NASA/Bosch Octoberfest at VIR

8:00am, October 9th 2010. The alarm clock goes off.  Ugh.  I don't get out of bed this early unless... Wait, I'm in a hotel.  I come to my senses.  Where am I?  I'm groggy in the morning, before I"ve had some caffeine intake.  Ahh, Danville Virginia.  Precisely in the middle of nowhere. Today, I'm going to VIR.

Where? Virginia International Raceway. It's a road course in the middle of nowhere.  Actually, it's in between two middles of nowhere, Danville and South Boston Virginia.  It sits just on the VA/NC border, and you actually cross out of Virginia, back into North Carolina, then back into Virginia on the way to the track.  It's a full-on race track, the full course 3.27 miles in length, with 150' of elevation change, and two long straights - one 3000', one 4000'.  Compared to, say, Road Atlanta it's a lot more organic of a shape, a lot less rigid and it seems to roll with the hills.  It's gorgeous.

It's also a damn good road course.  Good enough for Car & Driver to name it one of the six best road courses in America, and good enough for it to host their annual "Lightning Lap" competition to see what current production car is the fastest around a real race track.  You know, one with left AND right turns.

Despite having lived in Raleigh for 8 years now, I've never made the trek up to VIR before.  It's only about an hour away from my house; this in inexcusable.  It's the only place to see some real racing in this area.  And there was much to see - you had your pick between NASA (National Auto Sport Association) club racing, and some amateur drifting.  I ran around trying get as much of it in as I could in the two days I was there.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZAlA8PbUWc

There was a wide variety of cars on track, but the most prevelant was the Spec Miata class, which was all 1st and 2nd generation Mazda MX-5's.  They're not terribly fast on the straights but they're all well matched and hold a lot of speed in the corners.  There was also Spec E30 (80's BMW 3-series) and a large amount of Porsche 924/944's grouped on track together, along with a handful of Nissan B13 Sentra SE-R's.  The sound was like a thousand bees swarming as they passed on the straights.  If there's a more fun, cheap way of getting into racing I'm not sure what it is.

More interesting to watch, but less consistent were the bigger-bore race cars.  Here there were Mustangs, M3's, 911's, Corvettes, and the like.  This particular clip of a few cars thundering down the track is pretty interesting.  What does that silver RX-7 sound like to you?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCVcC0dHAOY

If you guessed "C5 Corvette," you'd be right.  This FD3S (3rd generation) RX-7 ditches the twin-turbo rotary for an all-aluminum LS1 Corvette V8.  Seriously fast.  The 7/10th's scale Porsche 962 behind it is actually a Diasio DP962, a tube-frame kit car with a Yamaha bike motor.  It's a screamer!

There were also a number of fast street cars getting a workout on the track at VIR.  This Shelby GT500 Super Snake emitted a mixture of high-pitched supercharger whine as it was coming towards you, and deep-throated V8 rumble as it rocketed past.  You can bet this guy was having fun...

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37DXnwt6FUs

There were plenty of rotaries to be seen on and around the track.  It seems that the rotary's downsides as a daily driver aren't nearly as important on track as it's light weight, great weight distribution, and piles of revs.  Here are two RX'8's duking it out as they pass under the bridge.  The lowered one in front was almost ear-splittingly loud...

This third-generation FD3S still had it's 13b-REW twin turbo motor - no LS1 here - and looked quite quick on track.  Here it is cooling off in the pits.

Here's a rather obviously Public Service Announcement, brought to you in part by CarThrottle.  The 638 horsepower Corvette ZR-1 is extremely fast.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzpBK0xUkgA

Now here's something I can't quite explain.  It looks like an ex-NASCAR, but it's not nearly loud or fast enough to be one.  Still, what is it - and what is it doing on the road course at VIR?  It's variety like this that makes these track days fun.  Despite not being NASCAR loud, it was still vocal enough to drown out anything else around it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79AFLJKcDaU

Walking through the paddock was like a trip into the candy store.  Race cars, enclosed trailers, piles of racing slicks...  It was mind blowing.  If you're a fan of Nissan GT-R's, VIR is a good place to be.

It's nice to see cars like the GT-R actually being used as they were intended, rather than covered in fake carbon fibre and driven around downtown at 20 miles an hour while some Jersey Shore extra tries to pick up chicks.

This GT-R (what a creative license plate!) looked stock from the outside, but the massive titanium exhaust tips peeking out gave a hint that it wasn't.  A look under the hood confirmed this.

Fans of turbocharged Japanese machinery had much to ogle at...

This Supra Turbo sounded from the outside like it was sporting a large single-turbo conversion, and it had no problem annihilating the straights.  The huge race slicks are a hint of sorts.

Another third-generation RX-7 twin turbo, with some aerodynamic addendum.  Love the wheels on this one.

Not much out there can make a Honda S2000 look big.  Except for a Lotus Elise.

One - I dig the graphics.  If you're going to have a race Corvette, people might as well notice it.  Two - what's up with those exhaust pipes?

The Neon SRT-4 is a personal favorite of mine.  Here's one set up to do what Dodge really intended for it to do: tear up the track.  This thing sounded extremely turbocharged on the track, and you could hear the diverter valve halfway down the back straight.

And if turbo Neons aren't your thing, how about a Ferrari F430 Challenge car?

Of all the places on the central East Coast to spend a weekend, VIR on race day takes a beating.  The variety of cars and racing (plus some amateur-level drifting) going on kept things interesting, and the venue itself is quite nice.  If you have the time to take a trip up there, I highly recommend it