VIR with TSCC: May 2025

Sometimes it’s the little things that matter most

All on-track photo credit goes to Josh and Alexus with Sixth Media Group. Albums from the entire weekend can be found HERE.

Some of the on-track highlights discussed below.

Prepping for the first HPDE of the year

As noted in my last couple (way overdue) trip reports, I haven’t really done much of anything for the last 6 months. The last time this car was on track was December, with just an autocross novice school in April where I took a few runs for student demonstration only. I had some deferred maintenance to catch up on as the VAQ and DSG fluid had been in the car for the past 33k miles (now 76k on the car for reference). Those were easy enough and my VW tech buddy Bryan brought over the special tools to knock those out pretty quickly. This was the 2nd VAQ flush but first time I had pulled the VAQ pump. I was expecting to find more crud on the filter screen, but this was it:

The Ferodo DS2500 pads came off for proper track pads to go back on. I had some old Ferodo DS3.12s from last year that seemed “ok” with the friction material just a bit thicker than the backing plates, but with this being a 3-day weekend I snagged a set of fresh fronts to ensure no problems. The DS1.11 rear pads have only worn about 1mm in the past 3 years on track, so those got swapped back on. My front Girodisc rotors are definitely showing some use with some heat checking, but no cracks to the edge just yet. I packed a set of old but usable Zimmerman blanks just in case the Girodisc cracks spread to the point of concern, and bled the brakes with some Endless 650 and the car was good to go.

Front Performance Pack calipers

Going into year 4 of tracking the heck out of this car, still no issues with burnt up boots, etc. Pads are 19mm thick which provide tons of thermal insulation provided you don’t run the pads down too thin or have overly bad braking habits.

Girodisc front rotors

*Good enough to get through the weekend, but a set of spare rotors was packed to keep on standby.*

I also found time and motivation to wrap up adding the foam to rest of the drawers in my track tool set which was started last year. This will be covered in detail more in the future.

A visitor from Texas

This trip was a bit different because I had invited a Golf MK7 forum buddy of mine to tag along. Michael (better known as GoatAutomotive from www.golfmk7.com) flew in from Austin, Texas to ride along and see what VIR was all about. He’s writing about the trip from his point of view so I won’t dwell too much on that myself - his article will be posted when he completes it. I think it might be fun to have an outsider’s perspective on an event.

Car loaded and fueled up, Michael facing analysis paralysis with all the menu options at Wawa - a new experience for him.

He flew in Wednesday night, and as luck would have it his connecting flight was delayed and Southwest Airlines failed to get his checked bags on the final flight to Norfolk, VA. He stayed in our guest room Wednesday night and Southwest got his bags in on Thursday morning. We loaded the car up and stopped by the airport to snag those before heading to VIR.

Goals for the weekend

It had been 6 months since my last HPDE. I was bringing along a set of now 2 year/15ish track day old V730s and 1 year/7 autocross/2 track day old RE71RSs. While I really wanted to try and best my 2:09.05 set back in December… I knew that between the tires, the narrow window of optimal ambient temps, and being out of practice that it was not a huge likelihood so I was just focused on ensuring Michael had a good time, my student Reed had a good time, and bringing the car home in one piece. It was shaping out to be beautiful weather for Memorial Day Weekend so was just looking to make the most of my time with the people around me.

Friday

Friday was a solo-only day, so got to take advantage of a bunch of track time. I took Michael out on a couple laps in the first session, and it was immediately apparent that the car was ALL over the place - particularly in the braking zones. I chalked this up to the RE71RSs being heat cycled out and/or sitting in my garage unused all winter. I chose to just drive through it as the car has definitely felt like this before, though maybe not quite to the same extent. The car would waggle it’s ass under braking and wander about 3ft to either side going into turns 1 and 13 in particular. The best I could manage was a 2:13.69 that day. While the temperature only ranged from about 58F in the first session to 73F in the afternoon, it was apparent that the track was becoming notably greasier from the heat of the sun as the day progressed. I was pretty tired due to a demanding week at work so only chose to drive three short sessions all day, but that was fine because there were two more days to go and I was conserving tires to last the weekend so opted to just relax and BS with friends the remainder of the afternoon.

