Great event put on by Mazda Driver's - lots of RX7s showed up. I have a bunch of pictures here if anyone is interested - i cooked my brake pads after session 3 day two, so i called it quits and just took pictures.

http://imageevent.com/section8/hpde/june08virge


Here are a couple of videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqSGRJUNoSM

This is just one lap of the grand east course.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNlrbYF8u08

This is me following a friend in his Mustang GT to get him on video. He's a good driver just needs some R Comp rubber

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AsIRcHkO1Y

After playing with Brian, i decided to try and catch up to the cars that we let pass, here's the vid

 

Yeah it was a great event. First time I've driven the grand course and I loved it!

Unfortunately I had a suspension failure in the 3rd session of the 2nd day and had to limp it back to the pits. After not being able to find the problem in the paddock, I tried for one more lap in the 4th session but knew in turn 1 it was not good, so I limped it back around again and that was the end for me.

Car was working very well, then I heard a loud POP from the front left around the apex in turn 1, and suddenly all grip from the front left tire went away and the car's trajectory changed to running straight off the track. Fortunately I had enough room to keep it out of the weeds. After this the car felt very strange, left turns felt fine but to the right, it felt okay until it hit a certain amount of force, then the tire just let go and didn't provide any grip at all. Turns out the front camber adjustment eccentric bolt on the driver side had worked loose and camber/caster was all over the place!

I'll be back July 5-6 on the north course with Tarheel BMWCCA.

 

Nice videos! Looks like you were having way too much fun!


Paul

 

Did the Jag XK-120 go out on track?

 

Wow, glad you were in turn 1 when that happened, good amount of run off there. Strange bolt to have worked loose, I don't think i've heard of that happening before.


Certainly had a blast - this was my first time running Grand East as well, and I can't wait to do it again. We're taking a break now until the fall though because it gets so hot around here

No, but wouldn't that have been cool? i can imagine VIR back in the day when it was new with all kinds of Jags running around it. Of course being a Jag, 4.2 miles is a long way to expect it to go

 

Yeah, what happened to me is not a typical failure for sure. I made some alignment changes recently and made sure all the bolts adjusted were torqued to spec. But I don't think I touched this particular bolt so the last time it was tightened was the last time I got it aligned at a shop a while back. Must not have been torqued enough and just worked loose over time until that POP when it completely gave way. I heard a couple smaller popping noises in right-hand turns earlier in the day but didn't feel any real change so I thought it was just the tire catching the fender or something.

After a highly-accurate eyeball re-alignment, I just tightened all those eccentrics to 80ftlb.