VIR

[Mike Devins]

Only two FB's at VIR -

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showru...152&perclass=1

Coop threatened to have the car painted by this event.

[Jnovak]

I talked to Coop last night. Car & driver are in solid shape & it is all Satin Black. Everyone is loving the paint job & the rumor is that some folks did not know that this was the Coopsters car. Glenn says there is more left.

[glenn cooper]

Well race 1 is in the books and the lap record has been reset by Team Coopsport to a 1:52.498. Pretty hot this weekend, 79 degrees in the shade.
I Qualified at a 1:51.7 something.
No one to race with, tried to hang w/ some of the FA's.
We had a FCY, blk flag, restart, wave off, 2nd wave off, came through the hot pit twice.
A real Fuster-cluck.
Didn't really have anyone to race with; the FA's were either ahead of me or behind.
Solitary running, not really racing.
Here's a few pics:

[Rick Ross]

Coop,

Congrats on the new lap record. You guys were absolutely flying in qualifying.......looks like Grant did a 1:45 in FA, and the top FE time was in the 1:54's. Those are some impressive times, conditions must have been close to perfect yesterday. Good luck tomorrow. Wish I was there!

[Mike B]

No one to race with, tried to hang w/ some of the FA's.

What happened to Sean?

Good luck tomorrow!

[glenn cooper]

Sean came 2nd, battled w/ some FM's, best lap of 1:56.5.

BY FAR, MOST IMPRESSIVE lap of weekend so far has to be FE pilot Nick Evans - 1:54.6
I gotta go meet this kid...
GC

[formulasuper]

Well race 1 is in the books and the lap record has been reset by Team Coopsport to a 1:52.498. Pretty hot this weekend, 79 degrees in the shade.
I Qualified at a 1:51.7 something.
No one to race with, tried to hang w/ some of the FA's.
We had a FCY, blk flag, restart, wave off, 2nd wave off, came through the hot pit twice.
A real Fuster-cluck.
Didn't really have anyone to race with; the FA's were either ahead of me or behind.
Solitary running, not really racing.
Here's a few pics:

Well Coop, since you were going as fast as you could & couldn't keep up with the fast FA's you could have slowed down a little (after setting the track record) & had someone to race with! So you don't need a shiny paint job to go fast, huh?

[Rick Ross]

Looks like new track records in at least the following classes: FA, FB, FC, FE, FF, FV, and DSR. Nice job!

That's a whole LOT of new lap records for one race, especially considering the large size of the run group. Has the track been resurfaced recently, or was the weather more of a factor?

[Brian]

We were at VIR last weekend, the track has been ground smooth in all corners and sealed with a pretty grippy sealer, the consensus was a second or two faster, and that's borne out by the results. so it's the track more than anything. Peter said that the transition to unsealed pavement at corner exit is tricky in the wet, spins as you come off the sealer. The grand-am guys will tell the tale next weekend, as to the longevity of the sealer...

Brian

[Northwind]

Great job Coop!

Where are the pics?

[glenn cooper]

Here ya go.
Q for Race 2 - Pole @ 1:51.6

[Sean Maisey]

Well the Sunday result was opposite to a degree. I "finished" first as Glen coasted to a stop in the "esses". Unfortunately four laps later - boom. I threw a rod... Spectacular smoke and then a nice fire.... But it was past half way so I take a hollow win...

Apparently 255-260 is too much oil temp... New sidepods for the next outing....


In the race we started over 50 cars. The traffic was insane, and overtaking was more insane. FSCCA racer and personal friend Eric Cruz was hit, launched and rolled 3 times in turn two. Not sure much useful is left of his car, no corner was intact. He got a ride to the Danville Hospital, and we had FCY from turn 4 on, but many ignored it.

I love VIR, but the execution of both races was a disgrace. The officials need a serious operational review... In spite of this I will be back next year...

Sean

[Dennis Valet]

Here are some FB pictures I took- I have over 1,000 photos to go through, so these are just teasers for now!

