able to take advantage and get by me for second place. On the next lap going into Oak Tree, I was able to get a run on Sandro on the outside but was unable to take the position. We touched very slightly at Oak Tree which caused us to both lose some positions. I was able to battle back up to third place before the checker came out. Congrats to Grace and newcomer Rob Eskew on the podium finishes. I wish I had footage of this race but when I came into the pits, I noticed the GoPro said “Full”. I looked at the video this morning and it showed a very competitive out lap under caution before it died.

The highlight of the weekend for me was the fun race on Sunday. As I pulled on Grid, the marshal told me to take position 68. What….68……I was at position 11 before……? They decided to take the fastest times from the two races and grid slowest at front and fastest at back. As I sat on grid with some Thunder Roadsters and Spec 3 cars behind me and a mountain of cars in front of me, I figured it was going to be chaos. IT WAS. I had a horrible start which didn’t help anything. A few cars were able to get around pretty quick. Spent the first three or four laps screaming inside of my helmet. Pure fear but was having an absolute blast. As the laps went on the field got thinner and thinner up to the point I could only see Eskew and Hunt. I knew I had not seen Sandro so I figured a larger group of people were already out of my sight battling for the front. Was finally able to get past Eskew and Carter and not long after the full course caution came out. MUCH to my surprise, the pace car picked me up as the leader. Had no idea at that point. Had a good restart and was able to hold off the fast E30’s behind me to take the win. Felt pretty good about the win until I asked Sandro where he was in the race. I figured he must have had an off somewhere and I didn’t see him when I passed by. Well the truth is that Sandro was able to work through the field and then he pulled over so he can race with some more people. Bubble burst. :slight_smile:

Video from the Sunday Fun Run:

CANT WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR’S NATIONALS AT VIR!!!