MARRS II & III - 2007 - Virginia International Raceway Race Report
There is some new blood in ITA, can we maintain our competitiveness on a l-o-n-g track against cars with more top end horsepower? Maybe so, Maybe not. Virginia International Raceway (VIR) is the longest course on the schedule with an extremely long back straight (and a relatively long front straight as well). This would tend to favor a high horsepower car over a high torque car. Unfortunately, for this track is that our Team Sisu Nissan 240SX is a high torque car. Our chief competition in the recent past has come from Acura Integra's which have the dual benefit of being high horsepower and aerodynamically efficient.
The VIR event is two action packed days with a single qualifying session in the morning on each of two days, followed by races in the afternoons. Many people participate in the practice day before the weekend but our first track time would come in the short qualifying sessions. To complicate matters, the combined field of Improved Touring A (ITA) that we compete with would be combined with ITB, ITC, IT7, Spec RX7, and Showroom Stock B and C for a total of close to 90 cars. Traffic would be heavy, limiting our ability to get a clean lap, especially with lap time differentials exceeding 30 seconds from our fast times to the slowest times. Qualifying Saturday morning was indeed a challenge but we got together with some other fast cars to pierce through the traffic and re-learn the intricacies of the track. Getting out of the car we were concerned that we never had that clean lap but our times were reasonably competitive with previous years. Others at the front of the field must have had similar problems as we were surprised to see that we qualified second in the large field and first in class. Unfortunately, our chief competitor from the 2006 season, Jon Kofod in the Acura Integra, had mechanical issues that stopped his weekend short after three laps in the first qualifying session. The race was less eventful as the we did not reach serious lapped traffic until the 6th lap of 10 total. We dropped from second to third overall but maintained first in class for the entire race. A first lap incident involving Chris Perera in his Acura Integra gave us a cushion that assured and easy race to the win which became easier when he pulled off after 8 laps with a mechanical problem. No other class competitors were could match the speed of the Team Sisu Nissan.
Never wanting to rest on our laurels, there was one big concern after the first race - Perera had used his monster horsepower to attain a better fast lap by 0.6 seconds during the race. The question was, would he retain that advantage into the Sunday qualifying session and race? Unfortunately, the answer would be yes. Perera took third overall and first, in class for the qualifying session and the Team Sisu Nissan was fifth overall and second in class. At the drop of the green flag, Perera took off and quickly separated himself by a couple seconds over the Team Sisu Nissan. Our only hope would be to have the Acura lose time on one of the many off-course excursions that Perera piloted it on. Each time the dirt would kick up from an indiscretion we would gain ground but not enough to catch the Acura. The race would end as it started for the class, Perera taking his first MARRS series win and Team Sisu driver Kirk Dohne maintaining a sizeable lead in the MARRS Season Championship with a second place to go with two firsts.
There is a five-week layoff until the next race at Summit Point Raceway. Time enough to make the car go a bit faster. Time enough to look for some more horsepower. Time enough to get our game face on for MARRS IV.
MARRS II - VIR Race Weekend Race #1
Finishing Position Name Car Laps Fast-Lap 1 Kirk Dohne (Team Sisu) Nissan 240SX 10 2:21.382 2 Bill Hutchins Mazda Miata 10 2:24.354 3 William Loomis Mazda Miata 10 2:25.999 4 Matthew Yip VW GTI 10 2:26.795 5 Bryan Pritt Acura Integra 10 2:24.408 6 Brent Simonson Mazda Miata 10 2:25.522 7 Chris Ridgely 10 2:27.150 8 Andrej Balanc Mazda Miata 10 2:27.673 9 Buddy Wenners 10 2:30.392 10 Bill Griffith Toyota MR-2 9 2:36.393 11 Thomas Arnold Honda Civic 9 2:36.580 12 Chris Perera Acura Integra 6 2:20.720 MARRS III - VIR Race Weekend Race #2
Finishing Position Name Car Laps Fast-Lap 1 Chris Perera Acura Integra 10 2:20.065 2 Kirk Dohne (Team Sisu) Nissan 240SX 10 2:21.203 3 Bryan Pritt Acura Integra 10 2:23.995 4 Matthew Yip VW GTI 10 2:25.408 5 Andrej Balanc Mazda Miata 10 2:28.197 6 Bill Griffith Toyota MR-2 9 2:33.784 7 Thomas Arnold Honda Civic 9 2:32.593 DNF Buddy Wenners 2 2:35.194 DNS Brent Simonson Mazda Miata 0 -