Saturday was a very full day. We started out with a dyno day, and got both cars dyno'd back to back. That will get it's own thread. From there, we drove about 30 minutes for dinner, then another hour to an 1/8th mile track. We've never been to this track before, and it was extremely hot. We normally wouldn't go because of the heat, but dyno day participants received free entry as part of a promotion, so we decided to go.

When we were leaving dinner, my best friend(SRT4) asked me what I was going to run. I told him my first run was going to be a 9.0, followed by a few 8.9's and 8.8's. If I were lucky, I might dip into the 8.7's, and if I had a miracle run, possibly even an 8.6. This is relevant.

This is BAMA Dragway just outside of Jasper, Alabama. It's elevation is only 320 feet, which is almost 500 feet lower than the 1/4 we typically visit. The place was well run, and very organized.

We started running at about 8pm. It was still in the mid eighties, with about 55% humidity. We stayed there until about 2am, and didn't arrive home until about 3:15am. The track was doing T&T most of the night, with heads-up racing mixed in. I think Cheryl got 12 runs in, and I got 10 runs. 3 of those 10 runs featured misshifts; two of those I just threw out the timeslips, leaving me with 8 timeslips.

On my first run I pulled into the staging lanes, and a guy in a red Lightning waved me forward. When I got next to him, I rolled down my window, and he asked if I wanted to run. I told him I should be running low nines to upper 8's. I figured he was running mid to low 8's because of the numerous Lightning's I've seen at the local 1/8th mile tracks. He just smiled and said we should run anyway.

When it's our turn, I pull into the left lane, back into the water box, and do a burnout. I then heard the announcer say something to the effect of "Look at this luxury car going up against this Lightning". Lol. So I got up to the lights and staged. When the lights game down, I realized they were running a pro-tree. Totally caught me off guard. I have no idea what my launch rpm's were. I cut a .87 light, to the Lightning's .71 light. At the end of the track, my time was a 9.020@79.97 with a 2.115 sixty, versus the truck's 9.413@80.60 with a 2.324 sixty. Turns out my prediction of a 9.0 for my first run was correct.

I pulled around, and the guy in the Lightning asked to go again. He said he was gonna flash to his "race tune". I got out to talk to the guy for a minute, and I saw him fiddling with a hand-held tuner. Pretty cool. I thought I was toast. I did another burnout, and heard the announcer mention something about a rematch. My r/t was marginally better than my first run: .66 to his .69. We were side by side the entire run. He jumped out, and I slowly, sloooowly reeled him back in, almost. I finished with a 8.888@81.11 with a 2.034 sixty, versus his 8.857@80.94 with a 2.105 sixty. He crossed the line exactly 5 thousandths of a second before me. Hands down one of my best races ever.

My third run was against my best friend. Our r/ts were off by a mere hundredth. I cut a 2.040 to his 2.193. Not bad for a stage2 SRT4, fwd, on street tires. At the end, my time was an 8.855@81.52 to his 9.496@73.75. He said he hit and stayed in the rev limiter in 1st.

So far, I had run 1 9.0, and 2 back to back 8.8's. On my fourth run, again against the srt4, I pulled into the water box to do a burnout. I heard the announcer state "Now folks, do not underestimate this car, this is one fast luxury sedan." I had a huge smile on my face. This time think I launched at about 5.5k, which gave me my first ever sub two second sixty foot: 1.969. My light, at .331, was 2 hundredths quicker than my friend, so I jumped him and never saw him again. This was my best run of the night, which was an 8.775@81.02 compared to the skittle's 9.191@79.35. It was still 80 degrees at the time, so the calculated DA for that run was 1977 feet.