This is how big the group was....the train extended well past this frame- I will photoshop the guy out of the picture later!

[RussMcB]

Sean, glad you got a win. Sorry it came at a heavy price.

Similarly, glad Coop got a win and lap record. Hope his DNF is easy to fix.

[Sean Maisey]

Russ,

Not sure Glens failure was any cheaper than mine. But the good news is that two FB's battled and lots of people were interested. I was frustrated at times as it was hard to prep the car between sessions with all of the interested visitors.

We are 21st in participation. We need to press on...

Sean

[Rick Ross]

Was the Coop's DNF due to engine failure?

[Mike Devins]

Rick,

I spoke to Coop on his way home it was a chain / master link failure.

Sean,

The last time I had a set of side pods like Coop's in my shop to modify them I made a mold of the completed conversion. Give me a call. I'll help how ever I can to get us to the 2.5 goal!

[Richard Dziak]

Dennis:

Great shots...I would like to add some of the Formula F1000 photos that you took to the F1000 photo gallery.

If you would be so kind to email some, I will put them on the F1000 Owner/driver photo gallery website that I have been building.

Thanks,

[RussMcB]

Apparently 255-260 is too much oil temp...

Sean, do you have a logger that you can go back and look at temperatures & pressures? At what point in your oiling system is your oil temp sensor?

That's a pretty tempting offer from Mike Devins. He does fantastic work, not just the building part but the thought behind it, too. You'd be happy with the end result.

[Dennis Valet]

Richard, absolutely- I will email them to you when I get home from work tonight

[Tom Valet]

I love VIR, but the execution of both races was a disgrace. The officials need a serious operational review... In spite of this I will be back next year...

Sean

Just to add to what Sean said, 57 cars started the wings and things group on Saturday. For some insane reason, the Stewards elected for a split start with the sports racers starting behind the formula cars. That meant they moved the 3d, 4th and 5th fastest qualifying cars to the rear of a 57 car field, plus all the other CSR and DSRs. And the split was too close, only 20 seconds. When the formula cars got to the esses a traffic jam ensued, the sports racers were already catching the formula cars, brake checks and lots of contact was inevitable. A FCY was followed by a black flag all (every session for wings and things all weekend starting with every session of test day resulted in a black flag all).

A long delay in pit lane meant cars that elected not to shut down for fear of not restarting began to overheat (some drivers believed with the black flag their crew could not help with a restart or a push). Several very expensive engines were damaged on Saturday. I also counted 8 blown engines on Sunday just from where I stood on the esses, no doubt some of these were related to the overheating on Saturday.

A petition to move some of the wings to the FF/FV/F5 group was denied. Personally, I think they should have added an additional race group. More time was lost dealing with the many accidents and black flags than if they had added run group.

There was no split start for Sunday, and the race was cleaner, but Eric Cruz's FE flip in turn one was definitely related to the huge number of cars barreling into turn one, and an accordion effect bunching cars up.

It's great that so many formula cars turned up for this event (14 FMs! I never saw so many in one place at one time), but with that kind of turn-out there needs to be better management of the run groups. With a 3 mile track you would think that 57 cars could comfortably fit on the track, but honestly there was no open space on the track at all, and very few clean laps for those guys all weekend. Based on what I saw this weekend, I cannot imagine what 100+ FF cars on track at RA for the 40th will look like.

[Purple Frog]

Tom,
100 cars of the same class will work a lot nicer than 50 cars of 8 different classes.

[Tom Valet]

Mike, that's a good point, and as I was thinking about Eric's flip after I posted, it wasnt the number of cars per se that caused a problem, it was as you say the huge variety of different cars with different braking points and different cornering potential that was really to blame for much of the aggravation all weekend.

[Sean Maisey]

To answer the last few posts.

