Just got back home from the Wild Hare run at VIR. Long tow, worth
every minute of it. We had great weather, LOTS of track time, a lot
of nice people to play with both on and off the track. The Triumph
Ghetto was awesome - the Friday Night Fish Fry with Captain Rob
bringing the seafood was excellent, even if it did get a little
precipitation. Saturday dinner was great, came back to a campfire
and bench racing. I had great fun dicing with Leo in his TR-250 and
a yellow MGB that was quick when it ran. We had several practice /
qualifying sessions on Friday and Saturday - I was 2 to 4 seconds off
of George Wright's times which is about as good as I can hope for
there. In the final race, I was within a second of him in time, but
I think he was being held up.
VIR is an awesome track - the esses are about as much fun as you can
have. Wide open IF you've got good handling and the cohones to
really do it. I gained on almost everyone at the end of the
esses. While there's not much passing in the esses, there are a
couple of nice long straights that offer good passing
opportunities. With its country club environment, and nice 60 / 70
degree highs, blue skies etc. it couldn't have been nicer.
Susan and Henry have described the Triumph attendees pretty well - I
really enjoyed my time with all of them.
We had a pursuit race to end Friday (Handicap race with the "slowest"
cars at the front), a feature race to end Saturday and an enduro on
Sunday (I skipped that one), and a feature race on Sunday to end the
weekend. I had the best dices in the Saturday feature race, but
didn't have the camera in the car. Plenty of happy drivers after
both of those. In the Sunday race, I got held up by a couple of V-8
cars - a Mustang stopped my exit speed from Oak Tree and gave Leo
clear sailing by me, and a badly smoking GTO / Tempest slowed my exit
from the esses on the next lap. He did us the favor of taking 3/4 of
a lap while having an obvious oiling problem - leaving quite a trail
near the end of the run. He may have left some oil in the final turn
of the esses which is the fastest corner on the track. While trying
to make up time to catch back up to Leo and the MGB I got sideways
somewhere over 100 in that corner and narrowly averted disaster. I
rejoined without having lost much track position, luckily. George's
description of smiting his car in that same area was circulating in
my head as I regained control and got pointed away from the tire
wall. Chris Marx, I have VIDEO of this - it will be coming
soon. :) I did end up catching and passing the MGB - I used the oil
slicks against him. I figured out pretty quickly what to avoid and
where I could go hammer down. Caught him coming to the one lap to go
mark. Another lap or two and I could have joined the fight with Leo
and Tivvy in a very well driven Jag XK-140.
I was sad to see the mechanical failures of especially the Triumph
crowd. Hopefully everyone will make speedy repairs and rejoin the fray.
Great friends, great track, great weather, great racing, life is good.
- Tony Drews
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