Grand-Am Race Weekend at VIR

[woodym3]

Yep, it's this weekend with the featured races for the Rolex Grand Am and the Continental Tire Challenge both on Saturday. Friday is practice and qualifying. There is a load of support races for the Mustang Challenge, Maxda MX-5 Cup, Skip Barber Mazda Formula Cars, and VW Jetta TDI Series.

The Rolex Grand Am race will have three BMW-powered Daytona Prototypes among the field of 13, including the Chip Ganassi entry that won the last race at Barber Motorsports Park. The GT class will have the Turner Motorsports BMW M6 driven by Bill Auberlen and Paul Della Luna. Also of local interest is the new entry of a Ferrari 430 by Annapolis's Skip Bennett and the Tarheel Chapter's Mike Skeen.

The Continental Tire race will have a boat load of E92 M3s battling a larger boat load of Mustangs in the Grand Sport class. The Street Tuner Class will have several BMW E46 330s and two Bimmerworld E90 328s. Some Minis are competitive in the class too.

VIR is about 4 hours south of DC near Danville. Motel rooms are probably impossible to get now, but camping is available. If you can't make it, the Grand-Am race will be shown live on Speed TV at 2pm Saturday. The CTC race will be on tape delayed Speed at 1pm on Saturday, May 1.

[woodym3]

In a Thursday practice session, James Clay in one of the Bimmerworld 328s, was clipped in the rear by a Porsche while entering the uphill esses at 100 mph. James was spun around and went into the tire wall backwards. It now looks like a 318ti. RRT, who was not entered in the race, is hauling their #18 328 to VIR so James and David White can continue their pursuit of the ST class championship.

[Reach]

That's very cool of them to do that!

[woodym3]

I ended up going to the races today afterall - leaving at 4am, arriving at 8am, departing to return home at 6:30 pm and getting home at 10:20. Great racing and weather. There were financial reasons for RRT to do that Mike. But yes, very cool too.