VIR FF and Wings & Things Report

[Tom Valet]

The results of both VIR National races are already up on mylaps, nice work by NC region workers!

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=403632

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=404135

As far as FF, Jeremy Treadway was there but headed home after 2 laps on test day with engine trouble. And we did have a wheel spat sighting for those that were wondering if those new wheels would start showing up. Dennis will post pictures tonight when he gets home from work.

With Jeremy gone, that left 6 Fords, including Art Foster, Lew Cooper Jr, John Nesbitt, Dom Seddio in his new DB-6, and Lee LLoyd in only his 8th race ever of any kind and doing really, really well in his DB-1.

Race 1, Art and Lew got a good start, Bill not so good, almost falling to 4th. On lap two Lew slid off at turn 1 on cold tires and had trouble getting traction in the grass and fell to last. Art got away to a 4 second lead, Bill hunted him down, turning a 2.01.2 chasing Artie, so Bill has the new VIR lap record. Bill passed Art on lap 9 of 14, but then traffic caught him out. Bill hesitated approaching a slow F5 at the end of the main straight , Art pounced and passed them both and Bill went from the lead to 4 seconds behind with 3 to go. Art then drove some terrific last laps, played the traffic perfect and never gave Bill a chance to get past.

Race 2, the start was a carbon copy of Race 1, Bill fell to 3d, with Art getting away and Lew in second. Bill passed Lew, chased Art down and finally got past on the main straight on lap 4. From that point on, for the next 10 laps, right to the end they were tied together, never more than a foot apart, passing back and forth all over the track. 2 laps to go and Jim Little, who crewed and prepped the car for Bill, says to me: this yellow Vee 40 seconds ahead of them is going to decide the race. White flag, Bill in the lead, Art drafts past going into turn 1, but Bill did an over under and passed Art back going into 3. On the back straight they are side by side, and as they come over the hill coming into the left at 14, there it is, the yellow Vee Jim Little had feared. The Vee held his line just as he was supposed to, tried to stay out of the way, but with Bill and Art side by side, Art had the opening to get past first and he took the lead. Onto the main straight, Bill gets a run and drafts next to Art, but Art wins by .002 seconds.

I want to congratulate both Art and Bill for a really clean and terrific race. An inch apart for 14 laps, at near lap record speeds, and they never touched each other once. That is what FF racing is all about.

I'd also like to thank Jim Little, Harry Martin and Mike from Driver's Services, for all the hard work put into prepping the car for Bill. It ran without a hiccup all weekend.

My son Dennis has hundreds of great photos and will post them tonight after work.

Take care.

Tom

[Dennis Valet]

These are the photos I have uploaded right now- I still have a ton to go through, so I will add them to the album as I sort through them.

The full album

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v2...nhardcore/VIR/



Select pictures of interest to FF particularly















I have images of just about everyone- so I will go through them and upload them, and if anyone wants me to check all my pictures to see if I have a good one of them, I will be more than happy to do that when I have time. Thanks for looking

[M.Sauce]

I wonder how many sets of the Kephart wheels have been sold?
I feel bad for Treadway still having motor issues.

[stonebridge20]

[

quote=M.Sauce;210303]I wonder how many sets of the Kephart wheels have been sold?
I feel bad for Treadway still having motor issues.

[/quote]

Mike, The engine issues have been straitened out over the winter and are no longer a problem. The engines are now painted the proper color. The oil filter head nipple, pulling the threads is now fixed also!


.

[Bill Valet]

Here is some video we got from the sunday race. Unfortunately we had camera trouble all weekend, AGAIN!. We only got rear facing video of sundays race, and no video at all of saturdays race, seems we're back to where we started with this video stuff ...anyways, this is the last two laps of sundays race, backwards perspective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T8jb32yNaY

Big congrats to Art on two well deserved wins, not only is he one hell of a driver, he's one hell of a gentleman as well. I'll race wheel to wheel with him anytime anyhere. A very big thank you to the FV and F500 guys in our group, they did a stellar job of holding their lines, pointing us by and generally being very attentive. I tried to give as many of you as possible a thank you wave, and I apologize if I missed a couple of you, it got kinda busy in the cockpit at times!

Jim Little, Harry and Mike from drivers services did a fantastic job prepping the car and keeping it going around the track, I really can't say enough about these guys, thanks a lot!

VIR is a hell of a facility and track, it's definitely one of my favorite drives, and anyone who's been thinking about going there should definitely do it! It's well worth it

Hope you enjoy the video! looking forward to our next event, hopefully with full video capability!

[Rob Albani]

Bill, it sounds from your dad's description and Jim's recap, that Arthur and you had one of those races that you will remember for a long time. Congratulations to two gentlemen racers.