News from VIR - 2008
OK Sportsfans, the weather has been beautiful. VIR is still one of the greatest racing facilities in North America.
Four track sessions today for a total of about 4 hours. No official nor unofficial times have yet been posted. I walked up and down pit lane, glanced over shoulders, and even looked at my watch. My 2 cents: It looks like the order is something like Krohn, Baker, Taylor, Miller, Swan, Marcelli, Minor, Bystrom, Vassmer, Clawson... The top ten seems to be running within about a 1.5 second blanket with the fast times being in the low 56s.
The social news I'm sad to report is that the majority of the Fat Boys Racing Team was not able to escape Long Island. Something about an untimely trailer malfunction. But alas, Charles Finelli esq. was able to arrange for his partially assembled car to arrive at VIR this afternoon. Lil Fatboy (Chris Burke) is fairly confident he can finish assembly by the time Charles needs to hit the track Friday afternoon. This situation now negates the chances of Fat Boy Racing repeating last year's feat of crashing two of their cars together on the out lap of the first practice session. All is not lost, Tom Rielly is in town to cheer Finelli on.
The inaugural meeting of the Drivers Without Racecars non-profit support group was held in the veradna at noon today. Jim Morgan was asked to provide counseling for this sad group, and in the meeting he laid out a 12 step recovery program for them to follow. The likes of Jordan, Defer, Novak, Cooper, Finelli, Reilly, Burke, and Inge tried to work through their problems through the use of group therapy and adult beverages. Later in the day, as the group was about to vote in Cole Morgan as member of the year, Finelli was expelled from the group when it was discovered his car had arrived in the paddock.
Chas had to go home with a broken diff, and it appears Phil Lombardi's weekend may have ended with transmission woes. Other than those two disappointments the field of approximately 40 cars should be practicing tomorrow. I know of no car-to-car contact today, no major offs resulting in damage to car. All the kids played real well.
I expected Baker and Krohn to be quick based on earlier reports. They were. I knew little background about Mirl Swan and Jordan Taylor. Mirl is an excellent FA pilot with a Runoffs win(s?) to his credit. He was fast out of the box in his initial outing with a zetec. Mirl is heading up his own effort. Jordan is the son of Wayne Taylor. Wayne has won just about anything that could be won in IMSA. Jordan obviously inherited a bunch of talent. Jon Baytos is engineering and coaching for Jordan.
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Originally Posted by Purple Frog
