June 30 - Virginia International Raceway

The motorcycle racing was promoted by Formula USA, and attracted both amateur and professional racers.  It followed the typical first race day of the weekend, with practice and qualifying for the morning and part of the afternoon, and then two or three class final races.  One amateur race was run before the professional races.

For my friends in the Sandia Motorcycle Roadracing Association, this was an absolutely beautiful race track.  Everything was green, with grass between the roads of the course, trees, and just very pretty surroundings.  The motorcycle part of the course had 17 challenging curves, 2.25 miles long, and the road surface was very good, having been newly installed about three years ago.  The course also had a rise in elevation of about 150 ft. and then back down again.  Runoff areas were quite good.  Motorcycle lap times were about 1:30 to 1:35. 

This course can be run by sports cars also, but they can also use a longer attached part to make the car track about 3.5 miles long.  The track owners  can also separate the complete track into two parts so that separate races can go on simultaneously, like today.  While the big race day was what we attended, club races were going on in the second part of the track.  They had excellent areas for the racers cars and trailers, and excellent club buildings.

This course was started in about 1950 by auto road racers, ran for maybe 25 years, and then went back to being a farm.  It was farm property for 25 years, and then a developer came along with an eye to making it a commercial success as well as an auto club and motorcycle club success.  It surely seems ideal.

Deane was all ready to ride in a race, but he couldn't find enough racers to compete with him!  

These little motorcycles, called "Pocket Rockets" are really completely functional, having frame, brakes, and controls like the bigger ones.  They cost about $3,700.  We've seen them at motorcycle race tracks where the riders and crew ride them around in the garage area, and of course they look so funny riding them.

Then the car road racers were there in force, had one practice session in between motorcycle practice sessions, and had a scheduled endurance race this afternoon.  They ran on the 3.5 mile track, and the endurance race was for 3 hours!  There were 45 cars entered, and Norm particularly liked these racers.

Tomorrow is another racing day.  We hope it is a little cooler and a little less humid.  This part of Virginia can be hot and sticky, and sure enough it was today.  (We still had fun!)

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