SVRA Gold Cup & Pro-Am
Virginia International Raceway

Thu Sep 19

Duntov had four cars to tend this weekend, the Number 11 Mecca Corvette for Colby Hillman, the #63 1963 split window Corvette of Pat Sessions, Clair's familiar #37, and Jim Kitzmiller's #36 Corvette. Three of the cars were scheduled to be in the Pro-Am, with only Pat sitting that one out. Colby's blue and white Mecca Corvette was to be driven by Al Unser Jr., Willy T. Ribbs would be with Edward in Jim's car and Clair was to share his car with Chris Dyson.

It was beautiful weather at VIR, which is a very scenic racetrack. For test day, Edward took Pat's car out the first time, then he drove Mecca before Colby tried it out, and finally he ran the last session in Jim's car.

Clair drove 37 first, then Alan took it out in what might be one of the stupidest sessions he has ever run. For some reason he decided to out brake a Porsche and Debbi Cloud under braking in Turn 1. He locked up the brakes and hit the Porsche. Actually the Porsche hit the Corvette, but it was totally Alan's fault. Fortunately the damage was slight (top left). The pic in the middle is Edward welding on Pat Sessions exhaust pipe. To the right is Luke working on a mount for an additional oil cooler going on Pat's car.

Fri Sep 20

The Pro's showed up on Friday. Al Unser Jr. looked over Colby's immaculate number 11 car, but Edward drove it in the first session, while Willy T. took out Jim's car. Klutt had the fast time of the session at a 2:00 flat. Willy ran a 2:04, while Edward ran a 2:05.2 in the small block Mecca car. Of note was the pace of John Cloud at a 2:03, although one never knows for sure who is driving that car, or what it weighs! On Thursday Cloud's car blew Alan off going down the back straight, giving every suggesting the Cobra Automotive crew had taken the weight off for the weekend. They haven't been weighing the Pro-Am cars on Pro-Am weekends.

The second session on Friday was a nightmare. Chris Dyson, by his own admission was at most a tepid participant. He took out #37, and on the first green flag lap an oil fitting failure in the esses took out the guy behind him, which unfortunately was Al Unser, Jr. And the 11 car was not the only one to suffer serious damage. The guy behind Unser was Boris Said in Jim Caudle's car. He also went off in the high speed esses, but to his credit, he kept it off the wall. The drop off in the esses is serious, and the car slammed across the pavement boundaries ripping the oil return line right off the car. Boris stayed on it all the way back to Jim's trailer, and in so doing, he oiled down the whole track and fried Jim's engine in the process. Several cars sustained injuries slipping and sliding on the oil, not the least of which was Klutt's car, driven by Geoff Brabham. He managed to rip up the front end and crack the transmission case.

On the left is a happy Colby Hillman. In the center is the car after it hit the wall (not pictured is a not so happy Colby Hillman). Tony Parella was quick to stop by the trailer and ask us to fix the car! He had the corner workers pick up all the tiny pieces of fiberglass debris and bring it to the trailer. It would have been laughable, but Tony was serious. He obviously has a lot of confidence in our ability to crash repair at the track! Eventually he relented and reassigned Al to Pat's car, which we then labeled. We still had three cars in the field for the Pro-Am, although we hadn't gotten there yet.

Edward lined up in the #1 position on the false grid in preparation for qualifying.

The final session of the day was Qualifying 1, for which Klutt was not ready, as his crew was still fixing his car. There were two qualifying session on the schedule, this one in the late afternoon, and Saturday morning in much better conditions.

Edward gridded first and only ran two hot laps, both 1:57's. He went off on the outside on the last turn kicking up dust on both laps. It was an extraordinary performance, as he only had one session in the car prior to cutting these laps.

Two years ago, Edward turned a 2:01 in Colby's big block car (Mr. Feathers), which at the time was thought to have been the fastest lap ever turned by a Group 6 car. He obviously beat the hell out of that. Scott Borchetta's time was impressive as well, while Clair managed to be within a half a second of Cloud.

Pat Sessions had purchased his 63 Corvette a few months back. He sent it to Duntov and we went through everything but the engine. Pat said it handled great, but it is almost powerless! It made only 330 HP on the dyno at the shop.

Sat Sep 21

Jeremy Clough from Vet Magazine joined us for breakfast and would be with us until Sunday. The second Qualifying session was scheduled for 8 AM. Conditions were perfect, at least 15 degrees cooler than yesterday's session. Edward and the crew were up until 0300 in the morning getting ready. Pat took the car out for a bit of a shake down during Q2 and had a bit of a wreck. Edward didn't bother to go out at all.

Alan and Jeremy Clough spent the time between Q2 and the noon race riveting aluminum reinforcing plates under the several fiberglass breaks on Pat's car. By race time, it was ready to go!

The crowd was not nearly large enough for the mini-pageantry, but Tony put on a hellava show. There was a high school marching band that went through the cars on the grid, a slew of American flags, a recording of the National Anthem, etc..

There were two pace laps before the green flag, after which Edward just disappeared. He put at least two seconds a lap on Klutt and by the fifth lap he was thirteen seconds up. Unfortunately, that was when the full course yellow was displayed.

Bob Lima ducked in just as the yellow flew, so he was OK. Anyone after him would have been disqualified, as you can't pit under a full course yellow!

We absolutely nailed the pit stop, a 5.00 second perfect stop. Klutt's was 5:13, and he was only third after rejoining. After everyone pitted, it was Todd Bodine in Bob Lima's car in second, and Geoff Brabham in Klutt's car third. Bodine ran a bunch of 2:01's and got by Willy who could only get down to a 2:03. Most of Willy's laps were in the 2:04/2:05 range.

Al brought Pat's car in with an engine related issue so it was finished for the weekend. Clair's car had an engine issue related to his earlier oil line problem, and was also out for the weekend. Edward never planned to run on Sunday anyway, so we all were finished for the weekend, and that was OK by us!

Because of that pit stop under yellow, the Bob Lima Todd Bodine car won the race, but his is a BP car. Willy and Edward finished second in the race but first in AP, and that gave them the season Pro-Am Championship, large trophies and each driver got a very fine Chopard Classic Racing watch.