Exit3DC does VIR North - July 18, 2005
Coming down with strep throat sucks. Coming down with strep throat a few days before you're supposed to ride VIRginia International Raceway's North Course for the first time sucks donkey dick. I don't know how I caught it, all I know is it hurts like a mah-fucka. Luckily three days on antibiotics had me in just good enough shape to make the five-hour drive down to the River Dan with our boy Asphyxiate. Asphyxiate was actually filling in for Pebble, who's fancy new job required him to stay back in DC for his first meeting with the Board of Directors. Sphyxie and I get an early start on the drive, leaving his house around 3 o'clock Sunday afternoon -- literally dripping sweat from wrestling the two Yamahas and all our freaking gear into the back of my Frontier. Little did we know that you can sweat more than that. We rolled into the Danville Courtyard by Marriott around 9, and promptly hit the pool. Actually, I was floating around in the pool while Sphyxie got huge in the hotel's closet-sized gym. After cooling off, we had some gnarly food from a scary bar/restaurant called Ham's. Ross Thompson of Eastern Motorcycles actually said it's the place to go to pick up local chicks. All I could think was, I already had one infection, and I wasn't looking for another one.
We're back in the room by midnight, and as soon as I close my eyes, next thing I know, the wake up call comes. It's 6:30 a.m. We grab our shit and run downstairs to take advantage of the full breakfast bar and couple cups of coffee. We make it to the paddock by about 7:30 or so -- about half an hour left to get to tech. By the rider's meeting about an hour later, it's already getting super hot out. When I suit up, it's gotta be 85. Aside from sweating balls, my first run is pretty nervous. The track is a lot harder to learn than Summit Point. It's got 17 turns in 2.25 miles. Not only do you have precious little space to link one turn to the next, but it's got a couple blind and off-camber corners that freak you out the first few times you encounter them. After a few sessions we both knew the track well-enough to push a little harder, and as a result, we both got our knees down -- me for the first time. In Turn 2, that first scrape was really just a little tap. But the next lap, I held it down longer, and longer, and longer. By the afternoon sessions, we were both dragging our knees all over the track and having a great time in spite of the heat. Both of us went off track during the morning session, but neither of us actually crashed. That wasn't the case for a whole bunch of other riders. Our best guess was that about 15 people crashed during the day -- most if not all in the B and I groups. It was so bad NESBA called another riders' meeting after luch to tell everyone to chill the fuck out. Kind of hard in 100-plus degree heat, which was causing riders to lose concentration as well as body control, and the result was a lot of crashes. My off-road experience came in Turn 4. I went in and my right leg cramped up, so I quickly decided straight-lining it into the runoff area was better than risking a low-side smack down on a crowded track. I had just done a damn fine job of NOT watching the guy in front of me run out of track in turn 3. What little of that crash I did see, he disappeared into a rapidly expanding comet tail of dust and grass. After going off-roading, I had to stand there in the grass for about 60 seconds, waiting for the corner worker to wave me back on the track. Luckily that was the while flag lap, so I didn't miss any time because of the mistake. VIR North is by far a lot more fun and challenging than Summit Point, but it's a solid five-hour drive, so it's not something any of us DC kids can do regularly. I do hope to get down there again as soon as possible, but I have a more lofty next goal: ride Barber.
For (alot) more detail, go to: www.catspit.net. Sphyxie is a lot less lazy than I when it comes to posting.
--CJ
