I've been planning since last year to go to VIR to watch the UTCC and do the NASA HPDE the Saturday and Sunday. Last year was a blast and VIR is an awesome track. I had the car prepped Wednesday night - new Brembo rotors w/ 2 hour old Performance Friction 06F and 97R pads, fresh Redline in the engine, trans and diff. Brake system flushed and bled w/ ATE Super Blue. I have a set of RA1s on 17x9s that only have a couple hours on 'em...
Friday I had a ton of E36 M3 to do and didn't get on the road 'til about 1:00pm. The unspeakable traffic on I95S made the trip (strapped into race seat w/ 6 point harness) a truly long and painful exercise. I missed the entire UTCC by hours.
Saturday AM I'm ready to go. Car is teched, wheels on, suspension set. A friend who's a NASA instructor and who did the UTCC Friday and was doing TTC the balance of the weekend is going to ride along on my first session. I haven't been to VIR in a year and it'd be nice have a baseline after one session to get the most from the weekend. On the final lap of the session I'm scanning the gauges at the exit of T3 and the oil light illuminates. I check mirrors for oil or smoke, lift, move off line, and at the exit of T4 key the engine off and roll off track.
I receive the "towstrap of shame" back to the paddock.
Diagnosis reveals no codes - a properly functioning pressure sender - and when I remove the cover from the oil filter housing and crank the engine; no oil flows.
It is nearly certain the only possible cause is that the nut on the oil pump sprocket backed off.
The best possible outcome is a bunch of disassembly to get to the oil pump to re-affix the nut and pull a the rod bearing caps and main caps to see if there's damage - and finding none.
My wife is a turbo-rock-stud for having arranged the rental of a U-Haul 10' box truck and a car dolly in Danville VA, available Sunday afternoon.
A benevolent racer local to DC offered the exceptional kindness of clearing space for my car in his behemoth 2-car rig in which he'd foolishly only brought one solitary car.
Did I mention that it is positively thermonuclear weather? The "Real Feel" temp is like 111 degrees F. It's unspeakably hideous.
A racetrack when you've nothing to do and it's 1100 degrees celsius is actually not much fun at all. I think my highlight was hanging out w/ some of the GRMs before the award party.
I was aware of the potential folly of driving a track car to events - and it was "fun" at first, becoming more of a pain in the ass with each additional layer of performance and safety - I'm bringing the thing on a $49 rental U-Haul dolly behind my V6 Tacoma next time.
And now I'm eating a pile of freebie hotel cookies in my slightly odd smelling room for dinner.
(end rant)
I'll have to wait until September.
)
