Tomorrow morning early we leave for Virginia International Raceway for the Grassroots Motorsports Pirelli Ultimate Track Car Challenge on Friday. It should be interesting, a one-day see-who's-the-fastest event for a year's worth of bragging rights.

The format is NASA Time Trial (TT), which is to say we'll have one 20-minute warm-up session at the beginning of the day and then three 20-minute timed sessions throughout the day. The winner in each class is the driver with the fastest single lap. That means TT is essentially qualifying as opposed to wheel-to-wheel racing.

The catch, of course, is that some of us like, for instance, me, have never been to VIR before, so in addition to trying to put down a screaming lap we'll also be trying like heck to learn the track. Fortunately, I've been able to spend an inordinate amount of time in the evenings lately studying on-line videos so I think I have at least a reasonable starting understanding of both the track and how to go fast there.

My class is Independent Junior Varsity, which is for normally-aspirated (no turbos or superchargers) 4-cylinder cars created by guys like me in their own garages (as opposed to professionally built cars). I've seen the entry list and I'll be running against an interesting bunch of cars including the Honda that won last year, a Porsche 968, a Honda S2000 and, the ones I'm most concerned about, three Lotus Super Seven clones.

The Super Seven, a photo of one of which is above, is basically four wheels, two seats and a motor. Very light, very fast. It's also one of my all-time favorite cars. So much so that I have been giving somewhat serious thought to building one of these from scratch. The problem or, in this case, worry, about the Sevens is they are massively fast in the lower speed ranges and very good handling cars.

As you can probably imagine from the photo, they are not the most aerodynamic of vehicles so their top speed is somewhat compromised by an unfavorable shape. Also, they probably won't have aerodynamics in the form of a wing or similar tools, which should limit somewhat their cornering speeds. Regardless, of all the cars on the list, these are the three I figure have the best chance, if driven well, to beat me.

Time, of course, will tell.

My car is ready, including a new, much improved wing and splitter and sporting brand new GOODAero graphics. GOODAero is the company I am trying to start to manufacture and sell aerodynamic products for racing cars--starting with a wing like the one I'll be using Friday--and the UTCC is my introduction of the brand.

Last year's winner (in my class) finished with a 2-minute 11-second lap. The current GTS2 (my racing class) lap record at VIR is 2:12.916. My goal is at least one lap in the 2:09s and my dream is a 2:08. If I can get down in that range I think it will be hard to beat.

Regardless of our success in Virginia, Friday afternoon we'll pack it all up and make the 9-hour haul back to Mid-Ohio for a weekend of GTS racing. I'll let you know how they both turn out.

1. Vitor Pereira07/21/2010 10:16:34 AM
Homepage: http://www.vitor-pereira.com

Best wishes for both. Go get 'em!