For What Its Worth

Drag racing fun

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I used to do circle track race many years ago, but I have been taking the Nova to an 1/8th mile drag strip occasionally. Quite frankly it is a mass of confusion and disorganization at times, I feel at home.  Probably par for the course? (Yeah I know some circle track boys aren't very 'telligent neither.)

Don't expect equality if you don't have slicks.  One Saturday test and tune night street tire cars were about a 3 to 2 ratio or better over slicks. We all payed the same fees. I waited over 90 minutes for the slick cars to run more than once to get a chance to run my street tire car. We were only 4 deep in 2 waiting lanes. They didn't even get through the street tire line before they switched to slicks again. Then they announced they would be going evenly, 10 bikes, 10 streets, 10 slicks. Good I thought, then they just kept running the slicks. The street boys were parked 2 rows 15-20 deep by then. I decided after 3 hours and 1 run on a Saturday test&tune only night to go home.

I do have fun listening and knowing when to watch for a car to break. Don't people know that if it is missing or having problems in the burnout it is probably not a good idea to try to make a full throttle run? I have only seen one guy, (old and wise) back out when the car didn't run right on burnout. Most others try it anyway.   Examples:

• A pickup that the rear wheels hoped side to side down the track. Only 1 tire in contact at a time.  He would never get out of the throttle. He eventually broke the rear end or an axle on the 3rd run. I was suprised it made it through one run. I was amazed that he could repeat the hopping so consistently.
  
• A Nitro rail showed up and the track officials were ga ga over it. It took out a few pistons off the starting line. Backed out of it by the 100 ft line. He was missing in 1 cylinder during the burnout.
  
• The worst case of engine dissintegration was the full blown Super Nitro 4 Cyl ricer. It was missing/booming MAJOR during burn out. Sounded like too much fuel.  They decide to stage and go anyway.  It literally blew the pistons all over the starting line at the first heavy throttle hit. It moved maybe a couple of feet. Took 1/2 hour to clean up.
  
• Transmission destruction in a 68ish Camaro all in primer.  You could tell the guy was excited for what looked like his first run in the car.  Looking at the car at the staging line I noticed he had slapper bars 1/2 the length they needed to be.  They hit in the middle of the leaf springs.  When he hit the gas the slapper bars hit the springs hard enough to cause an upside down U shape in the front of the spring.  That shortened the distance between the rear-end and the transmission.  Problem was there was a driveline in there.  It got stuffed into the rear of the transmission and the transmission grenaded about 50ft from the line.

Maybe I don't get the runs I want. I don't complain, it is worth it for entertainment value. HP + high testosterone-brains = lots of kaboom.

Maybe I should just wait until week day test&tune nights, or would the weekday be just as ..... interesting?

Happy Motoring, VHubbard.  May 2009

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