My 18 days of Madness... VIR, TGPR, AutoX, etc...

[Brent]

I came home from Afghanistan for 18 days of leave back in the good ol' USA after being deployed for 8 months. I did a few track days and a couple of AutoX's. I had a blast both events and both days had a good turnout of FD's. I think each event had 7-8 FD's there. Big thanks to Fritz. I learned more from him at VIR than I have at my previous three track weekends. Holy shit can he drive!!! Thanks for letting me tag along on most of your sessions. Fritz, you'll def. see me back at VIR next summer once I get back home. It was great to meet everyone at the various events and it was good to see some old familiar faces as well. I arrived back in Afghanistan earlier this week and have 7 more months to go until I can get some more seat time.

I also need to thank David Jerome, Dan Chadwick, and Mike Lashlee for helping me out while I was home. Besides the track events I also was able to install my coilovers, porsche big red front brakes, 99spec RZ/RS rear brakes, install the passenger side oil cooler and R1 lines, Widefoot Sway bar mounts and bronze bushings, TP Sway Bar, 3 Defi Gauges, weld in an additional bung for my wideband,install my wideband and gauge, do a little tuning, and a few other things.

None of the pictures are that great as my camera is nothing special and my girlfriend was taking these, but they are pretty good for what she was working with

I was planning on leaving for Virginia around noon on Saturday. After a couple of issues while installing my Sway Bar and Mounts, I didn't leave Dan's shop until around 3 or 4. I hit traffic on the interstate due to a wreck and arrived home around 5:30pm. After getting everything together and loaded up, eating dinner, and a quick shower, it was 10:30pm CST and we were leaving finally.

Luckily my dad and girlfriend came with me and my dad drove all night. We got there(thanks to daylight savings time changing) with just enough time to check into the hotel, throw our bags in the room, and head straight to the track just in time to sign in and head straight to the driver's meeting

Pictures of the Chin Motorsports Event at VIR Nov. 2 and 3:


Me at VIR:








My rice burner exhaust as Brian and Dan tell me:



Fritz's "back up car" 26k 95 SSM R2(Sevenlust's old car):



Fritz's Track Monster:





I have a bunch more of Fritz on the track, I'll upload them when I get time.

Other 7's at VIR:





I know I have some of I think his username is DigDug, but I can't find them to save my life.

Other Pictures from VIR:










Pictures from the Speed For Sale TGPR event Oct. 24(as you can tell... it rained all day but I still had a blast):







20b:





Phil(herblenny) in his RX-8:



Bryan, owner of BNR Turbo wife's car:


Kevin from Knoxville's 500r FD:

4 GTR's at the event:


Chris M's FD that had the fastest lap last year:


Mine and Kevin's FD's:




And a couple from the AutoX when I first got home just for good measure:



And one more of my cars right before I got back on the plane for Afghanistan:



All in all, it was a great 18 days in regards to cars and family and friends. It was the fastest 18 days of my life. There were several nights I didn't sleep at all and I wouldn't of had it any other way. I don't think I could of fit anything else into those 18 days. As I'm sitting here back in my room in Afghanistan I'm thinking back and saying "helluva time... helluva time" I'm planning on doing in between 10-12 track days once I get home next summer between June and September. I want to hit VIR, Road Atlanta, TGPR, Putnam Park(close to where my little brother lives), and where ever else I can... all I want is seat time

[Herblenny]

WOW! great pics and great way to spend your 18 days back!

Hit me up next year when you decide to do some track days.. i would love to go with you on some.

Also, don't forget about Barber Motorsport park

[Brent]

We will def. hit up Barber Phil!!

[SPICcnmFD]

Hey, what happened Saturday at TGP?? I hope nothing broke. We had a blast, no rain, nice cool weather. It started late but it ended around 4 because everyone was pretty much tired of running. I think I had 5 or 6, 20-25min sessions, and then stopped because I was tired.

[Brent]

Chris,
It was nice to meet you. I figured it was a great day!!! Sucks that I ended up missing it!! I had been meaning to send you a message about that. The car started breaking up on the way to the track that morning and I knew I had fouled my plugs since I was running so rich. I didn't want to risk anything that would make me miss VIR the next weekend(just in case it wasn't the plugs), so I cut my losses and didn't push my luck after realizing I didn't bring my extra spark plugs... and the 3 parts stores I stopped at didn't have any. I drove home, didn't cut the car off when I got gas just to be on the safe side. It was a good thing too, when I did(once I was home), it wouldn't start back up. As soon as I changed the plugs, it started back up. However, it also developed a hard start issue( Dan found a wire had come undone on my TPS connector and both sensors on the TPS were reading wide open once we started datalogging). Had to change out the TPS out and put another connector in(thanks Dan). Car did great at VIR after all of this. Water Temp. never got above 84 and Air Temp stayed between 26 and 30 during 30 minute sessions with outside temp. being 70 degrees. I'm prob. going to have Dan Chadwick work on the car while I'm gone now. As much as I love working on cars/RX-7's, I've come to terms with just how little free time I have. I threw the car together because I wanted to drive it before I left in March. There are some things that still need to be done to the car/cleaned up thanks to other guy who I have payed to work on my car last year(who completely screwed me... see my build thread). I also am not willing to give up another track season because the car is down so I can work on it and I'm very confident that the car will be extremely solid and ready to be beat on at the track after "Mr. Sparkles" works his magic

[Herblenny]

Brent, You should of called me! I have like gazillion spark plugs at home!

[SPICcnmFD]

Well that's good to hear at least it wasn't anything major. FWIW I would have skipped a day at TGP for a larger track also. Let me know where you are running when you get back in the spring and I'll try to go to Barbers, TGP, and Road Atl. with you.

[Brent]

Thanks Phil. There is always next year

Chris, I'll def. let you know what I plan on doing. Let me know if you run into anymore good deals on track days. Track Daze normally has some pretty cheap days at Road Atlanta as well as non Tracquest Chin Motorsports events there.

[Brent]

A few more from the website:

[Mirage]

I absolutely love seeing so many FDs racing. Awesome pics, I'm glad you were able to get everything worked out just in the nick of time

[Turbo II]

Awesome! Pics and being able to do all that while you were back man. I'm envious!

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Mirage

I absolutely love seeing so many FDs racing. Awesome pics, I'm glad you were able to get everything worked out just in the nick of time

Me too. Most of it was self induced i.e. I have time to put one more thing on before I leave... haha. I still have all kinds of parts sitting in the basement waiting to go on like my fuel surge cover and so forth. I'll have plenty of time for that when I get home in June though.

Originally Posted by Turbo II

Awesome! Pics and being able to do all that while you were back man. I'm envious!

Thanks man!! I'm very glad I was able to do everything I did. Can't wait until I get home. Hopefully next summer will be just as good... but no where near as rushed. I'll prob. make some long weekends out of the track days this summer for me and the gf to enjoy. She is pretty awesome. I think she enjoys the track just as much as I do and is very self sufficient while we are there, I just always feel bad that she is just kind of hanging out the whole time.

[speedjunkie]

Damn Brent, I thought your deployment was over, I didn't know you were on mid-tour. That sucks. See if you can make it to one of our tracks in Colorado next summer haha.

[Brent]

My deployment is over. This thread is from Nov. 08