Skip Barber Season 3 Week 5 – Virginia

September 12 2011

Man this track is difficult.  Easily the most confusing track so far.

Virginia

I found a number of these corners seriously challenging

NASCAR Bend: AKA Turn 3.  This corner is seriously tricky.  It looks pretty simple.  You start braking once you clear the left kink that is turn 2.  Problem I found was that I kept turning around (spinning) on the brakes. I spent a good hour or two just losing it nearly every time I went through that turn.  Eventually I dialled in a LOT of front brake bias to cure the snap oversteer on entry.  Also coasting after straight after turn 2 and before gently braking helped.  Definitely no hard or jerky braking here.

Left Hook:  Also moderately tricky, as it’s easy to understeer straight off the road at turn 5, after carrying too much speed into turn 4.

Up Hill:  I actually got a hold of this one pretty early on and just hugged the inside in third gear.

Turn 8,9,10: It took a while for me to get the line through here but once I did it was all good.  Mild throttle.

Roller Coaster: This was another of the corners that took me a while to find a good braking marker.  I was generally entering too fast and shooting off down the grass.

Hog Pen:  Damn this was tough.  The trick is to not select 5th.  Let the engine bounce off the limiter in 4th before braking just before you go over the hill and down into the turn.  It’s imperative that this corner is taken well, so the car can carry maximum speed down the straight.

 

I had a problem with my PC that meant I couldn’t do a race at this track.  This is probably a good thing because I’m sure it would have ended up in tears.  Much like the week 7 races at Lime Rock.

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