THSCC Forums

Depending on how life treats me, I may attempt to make the track event at VIR beginning of next year. Since that will give me the ability to run and in the unlikely event that something does happen (heaven forbid) I still have the Sentra that I can tool around in to fix the Subaru. But that's only my worse case senario talking.

Still wanna make it though, and wanna make it to the long fun one to experience all the course has to offer.

Grand East didn't make me all tingly like I expected. REALLY difficult to instruct a novice (4.2 miles, 33 turns, 130 ft of elevation change....twice per lap!) I didn't hate it at all. I just expected....well...I dunno what I expected. It did have the esses and south bend (best track parts evar!). I just really really hate the very beginning of the south course crossover. All blind approach and off camber decreasing radius shizzle going on.

In the end, the addition of all those extra turns didn't make the course any more fun IMO. YMMV. I thought Patriot was a riot and expected this to be a riot x 2. It wasn't.

But if we converted our Feb. date to Grand East, I would not complain at all.

My biggest problem with South is that you come out of fish-hook and are going so slowly into the uphill esses. Those are supposed to be fast corners!

Of course, the track is still great, and I enjoy having it on the schedule.

I have never warmed up to North the way others have. To me, the transition is just ugly, and while the Stevie Wonders are fun, you miss the uphill esses.

_________________
Rich
http://www.v8mongrel.com/

Jean Wilkens is looking out for VIR dates for us but the competition for
dates at VIR is getting worse instead of better. How may independant clubs are still running there? Don't mind you asking as we considered the
North vs Full couse format for the past two years running.

May people prefer North Course, myself included! The last time I send
out a feeler there was still a significant majority perfering we run full course.We kicked around the idea of running North, or splitting the event North one day and Full the next, but the number of drivers signed up for the event make the decision for us: Capacity!

We had 180+ drivers at VIR last Feb. It was the hightest dencity event run to date. For want of capacity North Couse no longer became a option. We could have made more $ running North Couse but quality would suffer. For the price we are get FUll in Feb i it is hard to justify not running Full Couse vs North.

Grand Course would have capacity. You can get into a diminishing returns senerio between the number of workers required to staff it and time it would take to run the Time Trial. AMB will solve the TT issue so if we get close or exceed the number of entries this Feb, as we had last, Grand
may need to be considered if Jean can come up with the staff to run it.

Having driven Grand, I personally perfer full course over it.
Number of laps per session was an issue for some when I ran there with BMWCCA. It seemed not everyone liked it as much as they though after driving it. In general: small bore drivers liked it and the large bore
drivers seemed to complain-epsically the one's who never drove South
couse! Since our track program always run South couse Grand should not
be a problem for our drivers. From a Novice stand point 3 or 4 laps per
session is not ideal, plus busy drivers makes it hard to instruct,
and its rough on the passanger. Grand Couse is Patriot on Steriods except
witout the safety issues running "normal" direction that is..... IF we
keep doing 180 vehicle events in Feb we may need to learn to manage
those difficluties and consider Grand Couse.

It would be better if we could run North in stead of South in April. That would be the ideal. If we could get a North date-that is. We have really out grown South Couse, but that choise is, unfortunatly, not in our hands. Each year I beg and grovel but VIR is just one of those venues where you take what you can get. Who knows, its possible our partnership with MARRC may be the ticket to a North event- but again, that's an area we
don't have final say.

_________________
Mark Vitacco
THSCC TT Chairman
mvitacco@bellsouth.net

Thanks for the info Mark. I was asking more so about North vs. South in April. There's no way I want to substitute North for Full anytime!

Thanks again for all your hard work. I can't wait to run Rockingham (in my own car this time) in November.

_________________
Vincent Keene
'06 Ford Mustang GT (track rat)
'15 Dodge Charger R/T (yeah, it's got a HEMI!)
'07 Ford Fusion SE (205,000 miles and counting)
'98 Chevy Z-24 (retired)
'93 Acura Integra (Team SWB 24HOL Car)

I'd like to echo Vincent's thank you Mark. Not only for the great program, but for taking time to answer questions.

And Vincent, I am sorry you will be taking such a huge step down in car quality for Rockingham.

_________________
Rich
http://www.v8mongrel.com/

I haven't done THSCC track events, so take this as the opinion of someone who has driven VIR South and VIR Full and most of that was in a Spec Miata for SCCA Club Racing weekends.

I would much prefer VIR North for sprint races and even ECR length enduros. The big deal to me with the sprint races is that you waste a good deal of the race just going straight. That means fewer opportunities per race for passing. I was amazed the first time I went to Road Atlanta how much faster it seemed like the sprint race was over...there was just more action for the entire time.

That said, I like VIR Full better for the big enduro. I guess the reason is that you spend more time in those straights. Gives you much needed "rest." Sure, that's being a wuss, but well, I yam what I yam. Can't wait till November, that's for sure.

I can see where small bore folks would prefer VIR North for track days whereas big bore folks might prefer VIR Full. If I were in a big bore car using Full for sprint races probably wouldn't bug me as much (if at all).

--Donnie