Valentines Day 200

For me the season got off to a fast start. Half a lap to be exact. That's how long it took for me to get around the Oak Tree turn at VIR and launch down the straight. With the eVisory Cobra flying down the road, temperatures in the 60s, and the sun shining, I let out a great big yell and mashed the gas! We were back on the track!

As usual we had a full weekend: Dave Lewis was doing some polishing in the Competition Licensing School, Bobbie played trophy Girl, Chris Thompson drove his Stealth in the school, and friends like Billy Crowder helped in the pits.

The weekend at VIR was the inaugural Valentine's Day 200. This was a 2.5 endurance race with a wide mix of cars. We knew that a class win was almost impossible with Marcus Motorsports running the team of Bryan Dobyns (Two-time defending Cobra series champion) and Sunny Hobbs (accomplished ARCA racer coming off a strong run at Daytona the week before). Harry handled qualifying while Dan served as instructor for a talented beginning with an old Florida State Police Mustang. Harry qualified in tenth place for a good place to start. A blazingly quick Corvette started from the pole. A few cars had forgotten to have their tracking transponders turned on: that meant some pretty fast cars would actually start at the back of the pack.

The race began at 8:30 on Sunday morning. The temperature was in the 30s and gusty winds made it feel even colder. Harry drove the first leg and picked up more than 5 seconds on his Saturday laps - even with the conservative driving needed for the enduro. The fast Corvette lapped Harry (and most of the field) before a miscue took the car out of the race. Ted Hulse's Porsche and Payton Wilson's Miata had lapped Harry when it came time for the pit stop.

We had made arrangements to have a pretty organized crew, but the rules stated that you couldn't be over the wall during refueling unless you had a nomex suit on - meaning only Harry and myself. A variety of minor errors compounded to make it a long stop. In addition, we discovered that one of the lug nuts on the rear wheel had broken! Instead of losing a little more than a half of a lap, we lost about two laps! By the time I made it on to the track, we were somewhere in 20+ place.

Driving the enduro was fun. I had try to drive gently because of the lug-nut problem (another turned out to immediately break when the race was over) and because the tires got hot. Slowly the power of the Cobra worked it's way back to the front and other drivers had to make multiple pit stops.

The race had some fun parts. One guy had a Honda Civic that blew me away on the straight-away. It isn't too often that the Cobra loses a drag race with a Honda! When Bryan Dobyns caught (and passed) me it wasn't enough that he had to prove he was a better driver: he also had to demonstrate more horsepower and a better suspension. The fact that he managed to demonstrate both on just a half lap was proof that he was out for a Sunday drive. One of the funniest things was a guy in a Miata without a crew or relief driver. He actually drove in behind the walls, went to the track gas pump, and used his credit to refuel before heading back on the track!

I spent most of my time picking off the slower cars and looking over my shoulder for the fast Porsches of Robert Chase/Steve Marcus and Ted Hulse. We ended up driving over 200 miles and I was really wondering when the race would be over.

When the checkered fell we ended up in tenth place. We got second in class, but that was only because there were no other Cobras. The power team of Dobyns/Hobbs lapped the entire field to get an overall win. Even though they only passed us once, our poor pit performance meant that we finished three laps behind.