Sup?

Today's VIR Report.

Hello all, things at VIR are pretty interesting. We are in the middle of silly season and there is a lot of talk about who is going where, and what is going on with this race team and that race team. It is all very cloak and dagger stuff. But the good news it, there is still a race on.

The promoter of the event, M1, is putting on one hell of a show!! They brought the 20'x24' big screen from Laguna, set it up in between turns 3 and 4 and are showing the new Mark Neale movie, "The Doctor, The Tornado and the Kentucky Kid" for race fans. They are also adding four more big screens to various parts of the track so fans can see the race action when the bikes are not in their corner. Ticket sales are up 30% from last year, and it's not even race day yet.

More stuff that M1 has done for the fans, this year there are 34 total vendors up from last years total of 14. There is a custom bike show with over 65 motorcycles on display. Jason Britton is doing stunt shows… the list of good stuff goes on and on. If you are not at VIR you are simply missing out!!

There has been some track safety changes made as well. Some riders met with track officials six weeks ago and yesterday to discuss some safety changes they wanted made. Of those changes, sharp curbing edges have been ground down to make dragging your knee over the curb safer. 15 pieces of ARMCO barrier has been removed in the final turn on the track allowing for more run off area. And a tire was removed in turn three to allow for 30 more feet of run off room. That was just the stuff done last night. The track is really trying hard to appease the riders, and they like it.

Ben Spies had a big high side today. The young Texan slammed his hands into the ground… HARD!! After Ben went back out to put in one quick lap, netting him 2nd on the grid at the moment, he got off the bike and was holding his right (throttle) hand. From what I understand it is the outside of his hand that is hurting. He was going to go to get it checked out, but no word

yet. John Haner had a great run in Superbike qualifying today. He put on a Pirelli Qualifying tire and set the 5th fastest lap of the session. It would have been fourth, but Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden ripped off one lap that was a tenth quicker than Haner. John was a happy guy, but knows he will have to go faster tomorrow. He also told me he did that lap on his own, with out a draft and could use a good pull down the front straight to cut a bit off that time.

Danny Eslick had one awesome… kinda crash today. It is hard to describe, but basically he ran off the track and had it saved, but a wall with hay bails was coming up fast. He jumped on the rear brake and slid the bike into the hay bails sideways… the bike then slowly hit the hay bails and he was thrown over the right side of the bike, and on his back, onto a wall. He then proceeded to raise his hands for the fans like he did a sick dismount in the Olympic Gymnastics competition. Eslick in tern jumped back on the bike and got going again. It was so funny… Danny is quite the character.

There is more to tell, but I need to get my butt to bed tonight. More tomorrow folks… Wish you were here.

L8R - G