Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

I think that was a great idea to push up the schedule for the weather.But why not keep doing it this way?
It shows it can be done,Save Sunday for possible rain delay.Everyone saves some money and time and you can travel WITHOUT TRAFFIC,.Why not DO IT AGAIN and AGAIN.
By the way great job by the D-1 staff and VMI..Track was great,,
And the announcer was awsome... What do you think?

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

its always good to get home and have a day of rest before going back to work .3 time runs on friday is also a good plan.

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

Great Idea James. It was nice being home today to relax.

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

worked great with minimal downtime, great weather, and a "modest" car count... not so sure that you could get it all done with a big field, late night dew, etc. Definitely was great to be done a day early.

VMP always does a great job; the free tix to get the spectators there sure seemed to work. Need to have the announcer come and sit with Lewis Bloom (sp?) for a day or two to get his geography straight (apparently Federico and I live in Hopewell Junction, Long Island, NY...).

Congrats to all the winners. Good scramble in the first round James... What was leaking?

srm

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

As long as they keep a qualifying shot for Saturday morning, I'm all for it. (For the few who have a hard time getting there on a Friday)

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

I agree. I thought that it was great. I am not sure if it could be done with a larger car count but most of the races that have larger turnouts don't have T/S or T/D so that may help.

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

There is talk of making this happen at more D - 1 races -- call -- write -- or E-mail Bob Lang and let him know your thoughts about this ............he really does care ! ! !

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

I don't like the idea of changing the current racing schedule. We paid $170.00 for a divisional race and were told that the weather was responsible for the schedule change. All the weather reports on saturday said there was a slight chance of a hit or miss shower on Sunday afternoon; no big deal. And it never happened.

One reason for a three day schedule is to provide day light racing. I'm not a big fan of racing at night. I didn't like the idea of everyone being chased off the grounds by 8:00 am the next morning when we were there and paid for a three day race. And one more thing, a two day race sure cuts down on time to visit with friends which is not good for the Sportsman racers.

If you guys really want a two day race you should ask for it to be a Saturday and Sunday race. You could work all week leave on Friday night. Tech on Saturday morning and then have three qualifing rounds with a fourth on Sunday morning and then most of us will be on our way home by 2:00 pm Sunday. You could tentatively take off from work on Monday in case the race did not finish on Sunday, but then you would be cool if it did finish on Sunday. That way you have no missed work and lost no income; which we all sure as hell need right now!

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

I'm generally not in favor of it because of the night racing aspect, but in this case I was-I got home in time to get some grading done yesterday.

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

I'm a big fan of sportsman drag racing especially the stocks and super stocks. I thought that it was great that I got to see all rounds of eliminations in one day there in Richmond. I will not spend three or four days at a track to watch the entire race like the National events. I usually go on Saturday and find out the final results on the internet. I would love to be able to see all rounds in one day at all the races. If the car counts are high, maybe they could have the stockers, ss, s/st, ts, etc run one day and the pros or alcohol guys run another day.
I also thought the announcer did a really good job at promoting the sportsman. He described just about all the cars and the drivers as they staged before each run. ...Well done announcer guy!

Here's a couple Saturday morning qualifying videos. Listen to the announcer do his thing...

http://s40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...t=P5030023.flv

http://s40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...t=P5030022.flv

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

I had a Bad Radiator Cap..I think its possible to do a 2 day thing.Car count or not.
If any thing car counts look to be declining all over the country.
Come on now I Dont want to race at night.How about in the heat of the summer.90 plus degrees Track Sucks!!!.Also you get a time run the day you race.Not 12 hours later.tell me you don't like that
Its just a suggestion..I dont care what 2 days I just think a divsional Is not a National Event.

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

James

I think it was a great decision to run everything on saturday.

I also thought Bruce's suggestion wasn't bad.... sat and sun would make sense so no one would have to miss work on friday (maybe just monday)..... BUT that is going back to what we had years ago. Time trials were on saturday and elims were on sunday. Then what happened ----- tracks started "test and tunes" on fridays. IF weather played a role in saturdays time trials, you wished you were there on friday (like everyone else that was there on friday). It ends up being a three day race anyway.

