SCCA Double Double at VIR

It was exactly one year to the day since Dan finished a race with the Cobra running at full power. With the Cobra recently repaired and Bobbie running her first race with SCCA, the weekend was full of hope.

To make a long story short, our hope was misplaced, but it wasn't without some bright spots.

The trip down was slow, in no small part due to the need to replace not one, but two tires on the trailer. Just 20 miles from VIR, we finally got the tires on, only to forget to put the tailgate down which meant damage to both the Cobra and the trailer.

This weekend was two SCCA regions racing against each other in a unique two race weekend. Qualifying was Friday with races for Saturday and Sunday. On Dan's first practice session, it was clear that we had now blown up engine number 9 with a head gasket problem. It wasn't a lot better for Bobbie: on the first turn of the very first lap, she and another RX-7 ended up with her door getting banged in. And the nice camera lens broke. So far, a very expensive weekend and not a lot of fun.

The Saturday morning qualifying session showed Dan limping around for just 4 laps before the car overheated from the head gasket. Bobbie didn't have much better luck as third gear disappeared on her. The decision was made to just go for it and ignore the troubles.

Dan began the race in 31^st position against a very deep field, but long time Cobra-racing friend Bryan Dobyns was there to make it interesting. Bryan looked good and had already broken Dan's track record. Bryan started about 5 positions ahead of Dan, but one of Dan's patented starts brought him right up to Bryan's bumper less than ¼ lap into the race. Both Dan and Bryan ran hard – smashing the track record Bryan had just set a few hours earlier. Finally Dan got by Bryan to take the lead. But Bryan got it back when Dan made a tactical mistake and let him by.

With the engine holding out, Dan and Bryan kept running until Dan saw the white flag signalling one lap to go. With Bryan a few feet in front of him, Dan went for broke, tried to take Bryan on the inside, and had a slight spin. Content to just finish the race for a change, Dan just motored around the track, cooling the engine and waving to the corner workers. When a car came screaming by Dan, he finally noticed that the corner workers weren't waving back. Guess what? SCCA doesn't use a white flag for one lap to go. There had been several laps left and more than enough time to run Bryan down. Stupid. At least it was fun and competitive – a far cry from most of the previous year.

For Bobbie's race it was decided that she would run her first SCCA race with just 2^nd and 4^th gears. Not ideal, but it would get her through. Well, so much for that theory: the entire transmission locked up on the pace lap and Bobbie watched the race from the safety of a corner worker station.

Work immediately began on putting a new tranmission in Bobbie's car. On Sunday morning, Dan was down to the last two bolts (Dan had never changed a transmission before so it wasn't really fast) when he realized he had left of a critical part inside the transmission. That meant pulling it apart all over again. Fortunately, the Spec RX-7 crowd helped with parts, wrench turning, and technical advice and the car was repaired and ready to go.

The Sunday gap between Dan and Bryan would be ten cars this time: an enormous amount of ground to make up. Once again Dan had a wonderful start and was on Bryan's bumper after just five turns. Unfortunately, that was about it: the engine gradually lost power with each lap and Bryan steadily pulled away. Bryan didn't let up: he beat the track record he had set just the day before. The really funny thing is that Bryan and Dan registered for different classes: Bryan in SPO and Dan in GT-1 (where the Cobra is up against much more powerful cars, but isn't technically legal because of some minor things). When it was all said and done, Dan ended up with the win in GT-1, mostly due to some technicalities.

Bobbie's race meant she would start near the back of the pack because she had missed most of her qualifying session. She had a nice start before settling into a fun duel with a BMW. She and BMW swapped the lead back and forth until the BMW finally got free when Bobbie tried an aggressive move to retake the lead.

So we got through the weekend and finally had some smiles at VIR. Not quite fun, but certainly a step in the right direction.