VIR Grand Course 13NOV12

[armyav8tor]

Day started out shitty, but by noon everything dried up and we were able to get some decent laps in. The track was very green and portions were unbelievably slippery. Places where you expect grip had none, had to take the climbing esses much slower especially turn 9. It was great fun and I had my wife riding with me so she finally got to experience a track stateside in the dry (she rode with me 2 wks prior with Chin also but Sandy was taking a dump on us). The last time she rode with me at speed was on the Ring back in 2009. Her assessment is that she enjoyed riding with me on the Ring more and that it felt much scarier there, well, no shit right? Anyway, first time driving the Grand Course. Watched the ZL1 video a week earlier and memorized the Patriot course. Too easy and I must admit, it is almost more fun in there than running VIR Full. I’ll definitely sign up for as many grand course events as I can!

Here’s the fastest lap of the day, 3:08 with the corner worker at 4 waving the red/yellow flag. Cost me a ton of time and knocked me off my rhythm all the way up the climbing esses. Turned out it was for this furry looking thing sitting on the side of turn 5, WTF? I believe a lap under 3 minutes is easily doable with my car under better conditions.

[Car54]

Love Grand East. Check out the Car and Driver Lightning laps to compare your lap times.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...to-2012-page-8

[armyav8tor]

Originally Posted by Car54

Love Grand East. Check out the Car and Driver Lightning laps to compare your lap times.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...to-2012-page-8

Yup, c&d was how I found VIR in the first place. Always wanted to drive the same course used in lightning laps and this was the first time and definitely won't be the last. I knew early on that I was not going to match the 3:05 lap time due to track conditions so I was driving at 8/10th and had the wife to keep me company, just glad we got 2 sessions in the dry. I won't be happy until I get that sub 3 min lap in the grand course configuration and match Leh Keen's 2:08 in the full configuration. Goal set for when I come back from a year tour in Korea.

[klammer]

Great video and fantastic looking configuration. The grand course seems more like a maze than a track awesome driving as usual and good luck on your next tour

[armyav8tor]

Thanks man, I can't wait to get this tour over with but at least I'll be able to go to the Korean GP hopefully. The Grand course configuration is a lot of fun, the people there calls it the VIRburgring.

I shifted the start/ end point to get a cleaner lap on the laptimer. No doubt I left a lot on the table but with 2 guys rolling their cars over at turn 6 and the track being so green after the rain, I sided with caution and took it easy. The car performed great, got a lot of thumbs up from the big boys. Still had a lot of traffic issues in the Black group, but at least now I can pass anywhere and I took some point bys where I probably shouldn't have. Live and learn.