Chump Car 24 Hour at VIR: My Experience

[D_Eclipse9916]

We didn't hit anyone but we did get hit a few times. That knocked our right rear wheel out of alignment a little bit, which started chewing up the inner edge of that tire. Then we had side-to-side contact all down the driver's side of the car during a night stint. Car was fine but I'm sure the alignment is all crazy-eyed now.

The car used up two sets of BFG Rival tires (225 15), one set of brake pads (PFC 08), approx. 140 gallons of fuel, and burned only one quart of oil. We put about 1,600 miles on the car in 24 hours. The motor was cut off for roughly 4 minutes at a time for fuel stops, and was otherwise ran right up near redline almost constantly.

Ultimately, I don't know if I'd do another Chump race or not. I had a blast, but the varied experience was dangerous IMO. What this does make me think about is where I want to take the M3 after it gets caged this winter. Doing some W2W racing in GTS2 sounds mighty fun.

First, :thumbup: on going out and doing one. Super excited to hear that you had a lot of fun W2W.

Second. The damage, the passing under yellows, the "clueless drivers" put a damper on what is essentially a slightly more fun HPDE. The price of consumables and entry fees was astoundingly large enough that it almost cost more to run our chump car one weekend than my GTS2 car. (and that is excluding winning tires or anything with NASA).

We wound up spending more than I thought thanks to $1300 entry fees $6-800 in fuel (including tow), $400 worth of pads, $700 worth of tires (we only used one set, another $700 if you used 2 sets!), and then basically a motor or transmission every other event because you just did 1600 miles racing for 24 hours. We rented out seats for 6 hours (4 drivers for 24 hours) for $900 and that was just a break-even point that didn't include extra maintenance like the motors and trans.

That said, if you didnt want to go through HPDE levels, invest in a race car yourself, and just wanted to have fun, Chump is a very good option. I was always disappointed that MM never put together one as I feel like it would be a great way to get current students out there.