VIR with TSCC: December 2025
Setting a higher bar for next year
I was really looking forward to this December event… I think more so than most past events. If you’ve followed the Trip Reports for any amount of time you’ve probably noticed my trend of rarely getting a decent night’s sleep leading up to or at the events. I had a sleep study done and was issued a CPAP machine right after Fastivus. To say it’s been life-changing is an understatement. Waking up and having energy and being better able to focus has made for a massive change in my day-to-day life. I was hoping it would translate to some time on track as well.
Note: All on-track photo credit goes to Josh and Alexus of Sixth Media Group.
The weeks before the event
Prior to the event, there really wasn’t a ton of work to do. I really just had to swap pads, bleed the brakes for good measure, and do a quick once-over. I did an oil change, air filter, spark plugs and I preventatively replaced all of the coils as well. All easy stuff. I took the time to make a quick video about doing HPDE tech inspections if you’re not familiar with what’s involved. Ironically enough, one of my problems of the weekend started here.
It’s also worth noting I recently had a job (contract) change which now has me waking up at 4:30AM Monday through Friday. The flip side is that I am now off work typically between 2:30-3:00PM… which meant I was able to get all the above stuff done at a pretty leisurely pace.
On top of the basic maintenance stuff, I hadn’t changed the tune on my car since the middle of 2024… so in the weeks leading up to the event I made a few tweaks to add a bit more boost and timing to my more aggressive maps. It’s still not quite as strong as even an OTS EQT tune, but decided to turn it up just a bit. In case you’re following along on the Simos Tuning Series on YouTube, I’m completely re-doing my tune from the start and documenting the process. I’ll probably have the base file flashed by the time this article is published.
Goals for the Weekend
Work with my student in her MK7 1.4T Golf to get comfortable with track driving
Getting more comfortable myself pushing harder in the Esses (T7-9), Rollercoaster, (T14) and Hogpen (T17)
Shoot for a 2:08, with a true want for a 2:07 which I suspect is doable
Eat better, get sleep each night, and just enjoy time with buddies
Friday Night Shenanigans
I rolled into VIR with the GTI at around 5:00PM, didn’t have any tech duties or anything so it was a pretty simple ordeal of just unloading and swapping on the track wheels/tires.
My buddy Bryan recently bought a new truck and was toting a bunch of gear, one of my extra sets of wheels, and my Blackstone so we could grill out most of the weekend. He was a couple hours behind me.
What he didn’t know was that the joke among our close friends group had some vinyl waiting for his new truck… the “Mi-Haul”:
With that silliness out of the way, we unloaded his truck then fired up the Blackstone and Cash grilled some chicken and rice for everyone. It was dumb-cold out so I tucked my car into the garage alongside my buddy Logan’s ridiculous C5 for the night.
We wrapped everything up and retired to our Pit Lane Room. I managed to get to bed by 9:00 which was a first. This resulted in just shy of 9hrs of sleep… which was amazing.
Saturday
Saturday morning started by waking up early enough to make some bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwiches on the Blackstone, courtesy of Cash who was the designated cook for the weekend. When the sun came up, we also got to see the Mi-Haul in all it’s glory.
Bryan, looking fabulous with the Mi-Haul.
The temperature was COLD. Mid to upper 20s, though it would increase to the high 50s throughout the day.
The instructor meeting was at 7:45 with the drivers meeting right after at 8:00. I met up with my student (Lily) who drives a MK7 1.4T Golf. She’s done a few events already and driven VIR once before. She was mainly looking to work on calming her nerves when on track, so we set a game plan to take it easy the first session and primarily focus on flags and just (re-) familiarizing herself with the track. Her first session wouldn’t be until 10:20.
My first track session was at 9:20 so that left me plenty of time to review notes, videos, recheck wheel torque and just mentally prepare to go out and try to take advantage of the cool air. It was only 30F (-1C) ambient temp. I set my tire pressures to 27/29psi cold, hoping to get around 35psi with some heat in the tires.
