[Fot] VIR Wild Hare race report

[Paul MacDonald]

Very good video, so clear and great views, almost looks like the video sees
more than you can. The race was fun to watch too...

Thanks

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: fot-bounces at autox.team.net [mailto:fot-bounces at autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Tony Drews
Sent: April 16, 2014 11:48 AM
To: fot at autox.team.net
Subject: [Fot] VIR Wild Hare race report

 Last weekend's race at VIR was another excellent event.  We had the usual
Triumph "Ghetto" set up on top the hill, and had quite a number of Triumph
folks there.  The paddock paving project hadn't made it quite that far yet,
so I was still able to use the normal tent stakes to hold down the canopy -
may be the last time for that at VIR, though.  The Triumph bunch had their
usual Friday night party, and it's great to get all of the Triumph guys
bench racing over a beer or three.  The Triumph gathering is one of the
things that makes that race special.

The newly repaved track is fast, smooth, and grippy.  The esses are still
FASSTT and a test of your intestinal fortitude.  I ended up set up next to
Randy Williams, Mark Wheatley, and Leo Oddi.  We spent a good portion of the
weekend figuring out carburetion on Mark's car - finally getting it right
for the Sunday feature race, so he and I had an awesome battle in that race
- video link below.

In the Friday afternoon practice, an Elva lost power on an un-sighted part
of the track forcing Randy to take evasive action and he ended up running
into the side of Dean Tetterton's TR-4 as he was sliding back onto the track
surface.  Sad to see.  Both drivers were able to continue the weekend
though.

The Friday afternoon Wild Hare pursuit race was my first chance to run the
car flat out after a couple of break-in practice sessions.  Runs really
nice, new tranny guts are sweet to use.  That race was cut short by a lap or
two by a couple of S-2000's getting together on the way in to Oak Tree
(which now doesn't have an actual Oak Tree at the apex due to a storm last
year).

In Saturday afternoon's race, with Mark still battling carb issue I managed
to ease out a nice lead over all of the TR-s in my group, but we ended up
with a full course caution due to a grass fire outside turn 1 which closed
the field back up.  I was napping on the restart and Randy managed to get by
me as I was blocked by an Aston Martin with 2 laps to go.  On the last lap,
I was kinda closing in on Randy but the same Elva that caused the incident
on Friday passed me going into turn 1 and then proceeded to get all kinds of
sideways in the corner.  I had a better run out of it but he slammed the
door on me so I followed him into 2.  In turn 2, he managed to completely
spin.  In my avoidance of the Elva, Randy got a comfortable lead that lasted
until the checkered flag.  This allowed Leo to close right behind me for the
remainder of the last lap. 
Leo used an "insider" trick of knowing that the finish line was 100 yards or
so from the checkered flag to pass me between the flag and the actual finish
line.  Neat trick that he won't be able to pull again!  :)

By Sunday's race, we had guessed at some better carb settings for Mark which
turned out to be pretty good.  We spent most of the race following each
other closely, drafting by on the straights, and at one point we went
through turns 1 and 2 side by side - I edged him on the inside of turn 3 to
lead through the esses.  Unfortunately, dropping oil pressure force Mark to
ease off for the last couple of laps.  I got passed by the Aston Martin and
tried Leo's trick at the end of the race - but the Aston didn't let off
enough for me to sneak in that pass.

I had a hoot, Mark really enjoyed the race with me, the car's running as
good as ever and I'm good to go for Eagles Canyon.

In-car video from Sunday group 3 feature race:
http://youtu.be/8Q5BqfxZGaE

Tony Drews
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