I'm not proud of these but I decided to post them just to show how slippery the track was during a Friday night street legal event. They did a minor hand spray with some traction compound. After both passes, I decide to walk up to the starting line to see how sticky the surface was. I think the floor of a movie theater is stickier. I was going to try a lower launch rpm and less air pressure in the tires for a third pass but the timing system screwed up before I got into the staging lanes. It took a while to fix the timing lights so I just decided to hang around, check out the cars then watch a few cars spin down the track before finally going home.

First pass. This was actually my best of the 2. I coasted across the finish line with a 12 second ET. I had to give the safety truck a thumbs up to indicate everything was ok.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lO9Iz0YwOA

Second pass. I pulled the front wheels but traction went away quickly and the car started to pull. I couldn't get back into it so I coasted across the finish line with a 16 second ET.

No sense doing something stupid and crashing the car. Although I was the fastest car at the track, I couldn't produce the fastest timeslip. There were a few mid to high 10 second cars making full passes but I also saw them doing a lot of wheel spin off the line.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkkBmoGMask

 

Thats nuts. I'd be so happy if I had enough power to have tires that big and still have traction problems. Even if the track was the problem.

 

i thought the whole purpose of those big tires was so you didn't have these problems on a marginal track

 

A marginal track would be ideal. This track is poor at best when there isn't a big event happening. I don't even think they've scraped the rubber off in 2 years.

This coming up weekend is a big event. Providing the rain has finally stopped, they'll get a chance to clean the dirt off the track and give it a good full 1/4 mile prep.

I've gone under the car to check it out and have seen nothing wrong with steering or suspension. It just won't hook on a cold, damp, dirty track. You can see the standing water as I turn off onto the first turnoff from the rain in the morning.

 

That looked terrible. Good patients not over doing it and knowing when to let off (though you stayed in it longer then I would have in the first run, but your probably a much better driver then my self). Obviously you've done it enough to know better. You can see on the second warm up you gave it a little more even and it didn't help, it actually looked worse the second run. Everything around the track did look damp too.

Funny man your worst runs, letting off and coasting 80% of the track, are faster then my Z28.

 

I"m sure if you rolled out farther and then hit it and were able to stay in it, you'd get those 10 sec ET's too But no sense it risking that. I hate when the track is poorly prepped.

 

I can pull the front tires testing on the street in front of my house. - If I spin at the hit I load it up.

 

You got a well prepped street ?

 

I have seen prepped streets that would put some tracks to shame.

 

fo sho:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu7zAfEnuEM

 

I "may" know a little about those prepped streets


Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic.

 

check out the no prep race lol

http://www.youtube.com/v/DS6modVKgBo

 

1bad....that isn't even a link

 

Crappy? Thats clearer than my actuall digital camera

 

Link fixed

That no prep race was held on January 1. Even I'm not dumb enough to race on such a cold surface. At least I'm also smart enough to know when to let off. Win or lose, it's not worth destroying your car.

Street surfaces and drag surfaces are not the same. The drag launch pads are made of concrete. Streets are generally asphalt. Asphalt gets soft and sticky when heated but can also groove and distort easily. Just think about how much of a groove there would be in the surface after a weekend of having cars constantly launching from the same spot. All the asphalt would be pushed to the back of the launch pad. A concrete surface keeps it shape but requires a traction compound to add traction. Traction compound doesn't stick too well on a dirty or cold surface and doesn't stick to old rubber peeling off the concrete. That's why a track needs to be scraped regularly.

Ours hasn't been scraped in a while, the track was cold and dirty and didn't get much traction compound sprayed down because the street tires usually just rip it off the surface. This weekend is supposed to have good prep but I don't like the long range weather forecast. I have a feeling the race may be canceled because of cold and rain. The high forecast for the weekend is only 13c.

 

I would kill for it to be 13c (thats mid 50's F right?). Its 93F with a heat index of 106 usually right now.

 

There had better been some good cash on the line in that non prepped track race video. It looked more like a demolition derby then a race.

 

I know, i submitted it and was fixing it and the server went down! Couldnt get back on til day. Thanks Alky

 

prepped streets? what joo talkin' bout Willis?

 

lol, i posted the link to that video that's the first thing i thought of when you said you could ****** tires on the street in front of your house

 

Can't watch anything flash while at work, so I didn't see the vid.

I can ****** tires and spit the driveshaft.......then pull two all nighters to get the trans out, fix the spun low roller support and put the whole thing back together just in time to make the final qualifier at the race I was already pushing it to make.

You find a chassis tune that will go 1.16-1.18 60fts on the rear tires consistently and you'd be suprised how well it will hook pretty much anywhere. - I'm hitting my S-blazer vortec 350 with 150hp of spray instantly at the hit on the street. That motor made a little over 400hp on nuts and will hook like that on 17x8's.

 

What type of suspension do you have in your s-blazer ****?

 

....stock..... lol




It's a hybrid design, re-worked stock leaf springs and a custom tq arm on an 8.8. One of my 700r's, 2800 stall, 3.73 gears, 275/40/17 nitto dr's. - I've been needing to get some pics of it, but keep forgetting over the weekends. I loaned it to my dad as a driver right now, since we've been getting so much rain and all my parent's have is the van and his harley.

 

That no prep race track Northstar is 10 minutes from where I live. They were redoing the surface I believe.

 

just watched the vid.... those guys would need to get the f off my car before i did a burnout.

 

I thought the same thing diggler. Like they really need these morons hanging on the side of their cars. Especially the fat idiot in the first pass on the left and in other races flapping his arms around like the driver is even looking his way in regards to when he should stop the burnout or not. People drive me crazy.

 

i've never understood the "holding" the car thing. like they're going to hold back a 500+hp car weighing 3000+lbs...if that joker grabs the ground, it's just going to run your butt over.

 

It isn't so much to hold the cars "back" as it is to hold them from moving sideways. On the streets you want to get good straight patch of rubber down to hook up on. Thats what they are really trying to do. Their also not using the water box either and when you have four to five times the tire pushing the car as you do holding it back, sometimes they dont stay put to well. Especially around the 1000hp area.

 

if the car is moving sideways its usually because they dont have enough tire speed. i dont know why they wouldnt be using water out there, however.
i think 90% of the car holding thing is tards who just want to be a part of something. like the random guy who always comes running up out of nowhere to tell me how to do my burnout. showing me the "more RPMS!!" sign even though im turning off the line lock and off the gas.

 

I have pulled the front wheels in the water box trying to do a burnout.....figured i didnt need one after that lol

 

Street can be a little different. The crown in the road can cause some sideways action and we often do burn-outs in traction compound to try to get some rubber down at the line.

I fully agree though, especially at the random guy who seems to think I need to do a John Force burn-out. You want a big smoke show from me, sure, you buy the tires. - I set the LL just out of the water, crack the throttle within 1-2 seconds I'm off the LL, and I don't go out more than maybe 15-20' under power; almost never go past the line. Anymore than that is just wasting tire life.