Well, by far not the first time there. First time there with my CRX though. It was... interesting. Deffinatly kinda opened my eyes to how much harder a car that's not prepped/built for the strip is to drive. I've driven my dad's cuda and first pass i was within 2 tenths of his time and all of it was 60 ft, i would of went 2 tenths FASTER than him if i went off the transbrake instead of footbrake. He's about 220 pounds though and i was 140 when i drove it, gotta love the weight reduction.
Anyways, back to the story. Get teched in, get in the lanes. Some guy in a teg wants to race me. I don't like racing cars slower than me (haha) so i agree but hope i get someone else. Luckily there was a different number of cars in the 2 lanes so i get lined up with an lt1 Camaro with green neons under it.
I was psyched.
Did a small burnout, line up, tree comes down and i treed him (so i thought), put about 3-4 cars on him on the launch while wheelhopping like crazy and by 1/8th mile he was at my rear quarter. On the top end i barely squeek out the win by a bumper. Get my slip.. not psyched.
r/t: 0.2129
60': 2.5769
1/4 et: 16.7139
1/4 mph: 85.3700
Not psyched and embarassed, pull into the staging lanes and pop the hood (it was a street racing night, i was car 154 and there was about 300 cars that night so it was 1/2 hour at least between runs). Car was very hot. Let it cool down, check air pressures in the tires, 2 front ones are around 38psi so let them down to 32psi (didn't want to go crazy with it at first). Next run get lines up with some truck. I knew it was farely quick because i've seen it run before so i was on my game with the light. No idea what it ran but it was faster than me. Um... bogged off the line and wheelhopped 2nd? I don't even do that on the street, i know the track wasn't good that night but jeez. About 330' i looked at the board and saw .01 and .03 on his side (r/t's), i think my jaw dropped. Ran better but still not great.
r/t: 0.0140
60': 2.5519
1/4 et: 16.3649
1/4 mph: 86.2100
Let the car cool down again, this kid with the teg still wanted to race me so i lined up with him again. Some kid behind me is running 18.0 with a b18c hatch (
) so all of a sudden i feel way better about my car. End up running a newer Impala (99ish) with slicks and i have no idea what under the hood. Car was mid 12's at least based on the difference in the ET's (they cut slips in 1/2 so you can't see the other lane's times). Um... spun off the line barely, actually felt really good, shifted hard into 2nd and it wheelhopped towards the guard rail.
r/t: -0.1541
60': 2.5151
1/4 et: 16.3321
1/4 mph: 85.2400
At this point i'm confused. The car is consistantly trapping 85 in the left lane and 86 in the right lane. I know with my dad's car the week before he ran about 5 hundreths off in the left lane but we thought it was bad prep. At this point i started suspecting more (to be continued at the bottom).
Let the car cool down. Get lined up with some guy that was talking a ton of shit earlier about Imports with his 82 Mustang and i'm psyched beyond belief. Car sounds fairly mean but i don't care, i've been trying to race a 5.0 Fox body for a year. After some delays finally get to race. Drove around the bleach box (no burnout) and had a mediocre reaction time. I was paying way too much attention to the other lane though because he would catch up to me and then just fall back, catch up and fall back. My brother later told me that all he heard was that car grinding shifts haha. By 1/8th mile he's nowhere in sight and i won that. Felt good to embarass him. Time was better too by a lot.
r/t: 0.1409
60': 2.4321
1/4 et: 16.1710
1/4 mph: 86.3600
Pull back in the lanes, let the car cool down. Talk to the kid with the Integra again and he said he's running 16.0-16.1 tonight. Then reaches in his glovebox and shows me a timeslip from 2 weeks ago where he ran a 15.5 and says that the track is shit tonight. At this point i'm beyond psyched because that's i was hoping for a 15.6-15.7 considering my car isn't obd1 yet so it doesn't have vtec and decide to do everything possible to run a 15 tonight at least. Drop the tires to 25psi, take out my floor mat (don't know why i didn't do that before), debate taking out a few interior pieces, then a car oils down the track and they tell us all to go home because they won't have it cleaned up before the end. Awesome.
Lesson #1 guys, if you break something, pull off to the side and stop. Don't drive it through. Cleaning up 200 feet of oil is much easier than 1200 feet, especially for local tracks.
Oh, and as far as the lanes being different, talked to one of the best bracket racers in the area and he told us that the rollout is different in the 2 lanes. Just another example of how shady some tracks are. The Cuda ran 11.82's back to back in the right lane and ran a 11.97, 11.93, and 11.87 in the left. Rediculous. I'll be doing all my runs in the right lane from now on.
I think the biggest thing that impressed me was the fact that my 1st and last runs felt almost no different. Just minor adjustments in driving/setup made 5 tenths. I'm anxious to see how much more i can get out of it. And if it's a good night i'll steal 88crxSi's 205 prada spec 2's and see if i can actually move off the line.
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