After that, it was all downhill. I had Josh(best friend) ride with me for the next two runs to film from inside the car. The first run was against Cheryl. I backed into the water box for a burnout, and promptly stalled the car. Then for what seemed an eternity I was waiting for the car to turn over. After the burnout, we staged and made the run. The launch seemed a little weak. I ran a 9.086@79.22 with a 2.059 sixty(and passenger), to Cheryl's 9.463@77.21 with a 2.282 sixty. When you watch the video, you can see that she cut a better light. Video is here:
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I didn't like how I launched the car, so I asked Josh to ride again. He did, and this time I missed 2nd and cut it off. Waste of a run.

The next run I wanted Josh to film the burnout and the rest of the run from outside the car. For that run I was going against a serious car, and I had no intention of really running the guy. I paused a bit at the light, as is evident in the video. I then missed 2nd again, but kept running. I then missed 3rd, then I cut it off. So the video is useless other than watching the burnout and launch. Video is here:
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After that, we took a break for almost 4 hours. My first run after the break saw another decent sixty: 1.989. On that run I quickly feathered the clutch. It was so quick as to be almost a clutch drop. Unfortunately, that resulted in a bog. So I only ran an 8.811@81.51.

The next run saw another 8.886@80.46 with a 2.030 sixty.

On my last run of the night, I lined up against a guy in a bone stock Altima SE-R. He'd never been to the drag strip before, so he was just learning. Being the last run of the night, I said screw it, and launched at a full seven grand. That saw a 2.016 sixty foot. I then proceeded to miss 2nd, which gave me a 9.254@80.40mph. Nice that I trapped 80+ even missing a shift. The Altima ran a 9.868@72.51 with a 2.277.

So I was dead-on with my predictions. First run was a 9.0, followed by a bunch of 8.8's, though there wasn't a single 8.9. I was lucky enough to dip into the high 8.7's, but not lucky enough to hit an 8.6.

I'll tell you, this car got some attention. The lightning thought it would be easy prey the first run, then had to readjust his tune after that. The announcer started to take notice, as did the guy in the ET shack, and even the guys in the concession stand.

One time I was in the staging lanes and pulled up against a Trans Am. I asked the guy if he wanted to run, and he actually looked scared. No lie. He shook his head vehemently, and said he didn't want any of my car. I asked what year was his car, and he said 2001. I asked him if it was an ls1(I knew the answer), and he nodded his head. I then asked if it were an automatic, to which he replied in the affirmative. I couldn't help but laugh on the inside. Here was this kid in an AT4 LS1 F-body, possibly the king of the dig, scared to run me. I did end up running him. That was my first run where I missed a shift and shut it down. He ended up running a 9.4@77, which I thought was really slow for that car. But then again there were several 05+ Mustang GT's running mid 9's all night, and that car is a decent match for a stock AT4 ls1 fbody.

Another time a guy pulled up to me in a pickup truck as he was leaving the track. He asked about the engine in the car, and I replied it was a 3.5 liter v6. He replied that it was pretty strong. He then asked me if I was spraying. I said "no, it's all motor." He kind of smiled, like he didn't believe me, and drove off.

My car got so much attention that at the end of the night I made a pit stop for the restroom. There was one guy in there that started talking about my car, and how powerful it was. You guys know the drill: guys don't talk to eachother while we're pissing. Regardless, all the attention was rather flattering.

Using the same eighth mile to quarter mile ratio as my last run down the 1/4(13.62@103), my best run of the night would have been a 13.56. Adjusted to sea level, that 8.775 corrects to an 8.58@82.81. Using the same ratio, that means the corrected 8.5 would be a 13.26 at a high 104/low 105.

Granted, those corrections and ratios are not entirely accurate. I don't think the car is going to run 105mph, and I definitely don't see a mid 13.2 with my launching. But I do think with me in the driver's seat, it has a high 13.4 in it.

What interests me is that fact that I was running almost exactly the same at a 1977 feet DA as I did at 650 feet DA.

And another thing: that damned pro-tree really messed me up. I don't think it really hurt my launches; I'm resolved to the fact that I can't launch this car. But because it's so fast(the tree), I had no time to bring up my revs. I literally don't know what my launch revs were except for two runs where I specifically concentrated, and cut slow reaction times.