1) I measure oil temp at the dry sump pump outlet, and before any of the coolers.
2) I have a 25 row oil cooler plus a Mocal oil/water intercooler
3) Water temp was 195 oil was 255 at time of failure
4) Oil Pressure was running in the low 40s at speed. It read at 37PSI just as I pulled onto the pit straight at 8,000 RPM. two seconds later it was 0!!
5) Mike - I will call you today re-sidepods...
6) Not to be too critical of the officiating, but it just did not work. The attempt to send us out in "waves" for Sat. qualifying was a complete disaster. The spilt start also didn't work, just too many cars of different performance levels... The group should have been split up, especially given the participation levels of the other 6 groups.

Sean

[Paul LeCain]

I know we've hashed this over in other threads, but split starts are never, in my opinion, a good idea.

[KevinFirlein]

Paul you shoiuld have been there for the 1st qual when they split start the qual session sort of. They released 14 cars at a time then held the rest for 1o seconds before releaseing the next group. Seems those in charge were ignorant enough about our group to think that would mean there would never be more then 14 cars together at any one time. Now for those who never been to VIR the grid releases straight onto the front straight.Imagine the surprise for those of our cars who were in the 1st group when they came up the stright for the 1st time only to find the last 3 groups of car still being released from the grid. So now we had some cars flat in top gear while others were at low rPM in 1st gear all on the straight together. this was their solution instead of taking some classes out of the group

[JByers]

Kevin you are right about that!!! French and I were very hesitant to roll onto the straight and as we did a Pro Mazda went by at about 130mph and proceeded to close in on cars that were coming up to speed between the S/F and the first braking marker. How nowbody got hit was to my amazement. We petitioned to have some cars removed from the field and this is what we got.

[Rick Ross]

Jason,

Glad to see that you made it thru the weekend. The lap times you and Grant were doing were amazing considering the traffic situation. Did you by any chance set a new FA lap record on Sunday?

[JByers]

Jason,

Glad to see that you made it thru the weekend. The lap times you and Grant were doing were amazing considering the traffic situation. Did you by any chance set a new FA lap record on Sunday?

Rick,
Yes we did by a little under 2 tenths, I was lucky enough to get one clean lap. But like Keith proved in qualifying, there is still another second to lower it by with the new surface and the right traffic patterns.

[kmt63]

if anyone would like to see the fe in car of the rollover it is posted on the dsr forum.not sure how to drop u tube links.its in the 2009 races.then the vir thread.there is also some really good footage on the west race cars web site.eric vassian was dicing it up with the atlantics tell there was a yellow.

[Dennis Valet]

Richard, I tried to email but an automated email response said "user unknown" or something like that. Can you PM an email address I can use? Or you could just grab them off photobucket via right click save as- it's up to you

[Mike B]

if anyone would like to see the fe in car of the rollover it is posted on the dsr forum.not sure how to drop u tube links.its in the 2009 races.then the vir thread.there is also some really good footage on the west race cars web site.eric vassian was dicing it up with the atlantics tell there was a yellow.

Direct link here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M7gY...e=channel_page

It's ugly.

[kmt63]

thanks mike for providing the link.

[Rick Ross]

Jason,

Congrats on your VIR FA lap record. That was a very impressive time.....I suspect that it will stand for quite a while. Wasn't that your first visit to VIR in the Ralt? You and your crew did well.....great job!

[glenn cooper]

probably the most intense I have ever endured. In fact the first several turns were extremely hairball. I basically had one eye in the mirror, one eye ahead, and the "other" eye was clenched so tight you couldn't drive a 10/32 screw in!!

There were guys stuffing it in so tight, guys flicking their cars over towards another car under braking for a first gear corner. Pretty stupid she-ott. I was in full-on survival mode and had to take evasive action more than once. Dudes were trying to win this thing in the first couple'a corners.

Eric, glad you are OK.
Gotta say you had quite the rippin' start!
My guess is you had someone calling the green on the radio, and the others around you did not.
Hope to see you out again soon.
GC

[Evl]

Ouch... Eric, hope you're doing alright...looks painful.