Morning Session #1
I ran my first session and slowly worked up speed. First 2 laps of the day were under caution for us to get things up to temp, then ran into traffic for a 2:14 and 2:12 on laps 3-4. Laps 5-6 netted a 2:09.47 and 2:09.57 back-to-back so I was back to feeling comfortable for the most part… but something about the car felt off power-wise. It wasn’t nearly as quick as I’d expected/hoped it would be.
Signs of the Venturi bleeding oil - likely from too-high oil level
Reviewing data afterwards would reveal that the PCV sensor was spiking to a really deep vacuum (about -6psi) and then spiking positive to about +0.5psi. I did not have the direct crankcase pressure being logged, but I have enough data from the past to know this is an indicator of oil being ingested. The other dead giveaway was the fact that the Venturi was bleeding oil externally. This hadn’t been a problem since last year when I found out the modified MK8 valve is NOT a good fit on 19+ cars. Regardless - I had to shift focus to my student.
Student Session
We hit the track at 10:20, getting her back up to speed. Her awareness was fantastic but pace slowed when encountering traffic plus some jerky inputs. Typical newer-to-HPDE type stuff. She was very technically aware of what needed to happen as she crew chiefs for a Champcar team… it was just a matter of getting over her mental roadblocks to focus on driving.
Morning Session #2
Prior to my second session, I checked the oil level. It was at the full mark. The Venturi had signs of bleeding oil, and the catch can had some but not enough to even both emptying. I decided to just wipe the Venturi down and see what happens as I would have more time to deal with it over lunch.
The second morning session started off with a 2:11, followed by a barely-faster 2:10.99. The ambient temp was cool so power should have been good, but the car was pulling timing going down the back straight so I just pulled it in.
Suspicions confirmed
We had a few hours until the next student session (right after lunch), so I asked around paddock to borrow a fluid extractor. Lexie at TMI ultimately helped me out so I was able to get my oil level back to where it needed to be. Eyeballing how much I pulled out… I think I was about 1.0 to 1.25 liters overfilled. The dipstick didn’t appear THAT much above the hatch marks… but oh well. This is what I get for filling it a bit too quickly when I was prepping the car and deciding “eh it’ll be fine”.
Extracting oil from the engine to get the level to between ½ to ¾ up the hatch marks
With that now sorted, I filled the car up with fuel and had some lunch - burgers and dogs were provided for all the instructors.
Afternoon sessions
We started out the afternoon with another student session. Lily continued building off of her first morning session, focusing on smoothing out inputs.
As for my own sessions, I decided to just have some fun and gave a bunch of ride-alongs while the weather was nice - it had gotten up to 55F ambient temp by mid afternoon. In one of these sessions, I had my buddy Mike riding along. I was feeling out the car on a lower boost map and we got to play in some traffic and things all came together which resulted in a 2:08.92 lap. The car had no real issues on the lower boost map 4.
I don’t typically push too hard with others in the car, everything was just feeling really good which allowed me to focus and hit my marks. One exception was the top of the esses. I went in a bit too hot and had to scrub speed so it was a balance of slowing down while not fully upsetting the car as it crested T9 at about 115mph.
In other sessions I found I was still getting excessive timing pull on map 1, notably worse in 5th gear. The additional load on the car was not tolerating the ~4.5 deg of timing at 5500rpm that it had no real issues with on the street. I brought my laptop with me to make changes and took about 1.5 deg of timing out from the spicer maps.
At some point in the afternoon I took Lily’s 1.4T Golf out at a novice to lower-intermediate pace for a couple laps to show her the type of driving I was looking for from her. This proved to be really helpful as it gave her something attainable and helped her “feel” what the car should feel at near the limits. When I first started doing HPDEs almost 10 years ago, my instructor did this for me and was the single thing that helped me the most.
The remaining student sessions of the day she absolutely killed it. We took one session to just “have fun” and not focus on anything specific beyond the absolute basics. This helped her to cut some of the stress she was placing on herself and as a result, her pace was increasing naturally as she got more comfortable.
