When: October 5 - 6
Where: VIR


Wednesday 10/2
Left work around 5pm.  Got home and packed up the van.  I left around 7ish and drove to Craig's house, about 3 hours away in NY state.  We loaded up his stuff into the trailer and hit the road.  we stopped just south of Scranton PA for the night.

Thursday 10/3
Got up early, had some breakfast on the road, and stopped at K-Mart to pick up a cheap awning of some sort for the track.  We drove most of the day and got to VIR around 5ish.  We set up the awning while we still had light and went for a track walk.   We unloaded the van, had dinner and hung out with some of the 125 crowd that had already show up, like Bill Cole and Scott Moxey.  The TSE boys showed up late and set up shop.

Friday 10/4
Got up early and signed up for Friday practice.  Got the bike fuelled, jetted and ready to go.  They split us up into 5 practice groups for the day: amateur and expert, even and odd numbers, and the riding school students.  The first practice is always slow, but it was really nice to back on the track.  Craig was put into odd practice, so he went out with Marshall to learn the layout.  At the end of the day, I transferred into the odd practice and went out to play with them.  We had a lot of fun.  We ended up getting about five 20-minute sessions, and we were all getting our times down.  I managed to click off a 1:49 by the end of the day.  It turned out to be about 95 degrees out, so I went through a lot of water.  By the end of the day, most of the 125 crowd had shown up and it looked like more than 25 bikes. 

Saturday 10/5
Our announcer friend was back again.. and we got to listen to him at 7 in the morning.   They ran 2 rounds of practice sessions.  Since there were so many 125s at the track, they ended up giving us our own practice session.  This was good in that we didn't have to deal with the 4-strokes (and the 4-strokes didn't have to deal with us!) but it also meant that the schedule was going to get screwed up.  I got down to 1:48 lap times.

Middleweight GP
After the second practice round, we did lunch and got ready for our first race.   Craig, Marshall and I all entered this race at the last minute, so we were pretty far back in the grid.  The race went pretty well for me.  I managed to click off a 1:47 lap time and didn't get lapped by any of the big bikes.  Craig had a small incident and went a lap down, but otherwise would have kicked my ass.  He was starting to really haul on the track.

Craig, the TSE boys and I went go-karting on the kart track behind the road course.   Since I had to race, Craig and I stayed for about a half hour, while Dave, Marshall, Dale and Frank all stayed for a bit.  We had a blast racing each other.   There was some pretty good bumping, and Dale managed to relocate a few plastic barrels.  we decided we need to move next to VIR.. there's tons of fun to be had there!

GTL
Since the schedule was so screwed up, all the races after race 6 ended up being cut to 6 laps!  This included all GT races.  A lot of people were unhappy about it, but that's the way it goes.  Luckily I had some time to get my head straight after the karting experience...  I got a pretty good start, and had a fun time.  Again, I didn't get lapped, and I managed to click off another second, and did a 1:46 lap time.   I was getting better every time!

Sat eve we went to the "Pit Stud" contest.  They were selling tickets for dinner and raffles during the day, so we went.  I ended up winning three prizes.. A Jamie James shirt (and JJ was present!), a nice pair of Kobe race gloves, and a ceiling fan   !?  I ended up giving away the ceiling fan as I didn't really need it.

Sunday 10/6
Last time I was at VIR, our friendly announcer played revely over the PA on Sunday morning.  This time we got to hear the Star Spangled Banner.. the long version.   oi!  We got one round of practice, then went out for USGPRU qualifying.   The track was basically open  for 15 minutes, and we went out as much as we wanted to click off a fast lap.  I managed to get a 1:45, so I keep getting better!   Unfortunately, the fast guys turn laps in the 1:35-1:36 range, so I was on the second to last row of the grid.

USGPRU 125 Final
After lunch, we were the first race up.  We had to bring out bikes to pregrid for a GP style setup.  There were several generators out there, so we brought the bikes out and plugged in the warmers before the race.  It was actually pretty cool.   Since we had no official crew, I recruited a couple guys that I had met last time to help out.  We got the bikes started, the warmers pulled and were off for the warm-up lap.  I got a great start for the race and went into T1 in the middle of the pack.  There was a lot of bumping going on, and I felt like I was actually picking up spots.  I came into turn 3 pretty hot, and had to get on the brakes pretty hard.   I figured I was going to end up on the ground, as I go into T3 already leaned over from T2, but managed to hold it up and not take anyone out.  Things eventually sorted themselves out.  On the second lap, Craig passed me going up the hill into T7, but I managed to get him on the brakes over the hill going into the rollercoaster.  He got me back again and checked out.  Around lap 5 or so, I saw a dust cloud at the top of T7.  Craig had gotten bumped off the track and had a low speed tumble in the grass.   On lap 8, we got a red flag as a result of a couple crashes.  Marshall had gotten hit and 2 people were down (he didn't fall though).  As we waited on pre-grid, Marshall had fixed his bent exhaust pipe, Craig removed all the grass from his carb and helmet, and Frank had fixed his clutch cable that broke.  They had all shown up for the restart.  Unfortunately that meant they were all down on laps, but at least they were still running!  I got another great start on the restart.. and we had 7 laps to run.  Craig got me in T3, and I got passed by one guy and he pulled away a bit.   I managed to start reeling him in, and was getting close enough for a last lap move, when I made a mistake coming out of T3.. but we came up on someone with a mechanical problem.. I was hoping he'd get held up, but he managed to go by with no problem.   when I showed up to pass, the guy was going from curb to curb, like he was trying to screw me up and hold the position.  That really bummed me out.  I got held up enough that there was no way for me to catch the guy I was chasing.  I ended up picking up 23rd spot and a new best lap time in the 1:44 range (Craig had picked up a 1:40 lap time!  Way to go!).  It was a really fun race.  After, we all went to the winners circle for race and championship trophies, as well as some giveaways.  I ended up getting a pair of Mechanix gloves and a clutch holding tool.  Had I managed to pass the guy I was chasing, I would have also gotten an exhaust pipe.. but I'm not complaining.

Craig and I had signed up for Lightweight GP as well, but we blew it off.  We decided to end the day with a 125 GP race, instead of a race with the 4-strokes, so we spent our time packing up.  We said our good-byes and left the track around 4:30 (just as LWGP was running) and stopped south of Scranton around 10:30 or so.  We were both pretty wiped out.  We were both pretty happy.

Monday 10/7
We got up around 7:30 and hit the road.  We stopped back at K-Mart to return the awning on the way home.  We got to Craig's, unloaded and I left.  I got home around 3:15 or so.  I left the van packed up, as I was scheduled to teach a Team Daemon track day at NHIS on Tuesday (I just can't get enough!).

Special Thanks to: Craig DeRosa, TSE Racing, Drew Pat and Steve (pit help), and the entire 125 crowd for a really really fun weekend.  It's going to be a long winter!