Hines Group Motorsports will be at the VIR Double National from test day 10th April, thru 13 April. This will be the premier SCCA national race on the east coast. Our car is a T-2 350Z brickyard color with yellow graphics. Billyco and JMark will be there most of the time with us.

This track is arguably the best track on the east coast and great for spectating. Even has good food and excellent spectating. They are expecting a huge entry of cars and I know that the GT classes are making a push to get a lot of their cars out. The track is located east of Danville, Virginia and south of a town called Alton which is on rt 58.

Why dont a lot of the Nissan guys come out and have some fun as well as go thru the paddock and see what real race cars are like. Stop by and say hi. We will be parked next to a friends large white Volvo toterhome with a double decker trailer. Hope to see a lot of you out. Bob Hines

 

I am very excited and eager to be there. This weekend is going to be big, hope to see a lot of folks there!!!

 

Damn, I'm gonna be a Summit Point with a friend. At least I got to see Billhyco and many of the Mid-A group at GT Live last year. Will be at VIR the weekend after ZDAYZ though.

 

See ya there guys.

 

wow they just anounced over 500 cars are registered for this event. that is a TON of cars on an absolutely beautiful track. Hope to see some familiar faces up there.

 

The entry list is on www.ncrscca.com and follow the links to entry registration. There are more entries to come.

 

LOL @ real race cars

 

yeah, i giggled too

 

It looks like we will have 4 cars for VIR with our team. Rob will drive the 350Z in T2 and also a Honda S2000 in T3 if the car makes it. Its about 60/40 that it will. The builder is almost done and the shocks will arrive on Monday to his show in PA. Tim will bring one of his Corvettes for T1 and also a new Mazda RX8 for T3. With two of the four cars new to us the practice and qualifying day will be busy with finding new shock settings and geting used to the two new cars. We wont even have graphics on the car until it arrives at the track. I have almost all the graphics ready to install, but it takes me about 3 hours to put them on. Anyone else want to help us besides Billy? We could use one more good hand. Bob Hines

 

Hey Bob... when will you be getting to the track?

 

We will get to Danville very late Wednesday night and to the track early thursday for the practice day. Look for a rather large white volvo toterhome with a double decker aluminum trailer. Tim has a black corvette and I dont know what color Mazda RX-8. We have the brickyard Z and hopefully a white Honda S2000 if it gets done in time.

 

gotcha

 

Hey Bob it was nice finally talking to you guys at VIR. I thrashed like hell to get the clutch in Mikes car for the tranny to go out in Saturdays race. Hope you guys won in both cars today. Look forward to talking to you at the next one.

Brett

 

Hey Brett...

I will let the Hines tell you all about the final standings but not sure we met. I was there just lending a hand with all the cars for most of the weekend. Infact, I had the blue Z sitting on the paddock most of the time if you saw it. I hate I missed you or atleast didn't get a chance to meet. I heard about that clutch then followed by trans problems. Makes for a hard fought weekend but I guess that is just part of the game. Hope you managed to have a little bit of fun along the way.

 

Hey man you have a very nice car. It was a very hectic weekend and I would have liked to talk more. We race in the SE division so I'm sure I'll see ya in the future.

 

Not sure if we will bring the Z car to Savannah, but we will definitely have the Honda there for the July 4th weekend double national. We will be with Tim Hund and the big Renegade again. Bob

 

Congrats Rob & Bob. Three 1st & one 2nd place is a pretty good weekend. Sorry I missed it.

 

they brought along their lucky charm --- ME! ok so probably not. but Rob turned some great times with the Z and the Honda. He definately knows his stuff about dialing in the suspension and making it work. It was a lot of fun working with the Hines and Hunds teams, I learned a ton and can't wait to do it again. Maybe next year they will be seeking another driver

 

Thanks to Billy for all his help or we would have had a tough time getting everything done. We were at the track early thursday for a paid practice day and the Honda S2000 T-3 car arrived from Pennsylvania tha morning. It wasnt quite finished as the builder ran out of time and didnt get it painted white. Too bad cause all our graphics were made for a white car. So we made do with numbers from my file of Z car graphics. The car was set up pretty well and Rob only made a few changes to the suspension. One huge problem was that we didnt have any wheels for the car other than the junkyard wheels it was delivered with. Two of them were bent so badly as to be unusable. So we borrowed two and mounted up the tires. The rears rubbed in the first session and fortunately we had extra fronts which are a little smaller, but at least they didnt rub. Second session Rob was below the lap record by 1.5 seconds so we knew we had a good car. Having only one set of wheels meant we were back and forth changing tires and thank God Kumho had their truck there for the weekend starting friday morning. Making a long story shorter, we ran the saturday race and led from the flag with only radio problems for the whole race. New track record. Second race we again led but the guys behind were getting faster including one of the factory Honda guys who had never been to VIR before. We won again but lost the track record to one of our friends from Northern Virginia who drives a lot of Grand-Am Koni races.
We didnt get a chance to test the Z car after we repaired all the damage from the runoffs, but things went well in the one thursday test session. We were under the lap record with the T-2 "Z" car in qualifying but it doesnt count unless its in the race. A lot of records were broken in other classes but mostly that is due to VIR usually having their National Race in hot hot August and engines run much better in the cooler weather of April. We won the first race with the "Z" and set the record a little lower but not as low as we did in Qualifying. This race had 49 cars entered with everything from GT-1thru GT3, American Sedan, T-1 and us in T-2. The second race on Sunday had 47 cars and was a huge crash fest with cars off all over and one huge wreck that left two cars in the middle of the track with tow trucks and workers all over. In this race were were very closely chased by a Mitsubishi turbo and he got by when Rob was balked by a T-1 corvette in the hands of one of the slower drivers. VIR has 3 long straights and when the turbo gets moving in a straight line the Z just cant keep up so we had to settle for second place, a car length behind. All in all, no complaints with three wins and a second place. A very good start on the season. The T-3 Honda will be running in the Southeast division with the T-2 Nissan in Northeast division. This is the first year that SCCA allows you to run two different divisions so its kind of handy for us as the owner of the Honda likes to race the Southeast races.
Next race is at Summit Point 17 -18 May followed by Nelson Ledges the following weekend. Nelson Ledges will be another double race weekend and that track is the fastest track in the Northeast division. We could use some help for both races if anyone has the talent and inclination. Again huge thanks to Billy for all his help at VIR.

 

Bob, I had a great time as well, other than hitting the wall then getting punted off the track by the GXP in the first race. Its always fun racing with Rob and I learn something everytime we race. Only thing you left out was that Rob did repass me a few laps later but I was able to stay on his tail onto the back straight where my power advantage helped me out. All and all it was great running nose to tail for 40 minutes, just glad I didnt make too many mistakes Billy, nice meeting you and you have a great looking car btw. See you guys at Summit!

Marty
EVO #34