After her last session, I headed out on track myself. On the out lap saw a faint trail of smoke and the strong smell of oil coming from a 6th gen Camaro going up the esses to Oak Tree. I wasn’t pushing hard just yet, but decided to end the day and just went straight back in to let the track marshals know about what was going on.
I later roamed paddock to find the driver and let him know. It turned out it was all coming from his pinion seal and there was axial play in the pinion bearings. His weekend was done.
When reviewing the logs from the little bit I went out, the timing pull was much more tolerable, but still more than expected with a pretty consistent 1.5 deg or so being pulled the whole way down the back straight. I think that the overfilled oil earlier in the day filled the MK8 valve and it was still ingesting the residual stuff left inside.
Saturday evening activities
When the track went cold, we broke out the griddle and Bryan cooked up a bunch of steaks and vegetables. We all hung out in the garage while other friends (new and old) filtered in and out over the course of a few hours. We shared stories from the day, laughed and bullshitted with each other. The stories of the Mi-Haul on track were plentiful… seeing this thing was absolutely hilarious in person.
Bryan driving the Mi-Haul, Cash riding shotgun giving our buddy Josh of Sixth Media Group the signal that he’s number 1.
After I ate, I wanted to make a few changes to ensure my best chances at running faster the following morning:
Front pads changed out (was finishing off some nearly-done 3.12s and had another lightly-used set for backup)
Front brakes bled w/ fresh Endless RF650
Replace the MK8 PCV with my spare to take my oil-overfill stupidity out of the equation
With the car prepped and the garage emptying out of people, I retired for the night and got to bed before 10:00 for another excellent night of sleep.
Sunday
We got up at 6:00 before the sun came up. I felt good and well-rested. Cash made more bacon egg and cheese bagels for breakfast. Bryan ground and brewed some kind of amazing coffee. The temperature was the polar opposite of the day prior… low 40s first thing in the morning, dropping sharply after lunch to the lower 20s by end of day. The morning was likely to be as good as the track would get speed-wise all day. I attended the instructor/driver meetings and got ready for my first session.
First session
I went out and encountered traffic on first two laps (2:17 and 2:10)… then I had a good lap 3 going before catching Bryan in the Mi-Haul in the esses… which was a real bummer because I was about 0.7 sec improvement over my 2:09.92 the day prior. I may have yelled some choice words in the car at the situation. It was an awkward pass because the truck is so damn big and you can’t see the point-by over the roof. This combined with the fact that the brake lights and turn signals are the same bulb… makes it very hard to see clear point bys going into a corner regardless of which method is used.
Regardless, I pass him going into T10, and then slowed my pace for the remainder of the lap up until rollercoaster, where I got back into it. I had a GREAT run out of T17 Hog Pen onto the front straight to start lap #4 off right.
Personal best reset
I had a great run out of T1, gave up a bit on entry to T3 but made it back on exit as I approached a first gen FRS at T4. I don’t think it cost much time, though I did minorly adjust pace between T4b/5a to more smoothly set up a pass leading onto the bridge straight. Got through the esses and T10 at a decent pace, though not great. I entered Oak Tree a bit too far to the inside, but managed to get a really good run out and onto the back straight. The predictive time continued to tick further into the green. I did similar entering rollercoaster slightly less-than-ideal but getting back on the throttle early for a decent exit.
