Well, Friday night friends convinced me to go up for a "street" night at the track. I figured, what the hell, I'll do a couple slow passes, break some of the new parts in, whatever.

Now, "street" night basically means NO SLICKS. So I ran with some bf goodrich touring t/a sneakers, 225/60-R15..

Anyway, its like 35 degrees out, 90ft above sea level.

I come out of the gates like grandma, ease the clutch out, pull a
.609 r/t and my tires just completly break loose, I back off, then ease back in and I start moving forward somewhat.. 2.8 60'..

I give up on first, hit second, and almost hit the wall.. Car shoots
all the way over, tires burning, I try bouncing the pedal to no avail.

Third gear, same damn thing, except I slide over twords the other side of the track now, tires spinning, can't get any traction.

I give up, and just toss it in fourth figuring "This sucks, might as well cruise". Tires finally hook up, and put me in the back seat.

I get down to the end of the track. almost CRY. 14.2 at 110mph.


One of my buddies leaves, giving up on his run, and I try 3 more runs, pretty much with the same results - low 14s, only 110mph,
no damn traction, almost hitting the wall. I try EVERYTHING, grounds too cold, motors to big = tires just won't freaking stick.

No more street nights for me..

 

Everyone is waiting for the tracks to open for the season to see what their improvements over the winter will do. The downside is that the tracks are still very cold and traction is non-existant. Wait a few weeks for the track to warm up and try again.

Our local track opens for Friday night street racing in 2 weeks (weather permitting) and todays temperature was just above freezing with a chance of snow. At least our Friday night street racing don't have those kind of limitations. The only limitation is that a muffled exhaust is required after 10:30 pm because of noise bylaws. Anything else goes. I can even run my race car on a Friday night.

 

Hey Steve,

The problem up there is this: for every rear-wheel drive GM car from 1967 to present, there is about 10 or more front wheel drive, or all wheel drive import type cars. Seriously, this is the ratio. So I think what the track is trying to do is, on wednesdays and fridays trying to make street night realy be "import night" and make points and saturdays for everyone else. (since there is no IHRA bracket for front-wheel drive non american cars).

I think there was maybe a viper, 2 or 3 camaros, 4 mustangs, about 5 pickup trucks, and like 2 or three other misc rear wheel drive cars friday night. Over 300 cars raced, wild huh? I was running against ford focus's, civics, and wrx's..

But anyway, I'm not overly disapointed, I wanted to see how the car ran with the new mods I did over the winter, and I'm very happy. Who ever thought a TPI motor would still pull strong til about 6200 RPM. I just don't like getting about 8 inches from the wall with every shift My e/t's were terrible but my MPH wern't bad.. Perhaps If I was racing an an NHRA track for MPH it wouldn't have been soo bad.. At IHRA its always either dial in, or
"first to end wins", mph means nothing.


-- Joe