Tom

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

fred prov. Thanks for the video. I don't get to see my car that often, seeing I am in it. Gary

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

I don't think all the D1 races can be completed on Friday and Saturday especially with TAD and TAFC or the tracks that have curfews.
But I can say when they get rid of them on Friday and Satuday it sure makes Sunday go faster.
Maybe if we knocked off a couple rounds of us on Saturday we could get done earlier on Sunday.
But if we are going to run on Saturday night I would want a Friday night time shot for comparison.
Of course this is all subject to car count. How many cars were there this weekend 400?

Kent

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

I agree with you James, a divisional is not a National event.

90 degrees doesn't mean diddly to me - Bowling Green is one of my favorite races. But running at night does change things. nhra decided that running at night was not the best way to race - that is why they use the current format. They should stick with it unless they want a bunch of cars on their roofs.

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

I can tell you as a track operator in NC they made the right call with the info they had on Friday. I had a motorcycle event on Sunday and on Friday at noon the forcast was 60% chance of rain on Sunday and it was coming from the south. When it does Petersburg is 140 miles NE and gets the weather about 3 hours later. The other problem was it was coming in Saturday night around midnight which it did but the storm broke up by 3am. With gas at 4.39 a gallon you can second guess a track operator for doing this. If my IHRA race in June looks this way on Sunday we will run as much as possible on Saturday night as well. We did the math and it easily saves the racer a combined total of 75,000 on gas to run a divisional on Saturday instead of Sunday if it rains out.

I can also say it has rained 8 weekends in a row in NC and we have made the right call everytime on calling events. We even called one 3 days out to save the racers $$$$$.

Herb McCandless Jr
Piedmont Dragway

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

I liked the race format. I definetely like having alcohol done on saturday. I think if they can continue that and finish top sportsman and dragster saturday and getting 2 or 3 rounds of the rest in it will make for a short sunday. That was done at Cecil last year an we were done about 1pm and didn't start til around 9 or 10am.

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

I agree with Bruce and Tommy. Make it a saturday/sunday race so the working class people can get a break. I'd rather be tired on monday than losing a days pay on friday.

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

Gary, you're welcome. I took mostly photos but for a couple runs I decided to try out the video mode on my camera. I need to work on keeping the camera steady. You have a nice and very quick H stock Camaro. I know that it takes a lot of work and time to build one that runs more than a seccond under the index. Good luck to you this racing season!

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

IHRA can run two complete races in two days with 300 cars. I should hope that you could run one race in two days with 400.

My first full year running NHRA, we ran the Numidia NHRA Div. 1 event. Made two qualifying runs on Friday, drove to Beaver Springs Dragway and race Friday night. Back to Numidia on Saturday, made two more qualifying runs, went to Billy's shop and swapped converters, raced at Beaver Springs that night, back to Numidia on Sunday, got busted by Rusty Canfield heads-up, back to Beaver Springs and raced. Even back then, I couldn't figure out why we 'needed' to be there on Friday, and why we had to take off on a *Wednesday* to go to a National.

Visiting is nice, but sitting around doing nothing but making two passes a day is ridiculous for a Divisional race, in my opinion. When I go racing, I like to race. Just another thing like about IHRA -- less time off work, more racing.

$.02,

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

Michael Beard for President!

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

Thank you, thank you. I promise to lower fuel prices and taxes, provide universal healthcare, end unemployment, and institute world peace. Oh yeah, and everybody gets back 5 HP. :cool:

One reason for having an 'extra' day of an event is to collect more spectator (err... crew) fees....

Re: Virgina D-1 2day race,,Lets Do It Again
 

Michael -- I'll take that 5 HP you're handing out and if you are still feeling spunky I've got 3 or 4 converters that need to be run thru one of our cars ........you should have said something sooner -- we'll fix you right up ! ! ! !


PS---Not to worry about the fuel prices...Bill's wife is going to take care of that ASAP.