A weekend at Virginia International Raceway
It all started innocently with an email from Mark Palmer to the Vintage Race email list:
Anyone who might be interested in volunteering to do some flagging at Summit Point, WV, on Oct 1-2, please contact me...
Well, I wasn't going to be able to make it all the way to West Virginia that weekend but it piqued my interest enough to 'de-lurk' and post a query to the email list about opportunities for a racer-wanna-be (i.e. me) to volunteer in vintage racing.
In addition to lots of useful information and contacts about flagging, I got this reply:
Eric
Do I have a deal for you!
What are you doing weekend of Sept30-Oct2?
Do you want to help me at VIR?
A couple more emails back & forth and it was agreed that I'd sign on as 'crew' for Mr Derek Harling while he raced his 1976 Lola T460 at VIR the weekend of September 30 to October 2, 2005.
Friday morning I arrived at VIR, signed in at the crew registration station and located Derek's spot in the paddock. (look for the red trailer in the picture below)
Well Mr Harling turned out to be quite a nice fellow. We got along well. And he said he appreciated my help in a pretty convincing manner.
My job was plug in the auxillary battery to allow the engine to start without draining the (small) on-board battery. Oh, yeah, I also had to remember to unplug the starting battery before he drove off!
I even got to use the tire pressure gauge to check, umm..., tire pressure.
When it was time for Derek's group to assemble on the false grid, I'd take the starting battery there just in case he needed the extra amps to start the motor a few minutes before the cars drove out onto the track.
I have to say, one of the most amusing things to watch was all the ATV's that other crews were using (to carry batteries and tools) race away from the false grid towards pit road immediately after the race cars rolled away on their pace lap. If you think race car drivers vie hotly to be first into 'turn one', you haven't watched the support vehicles making their mad dash to the pits!
Derek entered his car in a one hour 'enduro' on Saturday. Again, my job was to bring the starting battery to the pits as the race rules mandated a five minute 'pit stop' and he needed the battery available to assist starting the engine after his pit stop. I was also supposed to walk around and count the tires. For some reason Derek felt it was prudent to finish the race with all four wheels attached.
During the enduro Derek kept lapping and lapping until I began to fear he had forgotten that he was required to make a pit stop. After about 45 minutes I began holding my arm up and pointing to my wrist watch. He just waved as he went by. Finally at about the 53 minute mark he turned into pit lane. I got to jump over 'pit wall' and wave him in to the spot he had chosen.
On Sunday, my wife joined me - Derek had signed her on as crew also! (she's the pretty one in the middle)
photo credit: Doug Meis
Derek gave us a pass to allow us to drive our MGB on the track during the lunch break. We'd done similar at Watkins Glen where they allow the car show entries to circle the track a couple of laps.
As we lined up to enter the track, one of VIR's staff came by to remind us the rules: no passing & have fun! He also asked us to secure the cell phone and camera that was lying on the center console because "they could go flying". I figured, yeah-sure, at Watkins Glen we're allowed to drive sedately around the track.
A few minutes after 11:00am we were waved onto the track about 15th in line (out of about 20) behind a pace car. And away the pace car went! We had a grand time zipping and zooming, lap after lap until at about 11:50am we got the 'one more lap' signal! Yee-hah, nearly an hour on the track! Thank you very much, Derek. That was the highlight of our weekend.
