March 22-23, 2003 -- VIR ECR/SARRC

With no rest for the weary, Will Perry and Art Thompson made the long trip to Virginia International Raceway on the very next weekend.

Water, water everywhere! The shoreline started about 40 feet from the braking zone at the end of the front straight. Heavy rains of the week before the race had brought the Dan River, on VIR's border, up to about 17 feet above flood stage. We even had a couple of fishermen mosey over what would have been the perimeter fence of the facility and into the runoff area outside the front straight.

The first race for the weekend was an ECR on Saturday afternoon. In what is an unusual grouping of classes, the enduro included Spec Racer Ford. Even so, things went well enough for the first several laps. With the wide range of speed and handling within the group, however, it didn't take long for things to start getting messy. My day started to deteriorate when I went to pass John Fine on the back straight and he forced me off the inside of the track. The resultant contact spun the both of us and put enough fresh grass in my grill to start causing cooling problems right away. Thanks to fast pit work by Will, the car eventually started running at a reasonable temperature again and I could continue. I eventually finished the race in third place. John went into the tire wall outside of Left Hook, resulting in a DNF for him.

What we later found out to be a blown head gasket caused the cooling system on my car to be marginal for the rest of the weekend. After getting trapped in traffic on the start of the SARRC race I managed to work my way back up to a comfortable third place. Then, unexpectedly, I spun in what was apparently my own coolant going into Left Hook, dropping back two positions in the process. I recovered and gained one position back, but the car was running almost full hot by that point. Will led the SARRC from start to finish in a clean race.

"March Mayhem" was broken in to parts for web publication.
Part 1     Part 2     Part 3

-- Art Thompson

2003 Races

November
   ARRC
October
   VIR School
   Roebling Road
August
   Road Atlanta
July 
   Road Atlanta
June
   Charlotte
May
   Kershaw
April
   Roebling Road
March
   VIR
   Birmingham
   Road Atlanta

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