Time Attack at VIR

It was nice weather this weekend so I took a drive up to VIR (Virginia International Raceway) to watch the GT LIVE series event on Saturday. The event started on Friday and goes through Sunday, but Saturday seemed like a nice day to go up and see how the events were going.

I have been up to VIR several times for track days, but it is a little different to just be a spectator. Instead of being all focused on what I had to do to prepare for my own time on the track I could wander about the pits and take photos. Occasionally I would get a chance to talk to some of the support team members and learn what they were going through.

As is often the case, a setup that puts your car on the pole on Friday doesn’t seem to work on Saturday so many of the teams were re-checking alignments, tire choices, pressures, etc. trying to get back to where they were the day before.

Drivers were practicing how to quickly swap from one to another because over a six hour period they would have to do that at least a couple of times.

There was also a time attack event for several levels of modification from street to unlimited. This was being held on the smaller Patriot course so that the 6 hour event could use the full course.

The Patriot course was also being used for racings version of pro wrestling – drifting competition. There was lots of tire smoke and squealing at that event. The contestants were pro/am so you didn’t see the finesse that I’ve seen when the pros do it, but the crowd really enjoyed the show.