13 hour winner-ITS

[Rob May]

Congrats to Chris Brubaker on his win in the 13 hour at VIR!!!! It's about time dude.

[Ron Earp]

He drove that thing all by himself for the entire 13 hours???? And handled the DTR, refueling, and SCCA work hour all on his own??? Woo Whee he is The Man! Just kidding... :P

[its66]

Ron,
Now Chris is good, but if he could truly do all those things, his name would be ROB MAY!!!!!

Rob,
You'll probably have to call Chris or email him. I haven't seen him on here in years. Ron had some good stories about getting through traffic in the night. :018: I'll never tell.

[JeffYoung]

That car ran a smart fast race. Really nice to see an ITS car win.

Question for you guys: did you have to change brake pads?

[mlytle]

Ron,
Now Chris is good, but if he could truly do all those things, his name would be ROB MAY!!!!!

Rob,
You'll probably have to call Chris or email him. I haven't seen him on here in years. Ron had some good stories about getting through traffic in the night. :018: I'll never tell.
[/b]
ah yes, there were some very interesting techniques used to get around traffic in the dark. as one of the slower classes(SRX7), our team saw a bunch of them. i must have missed it in the supps, but it seems use of the pavement was made entirely optional after the sun set. watching an srf just drive straight up the grass to the right side of the uphill esses to get around a pack certainly provided some entertainment........and that was just one of the many methods....

[Rob May]

I know, I know. Chris is the one I say this to because he is the one that owns the car. I know it is a team effort!!

[Green Flag Inc]

Ron,
Now Chris is good, but if he could truly do all those things, his name would be ROB MAY!!!!!

Rob,
You'll probably have to call Chris or email him. I haven't seen him on here in years. Ron had some good stories about getting through traffic in the night. :018: I'll never tell.
[/b]


Thank Rob! and Thanks Jim, I know that it may seem like I'm never here but I check in on the IT board every couple of weeks to see what the web-meisters are stewing about! Couple of things, Ron Z and Mike F are top of the line so I couldn't have had two better co-drivers, also they are two of my favorite racing buddies, we've been doing this race for 3 years now and I just love that track.

Mike V and ISC Racing are unbelievable, we had a car that was 15 hp down on power that didn't get rectified prior to the race due to time constraints, and even with that the car drove flawlessly for 13 hours solid. It's a simple formula, run 2:16 to 2:20 lap times for 13 hours, don't have anything break (the aux lights wouldn't come on initially but Mike fixed them during a double yellow dinner break), and have flawless pit stops and you are in the running! Sounds easy huh?? Someone mentioned pads, we didn't have to change them but they were real close and at about the 4 hour left mark we backed off quite a bit because we had such a large lead, if we had had to charge hard over those last 4 hours I think we would've had to change them.

As for the night racing at VIR, first of all, thank you Grand Am for putting the reflectors on the track, that was a big help, secondly you haven't lived until you've driven during the 'qualifying' session the night before the 13 hour race... keep in mind that you have had no track time due to the VIR club using the track during the Friday during the race, and you have 80-85 cars, many trying out their lights for the first time, many with drivers that don't know the track let alone how to drive it at night and I will tell you that will lead to some 'off-track' excursions. I actually have come upon drivers at night that are literally stopped on track, no lie. As for the race itself, I find that all of these enduros are incredibly incident free, we had 2 double yellow periods but each of those were for the worker lunch and dinner breaks. As I recall I don't think there were any on-track incidents that required a double yellow. My only regret is that we didn't get to race against 'Rob May' this year, maybe next year Rob?

But the last thing I want to say is how grateful I am to the NC Regions officials and workers that put on that race each year. Many (if not all?) of those corner workers are out there the entire 13 hours and they are freakin' fantastic! I can't thank you all enough for your participation and efforts!!