Virginia International Raceway (VIR) - Skip Barber

Today, April 21st, Thursday, is my 4th day here at VIR. I arived late Sunday night into Greensboro airport and had to get a taxi to the track, which cost me over $130 - I have found out that rental car companies do not like to rent to those under the age of 21. I have had success in Los Angeles with Rent-A-Wreck and in New York city, as the law mandates it there. I am staying at the Lodge, which is a hotel on the race track - looking out the window I can see the track's turns 4 through 7.

Monday and Tuesday I attended the 2-day advanced racing course. The cars are the infamous Dodge R/T 2000 Formula Cars. The 2-day course provides dramatically more track time and less lecture than the 3-day, but I feel that the 3-day course was of great benefit for me to get accustomed to the open wheel cars slowly and surely. We practiced car control on wet skid pad, learned the track with lead and follow, practiced starts, and exercised passing with the instructors. Lots of lapping sessions gave me the time necessary in these new cars to get acclimated and to test various theories on the track. The instructors all contain a plethora of knowledge, and the more interest you show, the more they will share.

The lapping day on Wednesday was a definite confidence booster, as I actually timed my last session of the day to find that my lap times are consistenly as fast as the test drivers that were equalizing the cars for this weekend's races.

Today, I took a day off, as I have 3 more long days of racing - Friday is practice and then 2 races each on Saturday and Sunday.