When the track went cold, a few of us went to a local Mexican restaurant (Jimador’s) to eat and BS with each other. When we returned to the track, I swapped over my old V730s to burn through those the next day in the hopes of saving the RE71RSs for Sunday due to potential rain.

Saturday

I got a good night’s sleep, the weather was amazing with the chance of rain nearly non-existent, and it was looking like a great day. I attended the instructors meeting and the drivers meetings, and met up with my novice student, Reed. He’s an older gentleman but sharp as a whip. We talked a bit about his car and his goals for the weekend, along with feedback he had received from instructors in the past. This was going to be his third weekend on track, but only the second in his 2013 BRZ. The car was prepped with DTC 60 pads, good brake fluid, and Continental ECF tires. All the things you truly need and nothing you don’t. He had sim racing experience and a willingness to learn so I was really looking forward to working with him.

While Reed was attending in-classroom instruction, I took my first session solo and was able to go out on the 2 year old V730s and immediately run a marginally faster 2:13.19 on the second lap out. The car was less squirrely under braking, so at this point I was thinking that the issue was old and heat cycled tires, with a bit of me reacquainting myself with the car again as well. I was pretty convinced that a 2:11 would be doable in the heat of the day, up until the second instructor session was red flagged.

Myself and two other drivers came to a stop for a red flag before turn 4. Emergency trucks drove by, and the minutes passed as we sat there waiting. When the red flag was exchanged for yellow, we proceeded with caution and saw that tons of oil-dry had been poured on the track in the worst place possible. Somebody lost an engine and scattered oil from turn 8 to halfway between turns 10 and 11.

For those who have not had to drive through oil-dry before, it takes quite some time to fully be worn away before grip is restored back to the pre-spill levels. It was pretty apparent that the track was not going to get much, if any faster the rest of the day.

With that in mind, my focus was almost entirely on my student for the remainder of the weekend. It was very clear from talking to him that he was a very calculated and collected person. Knowing how to “read” an individual and adjust your tone or dialect appropriately is perhaps more important than what you are trying to tell them when you’re driving at 120mph.

Reed had most of the foundational skills down already. We discussed a few lines that other instructors had taught him and made minor tweaks to them. Something that drives me nuts is how some instructors teach a “school” line different from a “racing” line. My thoughts mirror that of Ross Bentley - there should be no discernible difference. I took him out for a slower paced session (approx 2:35s) so that I could narrate a few laps, ensure he’s comprehending, and demonstrate turn in points and where my eyes are focused as we’re traversing the course. We found that he learns similarly to how I do: experiencing something done “correctly” from the passenger seat resulted in massive improvements in the very next session.

Once that was ironed out, his primary items to focus on were to awareness of the flag stations and smoothing out his shifting. Both of which improved greatly as the day (and weekend) progressed. He insisted I take his car out for a session with him riding along so I did a few easy laps with him in the BRZ as well. It was weird driving a manual for the first time on track in 4 years. Smoothness in shifting was definitely a “do as I say, not as I do” thing in that case. It was even weirder having a car that was lightweight, well balanced, not wrong-wheel-drive, low on power, and turns immediately when you want it to. The car felt great and I would strongly consider one if I wanted an inexpensive RWD track toy with a roof.

At lunch time I threw the keys to Michael for parade laps. I couldn’t let him come all the way from Texas and not at least do that. It was a very surreal moment for him as his 2017 GTI is very similarly set up to mine, down to the same color and wheels (albeit he has 18s vs my 17s).

Michael, my goofy co-pilot for the weekend

*Better known as GoatAutomotive from the forums, getting ready to run parade laps in my car.*

Adam bringing the wagon vibes

*Better known as tigeo from the forum or* *karstgeo72* *on YouTube, Adam was kind enough to grace us with his presence and run parade laps in his W8 Passat wagon on Saturday.*

Late in the day, I went out on track behind my buddy Brendan in his C5. It was lacking the aero which it normally has, but it felt really good playing a bit of cat and mouse and being able to reel him in after the out lap. He’s a hell of a driver and was actually one of the original people responsible for introducing me to track events with TSCC back in 2016. Thanks for ruining my life Brendan. We caught up in paddock and had a good laugh about the session. The GTI is really damn capable, especially for what it is.

