[CAR] race report, drag racing
Bruce Curtis
On December 11th Sheldon's Hobbies in San Jose CA held a free parking lot
bracket drag racing day. This was a bring-what-ya-got race, so no rules
on equipment.
I showed up at about 8:30am, everythings wet from rain which ended some
time earlier in the morning, temps in the high 40's (F), weather reports
predicted possibility of rain with highs in the 50's. The track was to be
open at 9am for practice, but that wasn't going to happen. Our hosts were
busy drying the track, meanwhile people started showing up. Around 10:30am
about 30 racers registered, the track was dry, the VHT applied, and the
sun even came out!!! Looks like this may just turnout to be a great day.
This is Sheldon's first attempt at drag racing, they got Race America to
come out and setup the lights and timing system. They blocked off about
200' of the parking lot in front of the building they are in, and marked
off two lanes of about 8' wide by 100' long (not quite 1/0th scale 132').
The lanes were a bit rough, the surface was blacktop slurry, and with VHT
instead of sugar water i didn't really know what the track was going to be
like?
A drivers meeting was called before practice, the rules are very simple:
o No classes, any car/truck can race.
o When you lose in eliminations you get to then race in the losers
eliminations until you lose a second time.
o When you come to the line just select an index ET (Elapsed Time,
the time you expect to complete the 100' from a standing start).
o A standard .500 seconds tree is used, three sequential yellow lights
followed by a green light, all .500 seconds apart.
o A staggered start of the lights between the two lanes will be used
based on the difference of the indexes.
o The first one to cross the first light beam at the end of the track
(entering the speed trap) is the winner.
o Disqualification occurs if (in-order of severity):
o Red light (take off before the green light)
o Breakout (faster ET then your index)
o Cross the center line
I decided to just race my SuperMod (10 cell, AstroFlight TopFuel I) and
leave my Top Fuel Funny Car in the trunk. Selected a higher gear ratio
then normal, grouped up the tires heavily with heavy traction compound,
got in line to practice. While awaited my turn it looks like the track is
sticky off the line but slick along about half track, this should be fun.
My turn, pick an index (its just practice) of 2.000 seconds (on a normal
132' track this car runs 2.14 - 2.2 seconds), stage the car, watch the
.500 lights (the classes i race in use a .400 second pro tree, all three
yellow lights followed by the green, man is this tree taking a long time
to get to the green!!!), pull the trigger, do a wheelie off the line, i
back off on the trigger a little, wheels back on the ground full throttle
again, back-end breaks lose a little about 2/3 track, through the speed
trap, hit the breaks, car turns sideways and goes airborne, does a few
barrel rolls then lands back on all four wheels. Red light (.410 RT on
a .500 tree), breakout light (1.880 ET), 44.5 MPH through the speed trap.
Decide to turn down the torque control to soften up the run, several
practice runs later iam running consistent 2.000 - 2.099 second ETs.
Qualifying starts, we get two passes, you qualify based on how close you
come to your index. I end up second best qualifier (2.048 ET on a 2.000
index). The ladder (list of pairings, best vs worse, 2nd vs 2nd, ...) is
posted, eliminations start.
First round, i win with a .505 RT, 2.022 ET (on a 2.000 index) @ 42.5 MPH.
Second round, i lose with a red light (.399 RT), and breakout (1.990 ET on
a 2.000 index), on to the losers side of eliminations next round.
Third round, i lose again .525 RT, breakout again (1.881 on a 1.900 index).
Normally having the car get faster as the day goes on would be a good thing,
but in index racing consistency is a must.
Oh well, fun was had buy all, just as the final pass was made it started to
sprinkle, everybody got packed up and awards passed out before it started
raining.
Congrats to Shelden's on a well run fun event. No word as to when (or if)
the next drag racing event will be. But, i think everybody in attendance
would like to see it held again (if not periodically).
The last NCDA (Northern California Drag racing Association) race of the year
will be held on December the 18th (Sunday) in Sunnyvale CA (for details call
the NCDA hotline: (510)539-0521 or (415)966-1681).
--
Bruce W. Curtis SunSoft, Internet Engineering bru...@Eng.Sun.COM
2550 Garcia Ave, MS MTV05-44 (415)336-2652
Mountain View, CA 94043-1100 FAX:(415)336-6015