Well the 2008 racing season got off to a pretty good start. It was debut of the new motor. Regardless of the ribbing for the distributor, the motor was stout on the dyno but had no track time on it.
Managed to get the Camaro out for one test session late Friday afternoon. The car felt strong and ran great. The track conditions were lousy due to all the rain, oil and dirt on it. But it was drying enough to be safe for a shake down session.
I managed to qualify 2nd (24th overall) on Saturday, knocking 1.5 seconds off my personal best for full course. I was pretty excited to be under the awning in the false grid, a first for me at VIR. My inexperience with the starts showed when I spun the rear tires at the drop of the green. That is not a good thing to do during the standing start. I dropped a number of positions and then found myself stick in the middle entering turn 1. I figure this is not good and squeezed to the inside. Most of the rest of the race was uneventful. Dodged a spinning H1 car in South Bend (pretty big pucker factor) and barely escaped a spinning factory five exiting Oak Tree. Finished 4th in class and 24th overall. I was on the lead lap the entire time and finished ahead of all the CMC2 cars. The downside was my fastest lap was 2 seconds slower than my qualifying time. I need to work on hitting the line during the race.
Sunday was kind of a weird schedule with the enduro happening later in the day. We had one practice session at 8 in the morning for all racers. And qualifying would be based on Saturday's qualifying. The practice session was pretty entertaining. A lot of cars on track, a lot of cars. But everyone had their heads screwed on straight for so early in the morning. It gave me a chance to work traffic, which came into play during the race.
Sunday's start was a rolling start. These are real hairy with the Thunder class. My two previous rolling starts have always been in the back. Now here I am up in the top third. The H1 car in front of me decided to use caution on the start and that allowed the inside line to get a huge jump on me. I entered turn one in the middle and worked my way to the inside. But by the time I exited turn one three of the CMC cars that started on the inside were entering turn 2...dang.
But the racing had only begun and once the field got sorted on the back straight, there were 3 CMC cars battling for 4th through 6th place. We battled for seven laps and there may have been 5 car lengths separating us. Lucky for me, I was the leader
It was quite show. On the third lap I had a mental break down entering turn one and almost drove straight off but saved it at the last minute (thanks BHP brakes). Then it got even uglier in NASCAR and the lower esses. At that point I had a good chat with myself to get my act together and start driving like I know how. Three laps in a row Brain Smith in his Mustang tried to take me at the end of the back straight. But he could not quite complete the pass and I would out brake him entering 14 on the inside. I knew my escape route was straight down the hill
I could get a better run out of hog pen and the Mustang and Firebird could not get a run on me into turn 1. The only problem for me was the two Factory Five racers in front of me. I would catch them in NASCAR but could not get around them, they would leave me between three and four. I would catch them in 5A, lose them under the bridge and then run up on them in the climbing esses. What a pain in the butt.
On the last lap we started to catch the tail end of the Spec E30's. I was able to set the passes a little bit better and Kevin Loudon in his Firebird did a fine job of getting around the Mustang to follow the holes I was opening up. Southbend is a great place to pass. Luckily, the E30 saw me and stayed way wide. Exiting Oak Tree on the last lap, I missed the 3rd to 4th shift. When I finally got it into 4th, I looked up and Kevin and Brian were not there. But a couple of GT3 cars were coming fast. Turns out Kevin missed a shift too and Brian had to punt a E30 out of the way exiting Oak Tree. I decided to let the GT3 Porsche by on the straight, follow him through 14 and the let the GT3 BMW around on the short chute. I tucked behind the BMW and in front of the H1 car that started before me through hogpen. I kept waving for the H1 car to bump me up the front stretch. But he opted to stay right under my rear bumper until the last minute and attempted to sling shot me. But Brian and Kevin got to side by side racing and allowed me to clinch 4th. It pretty much came down to who had their transponder mounted further front between Brian and Kevin.
What a great way to start the 2008 season....March 28th seems a long ways off.
Strangest slight of the weekend...HPDE 1 was on track before us. We took the green for our Saturday practice session and about to complete the first lap out, exiting hogpen there was a waiving yellow. At the entrance to pit road there was a Corvette with a 240SX sitting on its hood. We got about three or four laps driving pass that while they were trying to get the Nissan off the Corvette. Then a H1 car laid down a trail of oil in the lower esses and a Camaro blew a radiator hose entering the climbing esses. So they had to red flag the session because pit road was stilled blocked. We got the black flag once pit road opened. I did see the 240SX returning to the track later in the day.
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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro
CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R
2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner
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. I have not seen the times from Sunday's race.