When the track went cold, we went on a track walk of VIR. On foot this takes about 1hr 45min. Lots of stopping to look and observe each corner for multiple angles. You can walk around and feel where the grip is on the track with your shoes. This is an excellent opportunity that a lot of people don’t get the chance to do. It was my third track walk of VIR, and every time I learn something new.

Upon completing the track walk, fellow VW buddy Bryan served up tacos and about a half dozen of us sat around in the garage enjoying each others’ company before retiring for the evening.

Sunday

Sunday morning I got up with some time to spare. I got my delicious bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit from the Pagoda and for whatever reason I decided to throw my toe plates on the front of the GTI just to see where the alignment was at. Lo and behold, I’d been driving the car with -3mm of total toe OUT all this time. Of all the stupid little things to overlook, something so basic and simple I ignored. I’ll chalk it up to the fact that this is the first year that I haven’t had to drop the subframe out of the car over winter to replace bushings thanks to the JXB sphericals from 529 Innovations. I also didn’t get the usual yearly alignment on a Hunter rack like I normally do either. This was just the result of convenience and exacerbated by laziness. Nearly every other track weekend I have checked the toe prior to loading up the car and driving to the track.

So I took my 21mm and 15mm wrenches and set the toe to +2mm of total toe in. To say that this helped settle the car down is an understatement. The thing felt SOLID at high speeds and under braking now. The immediate result was going out and running a 2:10.67 in the first session of the day, followed by a slightly quicker 2:10.59 in the second session later in the morning. I was curious if throwing the RE71RSs on would result in better times as well, but not curious enough to actually change tires back. It was already 70F and the track was getting notably greasier once again. I opted to mentally stay in “having fun” mode but was able to now enjoy it that much more with the added stability.

Another great memory was made playing around with a group of Porsche buddies in the third session of the day. It was hot, the track was greasy, but we were all goofing around at a similar pace for a few laps before I had to take a cool-down lap.

We had garages near each other so I went over we chatted about the fun we had while they all cooled off as well…

*Pants down and all smiles in the VIR garages*

My student continued to make great progress all day on Sunday, to the point that we started focusing on compressing braking zones. He was a bit nervous about doing so, but we did a technique that I find super useful which is compressing them early and backing it up each lap. Most students get on the brake lightly way early and drag it moderately to get down to the necessary speed to make a corner. What I prefer to do is get on the brakes HARD at their “normal” braking point. Let’s say the 3 marker going into T13 at VIR as an example: I tell my student that when we reach the 3 marker, squeeze (not stab!) the brakes smoothly, but once the vehicle takes a “set” and weight has transferred you should be STANDING on the pedal as if you are trying to break it (assuming it is equipped with ABS, which Reed’s BRZ has). This results in slowing the car down to ~45mph WAY ahead of where you need. This helps to build the muscle memory of the correct actions, while also displaying to the brain that it is indeed safe to brake deeper than the 3 marker. We performed this exercise several times backing down to the 1 marker where he was comfortable while still leaving some room on the table for margin of error/safety.

*Wrapping up an awesome weekend with Reed and his 2013 Subaru BRZ*

Once we wrapped up Reed’s final session of the day, we debriefed on the progress made, items to continue to work on, and how he can practice some of them even in daily driving and/or on his sim rig. We continued chatting a bit, at which point he opened up and told me that he came into this weekend lacking confidence in his abilities due to the way that some prior instructors with other groups had spoken to him. He signed up for three events earlier in the year, and this was his third. Due to poor experiences with the first two he was essentially ready to give up and do something else. He told me that my instruction style made it a very easy decision to continue tracking his car. The #1 highlight of my weekend was knowing that I had that kind of impact on someone. It’s stuff like this that reminds me that these track weekends aren’t just about the driving. It’s about the people.