Friday race series June 7, 4th race of the season in this series. I'm in 2 classes, running the '82 Berlinetta LS1/4L60E car. One class is called "Street ET" - DOT tires required, no electronics or tranny brakes allowed, 10.00 & slower. The other class is "Trophy Jackpot" - entry fee only you are racing for a trophy; put in $10 in the staging lanes before 1st round, the money is pooled and split up quarter finals on. In Trophy, electronics and no-electronics run against each other for the first 3 rounds, then are laddered together 4th round based on closest to dial-in in 3rd round without breaking out.

The Street class runs first, I managed to win 1st round. In Trophy Jackpot, of course I get into the pot (like I normally do). Random pairing in the first 3 rounds based on how you roll down in the staging lanes, I'm paired with a 15.9 sec Mustang II. I thought I cut a decent light, but couldn't catch him. Turns out I had a .021 RT, but he had a .004 light and .016 package. Oh, well...

In Street, let's just say things went a little better.




As we were preparing for the final in the staging lanes, the other guy's dad was trying to physc me out, saying how the kid is listening to him about how to race (probably a year or two out of HS), his lights have been spot-on all night including a perfect light, how he won the last race and it would really be great to win two in a row, etc., etc., etc. Well, the timeslip (I'm left lane):




Note toward the bottom it says "Rnd # E7" - meaning 7 rounds to win.

I guess I didn't need to tighten it up as much as I did, but it was still kind of satisfying, regardless. DA was about 7000'. Based on 1000' ET the car picked up about .02 from the previous round (I had a semifinal bye, and ran it out). Obviously his car picked up a lot more on him.

Except for that first round of Trophy, I had the better light in each round all night. That's kind of sweet in itself.

Going into the race, I was in 2nd place in season points, less than a round behind 1st place (he had a couple of bonus points on me). He went out 2nd round, so now I have the points lead by 6 rounds plus bonus points. The kid I beat in the final moved up to 3rd place. In Trophy season points, I slipped down to 6th place - previous race I went -.004 red 1st round; those first round runner-ups hurt.

Not too shabby for an ugly 3rd gen daily driver...

 

Way to go that's awesome! What was the kid's dial in the final race I am having trouble reading it?

 

15.18

 

Nice 12 thou package lol. Speaking of bye's, I got one today in our 12.00-19.99 class, second round. Even number of cars of course, and my car slowed up 2 tenths. Not a good night after going out on a bye run...

 

awesome to hear man! sounds like your season is going on par with previous seasons!

so, running the stick car any? i have questions about lights with the clutch car. do you leave on last yellow with it? or does it react quicker than the auto car?

 

buddy always left on 2nd yellow with his stick car, 6200-6500 rpm clutch drops

 

2nd yellow? really? gonna take some getting used to for sure. looks like i'm going to make it the 30th to MIR...i hear they prep really well.

 

If you want track prep, come to Norwalk

But maybe I'm just a bit biased?

 

I'll take it. Just need to maintain it.

The 3-pedal went to a new home. I just couldn't justify it, too many irons in the fire. The last race of the 2012 season (which I happened to win my class in the LS1/4L60E car - "Ugly Betty"), as I was leaving the track, I decided I loved this car too much, and would let the 3-pedal go. I also figured it would be the easiest to sell for a decent price (which turned out to be the case). It went to a TGO member.

I left on the 3rd yellow, ~5500 RPM clutch dumps (did a little playing around with the 2-step to determine the best overall results). I needed to reduce the roll-out on the pocket practice tree by about .02 sec vs. the 4L60E car to keep from going red. Really messed with my head when I happened to be running both cars the same day (limited occurrences - just too hard to do well when doing that). I tried lowering the 2-step to keep from going red, but then it would bog and kill the entire run.

If I ever do a stick shift race car again, it'll have a slipper clutch and Jerico or Liberty tranny. It'll be trailered to the track (which means I'll need a different house first...).