Virginia International Raceway Open House 3/30/12

[onehundredoctane]

This is my second attempt at photojournalism, I attended V.I.R.'s Open House back in March, you could tour the track facility for free, attendees had the opportunity to get out on the track for parade laps behind the pace car for $20, while in the paddock I snapped tons of pics (these are less than half of what I took). I've only been learning about photography since December and work on only shooting in manual mode which has helped me understand more about how a picture is taken. All photos were taken in natural light. Enough babble, on to the pics and article!

Back in March, Virginia International Raceway (V.I.R.) had their annual open house to raise money for Ronald McDonald House Charities. During this time fans got a chance to not only get their cars out on the track, but also see others rides. Entry was free but for $25 you could get 20-25 minutes on track behind the pace car, not a bad way to spend a Friday instead of stuck at work. I made the trip with a couple other CN members and the minute we got close enough to see the main gate we also noticed the line to get in. (NOTE: I wished I had switched to manual focus so I could've focused on the cars in the background instead of the camera auto focusing on the car in front of me, lesson learned)


We hadn't been waiting long when I started noticing that we weren't at the back of the line any more. . .


Eventually the line started moving and we got close enough to see the gate.


One of the first cars to catch my attention was this Plymoth Roadrunner Superbird,

which is easily one of the most recognizable cars ever made. Based off of the Dodge Charger Daytona, which was the first American car to be aerodynamically designed in a wind tunnel. The sloped front end which helped direct air over the hood, along with other changes to the original Charger body made this car almost 19 inches longer than a standard Dodge Charger. You can't look at one of these cars without your attention being drawn to the rear spoiler, which was designed to be high enough that it was in less turbulent air and not in the path of air coming off of the roof. It's functional in another way as well, with the trunk lid opened the spoiler clears it, imagine not being able to put the groceries in the trunk. . . it would be madness! Then again, taking a car like this to the grocery store would be even madder!!!


Moving on. . . there were a ton of Skittles,


pardon the pun but they're tiny and come in bright colors!


If you've been to the Greensboro Cars and Coffee, you might recognize this next car, I've spotted this E36 there a few times. I've heard it's putting down around 600 whp, maybe you'd be interested in a feature on it in the future?


And of course there was Godzilla,




The R35 being such a massive car it has to have the stopping power to back it up, check em out.


If you love the RWB scene then this would be a great starting point, that is, if you have the $20k+ that some of these car fetch. (NOTE: looking back now I wish I had taken this picture from the other side of the car and not gotten the shadow side)


Maybe the S13 is the E30 of the Nissan world. . . or maybe the E30 is the S13 of the BMW world. Either way both were mass produced, and still easy to find for a reasonable price. Plenty of people are stuffing Nissan swaps into these things too!


If you remember the Brock Racing Enterprises (BRE) Datsuns then this livery is very familiar, who wouldn't love to have this to pay homage to part of Nissans roots? This was one clean Z!


I love the writing you see on the dash there, "BE SMOOTH, BE SAFE", wise words to live by on a road course, keeping a driving line smooth thru turns is the key to consistent lap times.

While some are bound to hate on the Rotas, there's almost no way you can hate on the Wilwood stoppers, I'll admit I almost walked past the car without noticing them.


It's not often (enough) that you see an RX-7 that actually has a rotary left in it, this FD is one of those rare instances, but it seemed to have a water leak of some sort. . . I saw the car out on track later on so I assume it wasn't anything major.


As much as I love the Z cars, I have to admit this wouldn't be a fair fight, the GTR would quickly put the Vette in its place, but what if Nissan actually made a V8 contender to put up against the Corvette? We can always dream I guess.


Maybe Fox bodies are more your style? In that case. . .


I've never been a Ford person, but as I walked past this Mustang I did notice the tread pattern on the rear tires. Then I looked a little closer and notced they were Mikey Thompsons, which means someone is making some power here. . .


I decided to take a peep under the hood since it was already open, I talked to the owner for a couple of minutes, me mentioned the supercharger was eating belts due bad pulley alignment, that's no good! I figured I wouldn't bother him too much since he was busy trying to figure out a quick fix so he could get out on track with his run group.


At the time I had already heard rumor of the new 5.0 Mustangs but hadn't seen one yet. I've already mentioned that I'm not a Mustang fan, but even I'll admit these things look menacing!


With 412 hp/ 390 tq, this thing is as bad as it looks, no imagine it 3" closer to the ground with an agressive chin spolier. I can't wait to see what the aftermarket does for these! This one already had Brembo calipers from the factory, throw on a set of cross drilled rotors and call it a day.

Overall I had a blast, I was on sensory overload the entire time, there were more cars there than I had time to see. VIR posted later on their site that close to 400 people took part in their open house! I've already applied for a media pass for the first ever American Le Mans race at VIR which will be in September, so you can hope to see coverage of that later this year!

 

[imagemaker46]

That's a lot of text to read through. Some of these look like they were shot with a cell phone, the others are pretty much just a basic record of cars, happy snaps. There is nothing wrong with that, and explanations of what each photo is, well nothing wrong with that either. Thanks for posting, it a different sensation when you are at the track, than just looking at static images.

 

[onehundredoctane]

thank you for your input. so you like less journalism and more photos? :raisedbrow:

Out of curiosity do you consider yourself a car / automotive enthusiast Mr. Imagemakerfoursix?

 

[imagemaker46]

I've been involved in the car community for over 30 years, my Dad used to build and race sprint cars back in the 60's, I grew up in it. I have working as an ISCA custom car show judge since the 1980's. I did a lot of drag racing back in the 70's. Shot for National Dragster magazine for a few years in the 90's. I build my own 396 for my first Camaro. I have shot Nascar and Indy car races. So I would say that I'm an automotive enthusiast

 

[brian_f2.8]

I think the OP is trying to tell a story which he did. There was a lot of text but valuable information because I wasn't there. The cars are not going to be poster shots. The photos are there to document the event. They are fine for what they are.

I did a motorcycle track day there years ago. Great track love that place. You going to ALMS in the fall? I shot ALMS at Lime Rock and will shooting ALMS and Indy Car at The Baltimore GP. Good series 5 series in one race.

 

[onehundredoctane]

Thanks for the kind words brian!

I live about an hour away from the track, and have plans to attend ALMS, but I'll just be getting back from a wedding in Chicago so it'll be a close one if I do make it. I've applied for a media pass, so my motivation to attend may depend on that.

 

[sovietdoc]

Looks like that wasn't just godzilla, but godzilla black edition. Awesome, can't wait till Nismo takes a GT-R for a tune-up..

 

[onehundredoctane]

The black edition wheels are not my favorite, the regular ones look much better. I wonder if these are lighter or something?