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Had a good day at the import event yesterday. The event itself took quite a while as a few hondas broke down and spilled oil and coolant all over the track. At least they were very fast hondas. One guy in a rotary powered something or other, one of those short wheel base rolling death traps making a million horsepower, crashed into the wall and totaled his car too which also didn't help matters. He wasn't injured, which was the most important thing of course.
As for me, I collected a good number of runs before the competition, but the track had rather poor traction. Myself and the other racers thought it wasn't being prepped well enough early on. There were some high powered V8s racing that day too (attendance at these events isn't too good anymore, if they don't let the V8s test and tune as well it would be dead during the day) and so they prepped the track better later on. This seemed to help because just before and during the competition people were running faster times including myself.
I was only able to manage 15.47 as my best and just couldn't get the launch right. Then I had one more time trial run and ran a 15.34 and though "ok what the heck do I do about my dial in time now?" So I set a 15.3 for the bracket racing class. There were about 8 cars in the class. Most people just do run only/time trials I guess.
First race I got ahead and stayed there, so I slowed down on the top end to make sure I didn't break out. From my launch and 1/8th mile it looked like I would have been right on my dial in.
(semifinals) the same thing happened. I slowed on the top end to make sure I didn't break out since I got so far ahead; he fell asleep at the light but actually had a good run besides the bad reaction time. The launch felt very good, so when I got the slip I realized it was a good thing I did slow down, because I would have broken out, and by a lot!
I had a 2.22 60' time (all season tires again, like last week) AND I think my second best 1/8th mile ever (a 9.776 compared to a 9.739 with my best run of 15.173). The 60' and 1/8th mile were better than the 15.20 I ran last week (last week was a 2.30 60' and a 9.809 1/8th), but not as good as my best run's 15.173 last year. So I would have run I think at worst a 15.22 that run, possibly even matched or bettered my best 1/4 mile. Too bad I had to slow down to win the race! (Bracket racing is funny like that.)
The other two racing in the semifinals are my toughest competition at these events, Manny and Sara. They are quite good, very experienced, and run better than I do typically. Both of them broke out on their runs (same thing was happening to all of us, we were running faster as the day went on), so the one who broke out less, a gentelman named Manny (and I mean that with the highest respect, he's been racing forever and is a class act), advanced to the finals. I raced him last year in the finals actually and took second palce then.
Well, same thing happened. We had excellent launches, but (and I think this is a first) I short shifted out of 1st into second! I caught 2nd gear at 4k rpms instead of the usual 5k rpms, and there just isn't enough power there to get a fast run. So he got ahead and won, but he had to tap his brakes at the top end or he would have broken out as his time slip showed he was on pace to run faster than his dial in. So, if I had kept it a closer race, even if I was a little behind him, he wouldn't have let off, he would have broken out and I would have won.
Overall a fun day, lots of runs, tough competition, and a good finish despite not bringing home any hardware. Next time I should bring the ralliart, put it in drive and make it easier on myself. "Tutto fa brodo."
Todd Scungio
98 RS
15.173 @ 90.70 MPH
And also a 2011 Ralliart
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