Austin Varco Racing Blog: Month of July
30 July, 2023
(San Diego, CA) Usually, at least in sports cars, racing takes a summer break because it gets so hot. But all that changed when NASCAR decided to host a street race in Chicago the first week of July. I got an opportunity to potentially crew for a team out there on pit lane so I jumped at the opportunity. Being involved with NASCAR has been a dream of mine since I could spell NASCAR.
As I was headed to the airport, I got a call offering a seat in Palomar Racing’s WRL #14 charter. In racing, these calls don’t happen often so I obviously bit off more than I could chew and said yes. Back at home, my dad slapped a shipping label on my gear bag and mailed it off to Alton, VA.
Chicago was awesome, and very wet. The Xfinity race got rained out prematurely, so I didn’t have much work to do but had lots of fun along the way. After the weekend was over, I shipped myself over to Virginia to do some racing. Usually, before a race I like to log laps on my simulator, but the unorthodox nature of this opportunity meant I would be hopping in the seat dry. On the plane, I worked on track maps and watched reference footage.
VIR was hot and muggy (my first real exposure to the Southeast U.S.) and an absolute beast of a track. It took all 6 hours of seat time I had to start to understand the nuances of the place. The Palomar Racing #14 downforce was unbelievable at almost 130 MPH in the uphill esses and up to Oak Tree. We had power steering issues persist throughout the weekend but finished a solid P5/15 in the stacked WRL field in the mixed-conditions 7-hour race Sunday.
Image courtesy of Chance Hales. More information on Palomar Racing can be found at www.palomarracing.com/.