24 Hours of VIR Classic on the Grand West Course My first stint: Ahh yes, my very first 24 hour race! Man I have a lot to tell. OK so to start I am going to enlighten you on this track. This track is nicknamed The Shrew due to its difficulty and it is supposed to be one of the longest courses in America at 4.1 miles long. If I had to compare VIR to another, it would be Nurburgring and the Le Mans circuit put together. Also it’s been a dream of mine to race in a 24 hour race and now I got the chance to do so. It was so cool to see that there were actual real dedicated racing fans, randomly out on parts of the track, camping, partying, and watching a full 24h race just like in Lemans races. I felt like such a pro! Anyways, when we started the race, it was 10:00am, we started in mid 50s out of 99 cars starting and our team goal originally was to FINISH until after my first stint of 2 hours. That being said, when the green flag flew in the air I have no idea how many cars I passed in the first, probably an Hour, but I remember that I found a BMW track buddy to work through the crowd with. We passed cars left and right everywhere until he had an engine failure, so I had to continue on without him. Shortly after that had happened without realizing it, my crew chief had told me that I am in P2 (2nd) setting some fast lap times driving conservatively at 80 to 75%. Then my crew chief had told me to pit in next lap. Funny enough, on that next lap the car started to stall and run out of fuel. I had to nurse the car back to the pits hoping that it would survive. We had just enough fuel to barely do so, the car had died only 50 feet away from our pit stall and the team had to push it back to our pit! Once I got out of the car, we were still in P2 and I was told that I ran out of fuel because I was pushing too hard and back it off a little. By this point, it was 12:00pm and our mind set was now to be competing for podium and finish. My second stint: Prior to arriving back at the track, I was back at the hotel trying to fall asleep and couldn’t. At some point during one of my teammates stint’s, we had differential problems and had to put in a new one (our last one) causing us to fall back in positions. It was also now raining as I arrived at the track. When I got the car passed back down to me, it was 6:30pm and we were in POS. 39. Once I got out on track, it was a full course yellow for a few laps (because someone had hit a tire barrier in the kinks on the Patriot course, head on) and I had a huge pack of positioned cars in front of me and it was supposed to rain again. So during the yellow my crew chief had told me over the radio “there are a lot of position cars in front of you and it’s supposed to rain again shortly. So push hard”. I IMMEDIATELY responded with a grin and said I would be obliged to! After the yellow went out I pushed the car, passing all of the position cars and setting the my fastest time of the session and was fastest on the course that particular lap! When he told me, I asked him again what the time was because I wanted to make sure I heard right the first time. A blistering fast time! Then after about 5 laps I was told to back it off and drive conservative again. About halfway through this stint I was chasing down another position car (a Mustang) that was a good distance ahead of me. Quickly I caught up to him and was right on his tail. Just to make this stint difficult, on the front straight away his engine blew up right in front of me. Not only could I not see anything but black smoke, but it felt like I was driving on ice trying to keep the car straight. So for the rest of the stint I could barely see through the wind shield and it made it more difficult to keep the car on the track! Then at the very end of that stint, it started to just barely rain on the south circuit near the Oak Tree turn. Now I believe it was 8:30pm (twilight zone) and I had brought the car back in to the battle in POS.27th. My third stint: (This stint was the highlight of my weekend). When I got back to the hotel, FINNALY! I got in two hours of real sleep! Woohoo! When I got back to the track at 1:00am, the car was a bit dinged up and everyone was pretty much a walking zombie. Whenever anyone got the chance to, we rested our eyes even if we were standing, walking, whatever…and people were driving dumber than ever. My crew chief had told me to take it easy, learn the track and get the feel of driving at night since I have never raced a car at night. Especially at 2:30am. Just before my teammate came into the pit for a driver change, a huge wall of fog that looked like it came from Britain or Silent Hill rolled in from the northwestern side of the track in seconds. The team owner then looked at me and laughingly said “Oh man!.. That’s a double whammy. Pitch black night and thick fog!” When the car was passed down to me, we were in POS.28 again. At 2:30am I got behind the wheel and checked something off of my dream bucket list: Racing at night in a 24 hour race! Right when I started driving I told my crew chief that I felt a consistent vibration in the car. He told me that if I felt it get worse to pull it into the pits. When I was out there, I had such a blast racing at night with the fog! I saw this challenge as fun. It also reminded me of when fans of old at the 12h of Sebring. Back then they would have bon fires on the infield causing the black smoke to blow onto the track making the drivers not be able to see. The Sebring track stopped doing that because of the dangers, but the drivers said that it’s not viewed as a danger for the drivers, it’s viewed as a challenge at this track. And I felt the same about this. Anyways, within the first 8 laps, I was consistently putting down really fast lap times until the end of my stint and I was making a lot of passes some which whom were lap down cars and some of which were helping the team move up in the standings again! It didn’t matter to me what their status was on track, it was just more opportunities to work on my race craft. During the middle of this stint, my crew chief told me to slow down and I did. Next lap I asked him if the speed I was now going at was good and replied “No, you NEED TO SLOW DOWN! You were 9 seconds faster that time around”. I had no idea how that was the result so I tried to go even slower. “How about that time?” and this time he said “Ethan, you really need to slow down”. Then I replied again, “I am! I don’t think I can go any slower. I’m now not even pushing the car at 45 to 30%. I don’t know if I can go any slower. I really am trying to”. A lap later I finally ended up getting the lap time he wanted me to be at for the good of the car for the long haul! Later, while all that was going on, I would flicker my lights at the lapped cars when coming up on them (which in sportcar racing means to get out of the way, you’re being lapped). And the lapped cars acknowledged it, but I had forgotten that you can’t do that in this series and my crew chief asked me if I was doing it and I replied yes. He told me to stop doing that because the main race steward came to our pit and we almost got in trouble. Oops. I hope the next night race the light flicker will be allowed. It really seemed like a safe way to navigate the course at night. Later in the session, that vibrating from an hour or so earlier got worse quickly and right when I radioed it, the exhaust pipe fell off and I told them I’m bringing the car in. I slipped into the pits so they could have a look and they sent me right back out to finish my session. They would work on it during the driver change. At the end of my session, my crew chief had told me to bring the car into the pits in 4 more laps and I replied laughingly “I was having a great time until you told me to bring the car in” and I brought the car back in POS.17 at 4:30am! After my stint, our car fought valiantly through equipment challenges (which is normal in a 24h race, especially in this series) and finished 21st out of 99 cars! In the end I tamed the shrew and had the BEST TIME IN MY LIFE racing in the night! It also helped that I drove the South Circuit here with Skip Barber before the 24 hour race. The experience and on-track coaching that I got last fall at the Skip Barber cars in the Karters Shootout really helped me be ready for the technical south side of the track this weekend. A huge thanks to Paul Kullman and No Mo Money Race Engineering for keeping the car going for 24 hours and for the great team work on and off the track and for their catering as well. I also learned from each of my teammates and want to thank Karl, Karl and Clark for being ok with letting a young buck like me get out and race with them. I also have to thank my family for raising the money so I can go to these races and show these results, AWOL Photography for the great photos and D and T Productions/Spirit Bands for the reliable and successful promotional products! Thank you for following me.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 02:01:05 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015