I was on pace for a high 2:07 or low 2:08, and got greedy going carrying too much speed into Hogpen. I stabbed the brakes on the downhill between T16 and 17, but I think the front tire pressures were higher than ideal at this point. The front end pushed and wouldn’t multi-task turn + brake like I needed it to. Once the front end bit in, I got back on throttle but still hadn’t yawed the car quite far enough and had to back off for a split second before matting the throttle again. At this point I was on the outside curb, WOT, with over 50 deg of RH steering input while the car was still plowing straight on throttle. I was running out of curb FAST otherwise the LF tire would hit the grass and there’d be no choice but to drive straight off. I lifted again for a moment which allowed the front end to tuck in right as the curb receded, pitching the car slightly sideways. Stabbed back to WOT and a bit of LH steering input straightened the car out and carried on to the start/finish line for a 2:08.48…
Problems arise
This botched entry to T17 ultimately cost me about 0.5 sec or so… pissing away what were very good chances of a 2:07. In the moment I was super frustrated with myself (in the video you can hear me yell “WTF was that!?”). I continued the session with intention of trying again to go faster… So I took a slower pace cooldown for lap 5, then pushed again on lap 6… which did not last long at all.
The car started cutting power with about 20% of the expected result from pushing the pedal 100%. This happened coming out of the long RH sweeper that is T1. I pulled in after this issue occurred. There wasn’t any knock registering so it was something I’d have to delve into further.
The “Optimal Lap”
When I came back in to review data… I was wildly surprised to see that the Garmin had a 2:05.9 “Optimal Lap”. This is WAY faster than I had anticipated being able to push this car in it’s current state. Of course it takes ALL the right things coming together (no timing pull, nice weather, good tire pressures, not screwing up, not encountering traffic)… but to know it’s plausible was wild to discover and while I know it won’t be happening this specific weekend… I think a 2:06 will be my pie-in-the-sky goal in 2026.
For those unfamiliar with what an “Optimal Lap” video looks like… I shared it here/narrated a bit of how I interpret it:
Diagnosing issues
The rest of the day I was focused on figuring out what was causing the power cuts. I spent most of the afternoon giving ride-alongside and having fun, but pushing hard primarily in T1 and T17 as those were the two most likely places for the power cut issues to occur. I found two separate but related issues:
The fuel rail pressure was dropping below setpoint when accelerating out of the above corners. I’ve experienced this before below 1/2 tank… but it was now a problem even at 3/4 tank fuel which I was not expecting. The added boost was likely to blame (because it requires more fuel). This can be temporarily mitigated by keeping the tank full… but it also means no more than maybe 8 laps at full tilt. The added power is emptying the basket of the fuel pump faster than it can be refilled when coming out of corners. I’m really not wanting to drop $1500+ for a surge tank setup plus losing cargo space inside the car. I might be building an in-tank lift pump over the winter to keep the basket full.
I caught a couple instances of the fuel pressure setpoint dropping to only 80 bar mid-corner… which is fine if it doesn’t need 200bar, but when rolling back onto the throttle, setpoint would jump to 200 as expected, but the building of pressure was slightly delayed. Injector pulsewidth would spike to over 10ms to respond to the lambda reading leaning out vs setpoint.
Final words/future plans
Here was the setup run this weekend for reference:
The car now has 81k miles on it (I purchased at 30k), and is due for some maintenance. Being a 2019, the fuel injectors are the “problem-prone” Continental units. It’s likely time to replace them as a precaution, plus perform a carbon cleaning. I’ve also just recently started getting whiffs of coolant after long drives - so there’s a good chance I’ll find a leaking water pump and/or thermostat housing when I tear into the car over winter.
If you’ve been following the YouTube channel, then you’ve seen that I’ve been doing a Simos Tuning Series. I’ve started back from square one with my tune and am documenting going through the process in an effort to show others what it is like. So this is another thing being worked on over the next several months.
With all that said, 2026 is kind of up in the air. I’m planning on attending the TSCC March event to instruct, but likely will not be driving. I’m hoping to get everything necessary done to run it again in May for the Memorial Day Weekend HPDE, but I’m ultimately debating what the next steps with the car will be. I am commuting 60mi daily for work again, and while this car is phenomenal for that… I don’t want to rack the miles up and am considering either replacing it as a track car, or getting something else and then keeping this for track duty, at which point it would get a cage/seats/harnesses. On paper these are absolutely not the “right” choice for a dedicated track car… but damnit I’ve really come to love this dumb thing.
