This past weekend was an exciting and busy weekend for the Forged Performance Team. We loaded up our two car hauler with the GT3 and a customers GT-R to head up to the world reknown Virginia International Raceway. Our original plan was to arrive Sunday for the pre-game meet and greet for the 3rd Annual Forged Performance and North American GT-R Owners Track Day on Monday. That all changed we we got word of the NARRA Viper Cup being held on Sunday. Plans got quickly changed and Sharif and crew headed up Saturday to spend some time on VIR playing with Vipers. I personally was not able to make it but from what I heard it was a really great day at the track. Dodge had some of their factory sponsored race cars out and everybody got a decent amount of track time in.

Ryan@Forged and I met up Sunday morning, loaded up his HKS GT800 equipped GT-R and started our 6 hour journey to VIR.



We arrived at the Forged Performance/NAGTROC Track Day just in time for the pre-event dinner and meet. During dinner we were fortunate to have Carl Phillips, head of marketing for the Nissan GT-R join us. Many things were discussed from rumors of extremely high performance versions of the GT-R to warranty issues to the possibility of the R36 GT-R. If you were not able to make it then you missed out on a lot of very interesting information pertaining to the evolution of the GT-R.

After dinner we made our way to the Paddock area where I noticed Carl had brought out my personal favorite R35 GT-R: the Deep Blue Pearl Black Edition! Nissan released photos of this car months ago and while I was happy to see new color options I did not fall in love with the Deep Blue Pearl until about a month ago when a customer stopped by the shop in his. The color looks infinitely better in person. So out came the strobes and I went to work.







While I had the strobes out I also got a shot of MC's 2012 Black Edition, which was the 1st production Black Edition for sale to the public.



After my quick shoot we headed to the VIR Lodge which overlooks turn six. It is very cool to have your hotel only a few feet from the track! All of the attendees were staying at the Lodge which made for a great social environment. Beers were cracked open, drinks were made and it was a really fun time with great company. Of course we all exercised some self control and forced ourselves to our rooms by midnight to get some sleep.

Monday got started with a 7:30am drivers meeting for every one planning on slicing up one of North Americas most renowned road courses. With hundreds of laps at VIR under his belt, Sharif gave an overview of the track and a video turn by turn while reviewing all the safety flags, rules and regulations. Andre from Traqmate was also in attendance and demoed their brand new color LCD display that is now available.



Once everyone realized that there were just 32 drivers, 3 run groups and 3.27 miles of track it started to really sink in how much track time was really possible on this day and the room was full of smiles. For the first time, this event was opened tocall makes and models which made for a very pleasant mix of quick cars. We had drivers and spectators from all around the country congregating here for the love of driving fast cars as hard as possible. While the drivers meeting continued I took advantage of the quiet paddock area and snapped some photos of the awesome machinery that was about to attack the track.





















I spent most of my day wielding two cameras with high end lenses attached. From a photographer's stand point this track day was extremely relaxing because of the small amount of cars. This was also good for me because I was able to take a couple breaks to spend some time in the Flat Out Motorsports Lamborghini Superleggera and Ryan@Forged's HKS GT800 GT-R. 155+mph on the back straight of VIR is something that is just indescribable, just saying it was awesome just does not seam right. The GT-R was on the low boost 600whp tune that Sharif just finished...smooth seamless and never ending acceleration. Words cannot describe that experience but I can say those that couldn't attend really missed out on something special.

As the day continued on it was clear that the Forged Performance/NAGTROC Track day was the best bang for your buck track event of this year. We had 8 driving instructors ready to provide assistance with anyone wanting to improve their track times. We had quite a few people that had never experienced their car in a high performance driving situation and with the help of our instructors they continuously were dropping their track times.

After lunch, Sharif@Forged challenged "shawnhayes" to a new set of Forged Performance Sway Bars and motorsport end links. He offered to install the bars in the paddock and if he didn't notice an immediate and obvious improvement in handling he would not charge him. Needless to say, Shawn drove home with new sway bars, and reported a significant improvement in the car's balance and overall feel. You can read his review here: Forged Performance Sway Bar Review

By 3:30pm the majority of participants had packed it up and headed home or were just relaxing trackside. Yet Sharif@Forged, Ryan@Forged, Pi-Man, Shawn, Carl and a handful of other drivers were still at it. With a minimal number of cars on track for the next 2 hours, the remaining drivers were able to enjoy the last hours of VIR in virtual isolation.

At the end of the day, we had no crashes or mechanical issues to speak of and everybody burned up nothing but fuel, tires, and brake pads. That's a successful track event!

 

If you would like to download some desktop wallpapers of some of the cars and watch some video footage please visit: Forged Performance Blog