 

nice runs, great times.

 

Awesome write up.

Our G35's (Mine, Wally's, Mikes, others) got alot of attention too at our local 1/8 mile. The announcer was pretty funny and stated things such as "my god, these guys are everywhere!". He always had good things to say about our cars, even though I was horrible for the night (running mid 9's stock).

And about the pro-tree: im not really able to tell the difference, but I believe it had to be a pro-tree due to the fact that the lights go on very quicky. And just as in your case, the revs are pretty much out of control due to the fact that I did not have enough experiece with such a quick track.

.

 

BTW - that second video doesn't show it, but that run was a 9.7 at something like 60mph. So I missed 2nd, then 3rd, then coasted the rest of the way for a 9.7. When I first started racing when the car was stock/near stock, 9.7's weren't uncommon .

DR's FTMFW.

 

the announcer at my raceway (Raceway Park in Old Bridge) referred to my car as "something in the left lane" when i took on a pro street stang. of course, after I was even with it, they were a bit nicer next time.

Not for nothing, but there are a lot of younger guys at my raceway, and not a one of them is friendly. They all look at you funny if you say hello. I tried to talk to a guy with a Gcoupe and he just didn't even care I was there. Your experience with people at the drag is WAY different than mine. I wish mine was more like yours.

Nice runs, trey. I need some cooler weather and one more day at the track, and i think my X can get down to a 14 flat, maybe 13.9.

 

Lol, this past saturday was definitely atypical. Last year at a different 1/8 track, there were a bunch of kids sitting around a trailered late eighties z28. They didn't know my best friend's wife was part of our group. She was standing at the fence watching some of our runs, when she overheard them sniggering, making fun of our lowly 9 second cars. IIRC, that z28 ran low 8's.

Not more than an hour later, I pulled up to the ET shack after a run. That same z28 was sitting there, being doused by a couple guys with a fire extinguisher while it was on fire. Sure, that thing was faster than our cars. But we could still drive our's .

 

Good write-up and awesome times Trey.

 

Thanks. I've got tons more video to post, just waiting on youtube to do the processing.

 

Ok - I've waited for three days for youtube to process the rest of the videos I had uploaded. Here they are. As I explained in my dyno thread, I'm still new at the whole video thing, so please ignore the shakiness, bluriness, occasional edge of my finger, the utter uselessness of some of the clips.

Here are the rest of my videos from Saturday night:
Cheryl's 07 6MT versus the same Lightning that I ran:
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A low-light low-quality clip of a hoopty on hydraulics "cruising" in the pits:
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Me best friend's SRT4 against a foxbody. Listen to the srt4 spin the tires:
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Same guy: best friend versus his wife in her 06 Mustang GT 5 speed. She bogged the launch:
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This clip is when I rode with Josh while he was running against a v6 accord coupe. He outran the coupe so quickly that I couldn't even turn around for footage of the car, so I just had to look at the timing board. It's hard to tell in the video, but he had his cutout open and that car is insanely loud and mean:
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Here's a clip that Josh filmed from inside my car just before I stalled doing my burnout. It's a Scion tC with an OBNOXIOUS exhaust running a 9.9@72 IIRC:
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Here's a video of me running that LS1 A4 Trans Am that was scared to race me. He had nothing to worry about. I spaced out at the lights(you can here Josh tell me to bring up the revs), then I promptly missed 2nd and cut off the run:
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Here's a video of a different Mustang GT running a mid 9 at something like 75mph:
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And here's a completely useless video of my car, in the daylight, before we got to the drag strip. We stopped for gas, and I took the opportunity to film the car in the light to show the contrast of the cheapo drag wheels versus my front cheapo street wheels.
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That would be the tC that I was at one point in a run about half a car length back and ended up about a quarter of a car ahead of in the 1/8 mile. Another one of those people who gave me that "oh how cute" look when I pulled up beside him. I hate that ****!