May 9th 2009 I wake up unsure of what to expect at my normal 5:30-6:00am time. Nothing....not a sound. 7am...not a sound. Man, I need some coffee. I walk over to the concession stand and they are closed. What? Man, what a way to start a morning at the track. No singing or time announcements from Chris and no first morning buzz through out the paddock. OK, first note to self. Next time I go to an SCCA event...sleep in. The other thing I found as I walked through the paddock the night before is that I knew absolutely no one. The one person I knew was at his hotel and the only other name I knew was Mike Collins who I had met one time before. But any way...
At 7:30am VIR came to life. First call for Group 1 to line up for Qualifying. OK, first difference. Instead of the false grid lineup, it was over at the covered grid line up place. Something that is seldom used at a NASA event. I wandered over and was very unsure as to where I could go so I stayed on the grass and took some pictures. First thing that came to my mind was that I didn't know what half of these cars were. As the different groups came to grid for qualifying I noticed much of the same. Other then the Miata's, RX7's and a few 280Z's...I didn't recognize many of the race crafts that lined up.
Now what I found different. This was a combined event between MARRS and SARRC with SCCA. Something I have never seen done with NASA. Another difference is the cars themselves. General newer production cars seen at this event were considerably low numbers other then Miata's. I did see one E36 and one 90's generation Mustang. But other then that I only saw Stock Cars, Older Z cars, A couple of Nissan, cars I did not recognize, a Spitfire I believe and older generation RX7's. I did not see a single Porsche, Ferrari or anything in the 2000 era of makes. Another difference I saw was that there was no "All Hands" meeting first thing. The only meeting that I was aware of was a drivers meeting after all the qualifying rounds where done. Another thing I noticed different is that with SCCA, you get a 15 minute Qual and a 30 minute or 12 lap race per day. With NASA, you get a 25 minute warm up, a 15 minute qualify round and a 25 minute race. So that amounts to at least 20 minutes more track time per day with NASA. I would have to say I like the warm up with NASA a lot more as a chance to warm up the car and the brain before your day and to shake down any problems that might arise. SCCA runs 14 session in a day and NASA runs 23 sessions in a day. Granted...there are only 3 race groups, 3 student groups and a TT and Instructor group but not including the HyperDrive Session.
Another thing I found very different was the commentary of the races. Times, names, car numbers, car places being announced during the run was very neat. Unlike NASA where all announcements are sponsor related or calls for the next group. Running the amount of groups that NASA does...I can see where this would not work. But it was fun the hear your friends name several times during the race and what they thought was a great move on his part.
All in all it was a fun day. I found it a little more intimidating from the administration side of it, but found it more relaxed as far as the racer was concerned. I don't consider either group a bad choice from a drivers point. Both have their advantages for sure.
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