Grand-Am VIR 500

For Labor Day weekend it shaped up to be a fun time as we helped friends for the Grand-Am VIR 500 at Virginia International Raceway.  Team owner Steve Marcus had just added the #69 BMW earlier in the week with Chris Cobetto and Robert Chase as part of the driver crew, along with Chris Mitchum.  Steve's #9 car, driven by Byran Dobyns, was fresh off a third place run at Watkin's Glen for the Formal Transportation/Autometrics BMW.

A fast field included Corvettes, a record-setting Ferrari, and some other special cars.  Rain played a big part too:  central virginia had almost no rain in six months, but Mother Nature decided to catch up with nearly constant rain until Sunday morning.  The #69 ended up with some front end damage during Friday practice, but the team did an impressive job getting the car ready for Saturday.  Unfortunately, another wreck in qualifying caused damage to the rear and put the car out of the race for Sunday.  Rain played havoc with other race groups and cancelled qualifying for some.

With only one car and a ton of qualified people to help, Dan ended up being the ever-vital clip board guy who counted laps and kept some times on the #9 car and the competitors.  Crew chief Gordon Friedman didn't even yell at Dan when he screwed up! In hindsight, those clip-board efforts were probably more important than anything drivers Bryan Dobyns and Cory Friedman did in the car.  ;-)

The Ferrari, Mosler, and Porsches were much faster than the BMW, so mechanical failure is a key in a the long 5-hour race.  Intermixed with the cars were the low-slung prototype cars.  (One of the cars broke the all-time track record with a 1:39 for the 3.27 mile course.  Our Cobra runs about 2:28.)  A good pit stop put the BMW team in 4th place late in the race, but the powerful Marcos car quickly regained the spot.  Sure enough, with just a few laps to go, the Marcos lost a wheel and Marcus Motorsports secured a strong 4th place finish.  The Ferrari 360 set a new Grand-Am record with it's 4th consecutive victory. The Dyson Racing team staged a thrilling win in close competition for the prototypes.

Also during the weekend were races for imports (Hondas, Lexus, etc.) and the Porsche races.  The rain was a pain for all of the race groups and led to numerous off-track excursions.