While the United States may not have a track that is easily open to the public like the infamous tourist days at Germany's Nurburgring, it is still nice to be able to take you car to a track every so often and really scratch that itch for performance driving that road cruises never will. Every year Virginia International Raceway does charity laps where in they allow you to pay a one time entrance fee (donation) to run on the track in a group of around 30-40 cars. All of the proceeds from this event go to benefit charities such as Toys for Tots this holiday season. While they do not let you fully track your car, the speeds dictated by the pace car are more than enough to put some serious stress on your cars without risking a crash or spinoff. The way I explain it to people is that these events are more of a glorified Cars and Coffee, with a nice track driving portion to look forward to. While cruising to the event with Andrew in his G37S we happened upon a brand new Aston Martin DB11 that was also heading to the event and ended up adding him and his co-worker to our run group that day.
My car set up in the paddock.
While the run went fine, I found myself holding back due to the limitations of my Pilot Sports having lots of wear. Afterwards I also feel like the stock Volvo brakes just aren't up to snuff for hardcore driving. Its hard to say how the car would have done just because of the wear I have put on it in the past year. I wouldn't be surprised if I need new pads and rotors some time soon.