It had been 2.5 years since I raced at VIR, or anywhere other than Summit Point for that matter. It was going to be a hot one, but it was the first weekend I could re-visit one of my favorite tracks… so I figured it worthwhile. It turns out Mother Nature would really throw a nasty one at us, with heat indexes pushing well into triple digits for most of the weekend. The weather was downright unpleasant, with most people hiding in the coolest place they could find.
The racing itself was fairly non-eventful. A short race on Saturday meant not much fatigue and not much attrition. A much longer race on Sunday was still relatively clean, but the temperature definitely did something to the drivers. From what I could tell of both my and others’ driving, things were sloppy. People were over-braking, missing apexes and just generally not on their game. People were clean with respect to one another and everything shook out well, but it was clear we were all impacted.
Even if the racing wasn’t the memorable, I can at least say I was there. It was a personal test to complete those races and and I did it. I don’t think it would have been something I could have done were I in the shape I was in three years ago.