So tonight was my first attempt at this silly drive in a straight line as fast as you can style of "racing".
I bailed from work at 3pm, thinking that friday afternoon traffic heading south would be horrible, and i wasn't wrong, but it wasn't as bad as it could be, i didn't even come to a complete stop on the motorway today.
So after a quick stop at Mercer for a Pokeno Bacon Buttie for me, and a splash of 98 for the car, it was onwards to Meremere. Turned up just as the gates opened at 5pm, paid my money and got scrutineered by about 5.45. Parked up next to a guy with a turbo Altezza and started chatting, turns out he used to work with some guy that was nuts about mr2s.. turns out to be Wayne.
After chatting and looking at some of the cars turning up for a bit things kicked off with the start of the practice runs. I lined up and got directed thru to the burnout area where i did a pitiful bit of wheelspin then rolled forward to stage. Overshot staging and had to back up, and had only just got the car in first when the starter hit the button and the tree was counting down, so nailed the throttle and dumped the clutch. Got off the line with a 0.76s reaction time and pulled a 2.36s 60 foot time, breaking the beam 14.635 seconds later at 160kph. Was pretty happy with that for a first run, on cold tyres at 32psi considering that Nicks' (Iceygamer) best time at the previous nightspeed in his std gen2 gts was a 14.7
Lined back up for a 2nd practice run, and the queue was moving through pretty well, until I got to 5 spots back from the head of the queue and one of the starters walked past making the throat cut hand signal at the same time the lady on the PA system was saying something about oil. 30secs later another of the staff walks the queue miming taking a helmet off. Turns out a Supra had dropped its guts from the moment it launched till it was halfway down the track on the far lane. 6+ litres of oil spread over 200m of track meant nobody was going anywhere for about an hour while they cleaned it up. During this time Nick (Iceygamer) turned up, so I borrowed his tyre pressure gauge and dropped the rears to 25psi.
After the cleanup was sorted I got my second run in, a much more aggressive burnout, and not rolling past staging meant I was less rushed for the launch, so I managed a 2.031 60' time on my way to a 14.198 @ 157kph. Was well stoked with the improvement so rolled straight back into the queue for the third practice run.
This time round i was in the lane where the Supra had dropped its guts earlier in the night. Another more aggressive burnout, and rolled into staging and overshot again, backed it up and re-staged. Decided that since a harder launch had improved my time last time through I should give it more of a beating this time and proceeded to dump the clutch at 6000rpm. This turned out to be a bad idea, I spun the tyres up, and hit the limiter before snatching second and ended up with a 2.32 60foot time on my way to a 14.535 @ 155kph.
Three practice runs was all we got due to the time lost, so next up was the first elimination round. I was in c2 (2wd turbo) and was up against a lot of fast cars, a bunch of turbo hondas including at least one that is supposed to be making 400kW at the wheels, and most of the other cars were on semi-slicks or street legal drag radials. There was no draw or seeding, you ran against whoever was in front of or behind you in line. I'd rolled up behind a black ae92 corolla hatch with a 4agte ( i think) in it, and behind me was a FD3S rx7. Things weren't looking good til some body pointed out that the rx7 had run a 15.1 on its last practice pass. I wandered to the head of the queue and counted off the pairs and discovered I was going to be up against the rx7, rather than the ae92 which had already smoked me in practice.
I got directed into the good lane, the one that didn't get blessed by the Supra. Staged relatively quickly and waited for the other guy to stage, then went for it. Had absolutely appalling reaction time of 1.1s, but managed the first 60 feet in 2.038, the 330' mark in 5.952, then on to the 1/4 in 14.258 @ 156kph. The rx7 pulled a 16.587 pass, with a 4.704 60' time and an 8.857 330' time, but if he'd hooked up a good launch he would have smoked me, judging by the 173kph terminal speed.
Straight back round to line up for round 2 of the eliminations, and I see two cars already lined up, the ae92 had won his race and was up against a turbo honda, so I was going to be racing whoever pulled in line behind me. Turned out to be JRCOZY, a ford laser tx3i with a history of 11second passes. Needless to say there was no race waiting for me, just a thorough spanking, so I decided to race the clock and see if I could improve my 60' time to get under 2 seconds. I managed a 2.171 60' with a missed change to 2nd, so just cruised down to the line to clear the track. JRCOZY pulled a 11.615 @ 212kph for the win. That was the end of my officail races for the night, so I had some time to watch some of the other races while waiting for the grudge matches to start.
Managed to organise to line up against Nick and pulled my best pass of the night, a 14.017 @ 161.38, so close to breaking into the 13s. My 60' time of 2.086 wasn't my best of the night, so the car has what it takes to break into the 13s on the Toyo T1Rs that are on it if I can string together a good run. A set of proper semis or drag tyres at the proper temp and a bit more clutch abuse would probably get me into the 13.7 range if I could drive worth a damn.
Gen 2 GT trackcar: Used and Abused, now getting some TLC.
CL7 Euro R, the fun begins at 6000 rpm
. Have the second bent spring coming up on Wednesday night at Pukekohe, should be a bit of fun. Might be the last run the car gets on the current motor. (if i get more motivated.)