TAI2

Hi Gang,

I did a search and did not see anything recent (after 5/24/16) and was wondering if anybody has a recent (after 5/20/16) video and feedback. A bunch of us from NNJR are planning to head down to FSR's July 9-10 event and would like to see how thing are progressing. Looking to see if they put up tire walls and impact barrels at the end of the concrete barriers. Thanks.

Tom

JarheadGT3

Subscribed...will be there as well.

Jabs1542

Tom,

This is Jay, I'm the guy that came up to Thunderbolt and bought Ken Casterline's little two wheel trailer. I belong to Old Dominion and was on the phone with them yesterday (we were supposed to have a member's track day today but got rained out). I visited the track two weeks ago, I've got good news and bad news.

The good news - you guys (I assume you are riding with the First Settlers group since they are the ones on the calendar, I do remember several NNJR talking about Dominion Raceway in early July) should be good to go, they are ready enough to host an event. Most things are up and running (clubhouse, restaurant, tower, etc.).

The bad news - We (the members) tried to work in a line to figure out the curbing but they still have some work to do there. The track is brand new and your event will certainly be ironing out some wrinkles. I was told yesterday that the barrier on Turn 1 had been moved back and they have installed some guard railing in the climbing esses, did not see either of these when I visited two weeks ago.

Send me a PM if you like and we'll share phone numbers, then I can walk you through the whole thing on the phone as we look at a map together.

ProCoach

I had a lot of fun working as a consultant placing the curbing for CMP, VIR and NJMP Thunderbolt.

Very important to do this well, as it is a permanent landmark and should be validated by a consultant or engineering firm familiar with a wide range of cars with substantial performance potential...

txhokie4life

Give me s rental car and I'll spend s few hours being a Guinea pig :-)

Visiting area for that weekend, but can't fit real toys in the overhead.

M

Jabs1542

I wish they would let you do that, but they have their 'boys' on this. The owners and most of the folks running the park are oval track guys, so the road course is rather new to them. I think they are on their third iteration of curbing.

I will see them Tuesday and mention that I met someone who helped on the curbing at VIR, CMP, and Thunderbolt. Maybe that will get their attention,

TAI2

Unfortunately the FSR event on July 9-10 has been canceled.

Feel bad for FSR as I know they put a lot of time and effort in trying to pull off this event.

Tom

GT3DE

WTF?! This is twice now.

Jabs1542

Wow - I will be there tomorrow, our first full open member's day.

I'll ask why they cancelled, speaking to them last week they sounded like they were ready.

Very disappointing, though probably the safe thing to do.

Assuming I actually get on the track tomorrow I'll report back.

ProCoach

It's just important that it be as safe as possible.

I have participated in many "soft" openings of new/reconfigured tracks, and there is always the pressure to open and recover "lost" revenue versus making sure stuff is in place for a safe event. Most of the time, the issue is that the folks at the track have been looking at it so long that they miss obvious, glaring safety errors. Witness the rush to open Thunderbolt and Scott Pruett's horrific DP accident against the pit lane/front straight divider... Thankfully, a tragedy was avoided. And they had GOOD people working on that design/build.

Hope this works but at DR, the proximity and height of the jersey barriers prevent good visibility and could potentially cause more issues than they solve, right now. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

Please say hey to members Bob Stanford and John O' Donnell for me if they're there.

Jabs1542

I don't know them, yet, but I'll look out for them and introduce myself (see, now you are a virtual mutual friend - kind of cool).

How do you know about the walls, did they tell you or have you seen it yourself? My biggest disappointment was that the walkthroughs I did last fall described a nice large runout there (this is at the end of turn 1).

And while I'm not crazy about walls close by I am also weary of beautiful grass that's as slippery as ice - get into the grass and you will most likely reach the barrier on the other end. BTW - I liked the way Watkins Glen filled all their runout with asphalt or gravel, something to grab on to at least.

Back to the walls - not a fan, raised my concerns many times.

Jabs1542

We (members) drove on Domion Raceway today

Turns out the track is very technical, prior to this event we were doing parade laps and rain laps. Taking the track at speed revealed tighter corners and a stronger 'hitch' in the esses (basically the third turn in the esses has a tighter radius thus cautioning you from taking on too much power early on).

They moved the wall away from Turn 1, in fact I was able to transition a fair amount of speed through that turn. It got hot today and my tires got greasy (I'm running street tires, MPSS) so there was a fair amount of sliding and squeeling

The Ferrari club will be out tomorrow (Wed 06/29/16) and they have 60 cars signed up (we had about 15 show up today). So it will be good to see how well a club can operate on the track.

It isn't perfect yet but it is coming along. PCA FSR cancelled because the list of items from the track review held a couple of months ago hadn't been fully resolved. They are pretty binary with that, sort of a "don't call us again until EVERYTHING is resolved". I haven't seen the list so I have no idea how close they are to completing it. Also, there are 3 lists (SCCA, NASA, and PCA) and they each want different things, my guess would be about 80% overlap with the demands.

So the format was different, it was raw open track - for 5 hours! I learned that PCA's 25 minute run sessions are timed about right. I found myself out on the track a bit more than usual. In fact, I went through an entire tank of gas and this was an afternoon only event. Typically with PCA I will go through less than a full tank over an entire day.

Overall I enjoyed it and believe it will eventually be a great track.

somdcroc

Jay, I am with PCA FSR. We did not want to cancel and I as well as the rest of our staff want to get on this track. However, there are lots of little and a few big things that need to be fixed--all related to safety. Everything on our lists (BTW--all of our lists match as far as I can tell) needed an estimated time of completion on it because we didn't want to commit and then find out the day before they weren't ready. We will have a full five run groups as well as an Intro to HPDE Group and had an average of about 150 drivers signed up during the last two canceled events. For advanced drivers this is probably no big deal but think of Tom sitting in the right seat of a new Green group beginner.

The May event was canceled and the final layer of asphalt wasn't even down, nor was the paddock paved when we canceled with a week (rainy at that) left. Both of our cancellations were mutually agreed to and some weekend in the future we will be back and enjoy it. As it is this July event was taking the place of our FSR event that VIR canceled because of their repave so this one really stung. Obviously I feel bad because of all the folks like Tom that were willing to travel pretty far (and offered to instruct for us) only to have those plans changed.

Scott
PCA FSR HPDE Registrar

Rob in VA

Peter, from what I can tell, they really need help placing the curbing.

Here's a recent video from the member day -

https://www.facebook.com/ken.wilkins...type=2&theater

Circuit Motorsports

Ummmm Wow. That place needs a LOT of help and not just on curbing.