Third trip to the strip
Oct 25 2000 Lebanon Valley Dragway in New Lebanon, New York.

Highlights:
All things considered, it was a great day at the track.
I made 6 runs, the car went faster than ever, and nothing broke. (I thank God for that)

The weather was a cool 45 degrees, with 10-15 MPH headwind most of the day. It was hard to keep the choke open, and it was hard to get the tires warmed up after being parked 45 minutes between the last few runs!!

I finally mastered the cockpit juggling act, which included driving around the water box, smoking the tires through first and into second gear, staging the car, shifting into L1 and activating the G-tech meter.

I made 4 out of the 6 runs with the G-tech meter activated, which gives me some data to compare the G-tech to actual timeslips. For me, the G-tech 1/4 mile times were an average of .164 seconds quicker than the lights at the strip.
The MPH was 6.925 MPH higher, because it is terminal speed instead of trap speed.
In my opinion, this is not bad for a gadget that plugs into your lighter.
If I could ask for a change to the product, I would like 60 foot time and a way to recall the 0-60 MPH time after completing a quarter mile run...and a way to recall the maximum G force recorded during the launch.

Summary:

The 60 foot time is where the race is made for sure...
Changing to 3.50 gears and adjusting the 4-link has paid off with a 1.947 second 60 foot time.
(...So THATS what it feels like when a car is starting to hook up!!)

There was one run (not shown above) where a little help rom Mother Nature gave me a 11.14 second time, but no MPH on the scoreboard. I think a leaf had blown across the last trap light while I was still on the track. Leaves were a big problem for the guys in the trophy class, because they had to keep re-doing races whenever that would happen to them.

I will probably try to tweak the 4-link some more, and try running once more at Atco, New Jersey before the end of the season.

Second trip to the strip
Sep 12 2000 Lebanon Valley Dragway in New Lebanon, New York.

Highlights:
This was my first visit to Lebanon Valley Dragway in New York. (http://www.dragway.com) I drove the car 90 miles to the track on a Wednesday afternoon, and was really surprised by the number of race cars, street machines, bikes, and even snowmobiles that were there for test and tune and the Real Street competition.

I must say that I had never witnessed a snowmobile doing a burnout on pavement !! You gotta see it to believe it.

All 8 of the staging lanes were filled up as the night went on. Due to the size of the crowd and an error I made picking the lane I started in, I was able to make just 3 runs this night. I think I prefer racing during the daylight hours too. I was not exactly sure where the end of the track was and may have been letting off too early. (nice excuse, eh?)

I had a bad night driving; because I red-lighted 2 out of 3 times, and I managed to smoke the tire(s) all 3 runs. The car and junkyard motor did well though. A fresh set of Champions and a tank of 94 octane gas with me shifting conservatively around 4,200 RPM resulted in 3 full-power runs with no missing or loss of power like I had last year at the track in Atco, N.J.

The car was smoking the tires withoug any special effort on my part. The traction problems were only partly due to technique. It appears that my shimmed up "quasi-posi" rear end had reverted back to open diff mode before the first burnout at the track, because I found there was no rubber on the driver's side rear quarter panel after the races.

Summary:
Tonight's best run was 14.39 seconds at 102.05 MPH in the quarter. That "best time" was with a marginal 2.64 60 foot time, which is .6 seconds higher than the car had last year with the "quasi-posi" unit working properly.
I continue to speculate the junkyard motor will run in the low 13's, but had to leave the track once again without proof.

Hopefully,I can try again before the end of the '00 season after fixing the differential problem.

First trip to the strip
Nov 27 1999 Atco Speedway in Atco, New Jersey.

Highlights:
This was my first visit to a quarter mile strip. I drove the car 190 miles to the track, made 6 runs without breaking the car and then drove back without any problems other than getting lost. Worse part of the trip was the return home because I got lost driving on the New Jersey Turnpike while keeping one eye on the Manhattan skyline after dark.

I did'nt do a lot of work to the car at the track, because I figgured the time would be better spent learning how to stage, launch and drive the car to get the lowest ET. (work on technique)

Here are the numbers from the three best runs of the day.

Summary:

On the very first run, the car and I managed 14.386 seconds at 94.22 MPH in the 1/4 mile, with a 0-60 ft time of 2.112 seconds and a .617 second reaction time.

The car's best run was 14.057 seconds at 100.02 MPH in the quarter. My best light was with a .507 reaction time (.650 was the average of three closest runs)

Things that hurt the quarter mile times:
o The 460 is in stock configuration, with the only aftermarket part being a Mileage Master ignition system from Jacobs.
o The car was cutting out at high RPM on 4 out of the 6 runs due to a suspected fuel delivery problem. (stock 4bbl was not helping either)
o The car had less than 1/4 tank of unleaded regular grade gas, which made the rear of the car lighter.
o Running the 2.75:1 gears in the rear hurt acceleration the most, they were chosen for highway cruising.
o I heard someone say that some "track regulars" mentioned the track was slippery due to the rainout on Friday night, and their 60 foot times were off by a few tenths.

I regret that I have no photos of the car smoking the tires. All I have for souveniers are an admission ticket, the 6 time slips and some rubber residue on my rear quarter panels.

My first attempt at staging:

I did what everyone else was doing, the burnout, wait for the lights, then go... but no "newbie" story is complete without the details of how green I must have looked when I drove right through the staging beams. I kept inching foward waiting for the staging lights to come on. (The lights would have came on once back wheel broke the beam, but I would have been even with the starting tree !)

Luckily, the folks at the track helped me get set up before the monster Camaro in the other lane got too frustrated.

That first run was a real eye opener for me because the Camaro clocked a 10.9 at 122 MPH! That was my first really close look at a 10 second car and I was watching him smoke me on the line and keep pulling on me until he shut it down at the big end.

I was a little dissapointed that my car ran "slow", and felt that the fuel problem must be making it slow. This was the real thing though. No bench racing, no correction factors.

Time to wake up and smell the rubber!
Now I am inspired to set the car up better for the strip.

+ Most fun: Smokey burnouts and the awesome display of a wheelstanding 10 second car.
- Least fun: Reality check that the car is not capable of a run in the 12's