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Old 03-31-05, 10:14 AM
Ken C's Avatar
Ken C Ken C is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2001
Posts: 763

VIR People?? So ???


Here's my take:

VIR has a few corners like Loudon, but it's more different than similar. There are only a few real braking areas, turn 1, turn 4, turn 7 and turn 14, otherwise it's all about corner speed. The videos I've seen don't show the elevation changes.

Track Map

The long straight is 150mph+ for a 600 and larger bike and around 100+mph for my bike. The straight isn't really straight, it has a kink in the middle of it that requires a good shove on the bars to change direction at those speeds.

At the end of the straight is turn 1, which requires two downshifts and a lot of lean angle to the right. Turn 4 and 5 is tight and reminds me a bit of a fast version of Loudon's turn 11-12 combo.

Exiting turn 5 I'm on the gas hard, catching an upshift to build speed for the back straight. The brakes are on hard as you emerge from under the bridge approaching turn 7.

Turn 7 is kind of like the exit of Loudon's turn 3, because it's a steep uphill right turn. The top of turn is blind, revealing the upper series of turns, which are fast with a lot of elevation change.

I really liked turn 10, which is a left turn at the crest of a hill leading to turn 11, which is in a hollow. You can carry a lot of speed through there using the bank of the hill to your advantage.

Turns 14 and 14a is what I think of as a mini corkscrew that goes steeply downhill leading to the Hog pen series of turns that lead onto the front straight.

I got comfortable at VIR rather quickly, I think because I'm used to the ultra-technical characteristics of NHIS. VIR was rather straight forward in my opinion. During the last session, I was starting to pick more and more reference points to get consistent. I'm pretty sure I could have knocked 4 seconds off my lap times in short order. I don't know what a decent lap time is for a small bore bike, but it will be significantly longer than an equal rider on a big horsepower bike compared to Loudon.

Oh, and the mud off-track is very soupy and made of red clay. How do I know? Because the MZ crapped out on the first lap in turn 2. I was right in front of Tully. I coasted to the grass and pushed it to the tires where the mud was a foot deep! A nice man with a trailer hooked to his truck got me back to the pits where Tony discovered a gas vent hose that must have been plugged. Later, the MZ had another issue when it cut out on me at the apex of a corner where steady drive is critical. I later fund a coil wire unplugged when I saw I had no spark. After all that was sorted, I had smooth sailing.

I had a lot of fun riding with Tony on his new-to-him CBR600RR. Mister Smooth.
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