PCA does tell drivers that the car being passed must leave racing room. Unfortunately in my opinion they rarely if ever enforce the rule. It might be good if the spent some time on the subject in drivers meetings and orientations.

 

Great composure and reflexes--
Nice avoidance.

We've only raced there once, and I felt that there were limited passing opportunities. Maybe that makes drivers more defensive to letting other carrs by?

 

IMO, the deficit in the on-track culture is that a) drivers are given conflicting messages ("if you're ahead, it's YOUR corner" versus "leave racing room") without a clear priority to those messages and the way they should be executed, and b) that it is engrained in driver's minds that if they "leave racing room," by necessity they may (or most believe, WILL) "give up an advantage."

It doesn't have to work that way. The fun is in letting the corners work it out, instead of "beating someone to the corner," or the perennial excuse of "going defensive..."

Jim's battle with Doug this past weekend and the front pack of Muller, Straus, Rudtner, Yonker (and others) at the Glen is on-track behavior at it's best!

We need more of that to keep and make more fun PCA Club Racing.

 

Hello Cris, nice to see your name again! We started racing about the same time but I quit 10 yrs ago when my kid started karting, then open wheel racing. But now he's in college so we are back to the occasional PCA for fun. For VIR we had a brand-new-to-us 911SC in D. He was right ahead/behind/alongside you for that start, the two of you made mirror image decisions!
See yourself here:

 

I believe having 2 pace laps had much to do with having less incidents and should be done for each class that runs slcks.

Charlie

 

Yes. Here is a link to a group that I have been doing some races with. Lots of fun and good racing! Most races are with HSR but not all of them. Next up is Road Atlanta in July.

http://www.stuttgartcup.com/

Matt

 

Ha yeah that was me. I broke my throttle linkage rod in the 2nd Sprint. Mike at Bodymotion was nice enough to unload his welder to get me fixed up for the enduro. HUGE thanks, Mike.

Also big thanks to Doug Crossman and Jim Buckley for helping me out with the above issue AND several others as well. Damnit, it was one of those weekends...

But I had a great time for my first time at VIR. Awesome track! I'll be back next year, for sure!

 

Nice slalom skills!

Wow. That's a lot of cars facing the wrong way.

Agreed.

 

I'm almost glad my clutch grenaded in qualifying or I would have been right there with you and with my luck.. Did everyone make it through that unscathed?

Thanks to Peter for tech support and to Keith Peare for the clutch so I could make the enduro. I came close to getting it in for sprint 2. I hope the car is back together soon. It was a really rough weekend for SPBs

 

Unfortunately I took the same ride back in one also. Got brake checked in the Esses first race and this was the result... I've armchaired quarter backed the video a dozen times. I had 2 choices 1) go neutral throttle and hope I slow enough and he doesnt brake hard enough where I don't collect him, or 2) Straightline the left hander over the grass and hope for the best. Chose option 2, where after looking at video option 1 would have work. With all the talk about 13s, I can say that it was definitely a factor in my choice.



On a more positive note, I have to give a shout out to my shop Intersport for their support this weekend. They went way above anything I could have imagined. Friday afternoon during practice three I broke an axle on the first lap. I had actually tried to get a spare axle before the weekend, as shop said it would be good to have in the spares box. I call earlier in the week, but Suncoast parts said it would take a couple days for them to get one and I wouldn't have had it in time for the race. So of course Murphy's law, mine breaks, and I have no spare. Charlie (Shop owner) and I scoured the paddock for one as Omar(shop owner) called around. Turns out there is not one in the entire country. So instead of having to sit out the weekend, Omar calls his sales guy back at the shop(they sell cars as well as service them). They had a low mileage pristine 997 on the showroom floor which happens to use the same axle as my race car. He makes a few other calls, and next thing I know he has one of his guys driving this pristine car 300 miles to VIR so they can pull the axle, and put it in my race car, let me race for the weekend, then put it back so they can drive the car home. then put a new axle back in the showroom car once it arrived!!!!! Not to mention it was 4pm and Friday traffic was brutal. The guys were up at 6am in the rain on Saturday doing the swap to get me out for qualifying. Talk about customer service. I was speechless!!! Can't thank them enough.


Of course after all that effort I let them down by hitting the wall in the esses

 

HSR yes

SVRA....fuel cell required....but then agin why would somone race without one

 

The uphill esses at VIR require attention. It is a fast fast portion of the track where faster cars do not want to get stuck behind a slower car for the entire portion of the track. Slower cars should let the fast guys go before entry. Here is how not to do it. I was leading the Enduro and lapping a car who decided he should race me alway the way including the oak tree turn. I was probably 10 seconds a lap faster than hi. I am driving a GTA2 Cup, him a street car. I may have been too courteous, expecting room to pass. https://vimeo.com/98938478

 

Regarding the incident going into the climbing essees. Camera car starts to make the slow turn in at about 52.5 seconds into the lap. Contact happens at 54.3ish. Nearly 2 seconds. Sorry, overtaking driver very much at fault in my book from information we have here.

The number of wicked hits I've seen at that spot is incredible. And it's almost always a faster car running up on a slower car who begins their turn into the esses well before there is anyone next to them. I've lots of days at VIR, not as many as Peter, but still more than I count. When I had the open wheel car I came on this situation a lot. It was NEVER worth it to make a pass from a long way back on people going into the esses. Overtake speeds of 20+ mph at the point means you will cover more ground than the guy in front thinks. For the overwhelming majority of racers, the climbing esses are a single file event outside of the first lap it seems.

I'd love to see in car from the fab car but it looks to me like he wasn't necessarily going to make the second turn even if he had made it past the car without incident.

 

Here is a 1:53 lap chasing pro driver Cory Friedman. You should see this guy work through traffic. What a driver Cory is!!
https://vimeo.com/98935358

 

That's racing at VIR. I've used that to pick people and it's been used to pick me off. Guy in front did nothing wrong. He very well could have been in a race with that guy in front of him. He in no way was required to give you an easy pass.