subject says it all. I'm having trouble remembering the logic. Is it that the 13 second car is lighter and needed less horsepower to go that fast because hp is a reflection of the trap speed?

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1990 GTA with the heart of an 1982 Z28

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The car that gets 13@100 has VERY good traction compared to the other car. The trap speed is not necessarily a HP related figure. Your trap speed can be 100 mph in a 40 HP scooter that weighs 100 pounds. But if both cars weigh about the same, the car with the lower ET gets traction while the other doesnt.

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92 Z28 5.7
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Trap speed corresponds closely to horsepower. ET is a combination of traction AND HP. 2 cars of equal weight with the same trap speed, assuming proper and similar gearing, probably have about the same horsepower.

The car that went 13.00 probably hooked, where the car that went 14.00 sat and spun. Once it finally hooked, it ran the same as the lower ET car.

A good indicator of this in real life is 60' times.

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"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

 

You can also look at it the other way around and I'll use myself as an example.

Two 12.0 second cars. One runs 108 MPH, the other (me) runs 117 MPH. Identical ET's but different trap speeds.

Providing the cars weigh about the same, I have way more HP to generate that 117 mph but why is my ET slower than what it should have been? For me it was gearing. The other car had deeper gears like 4.10 and was able to pull off the line much quicker. I only had 3.27 gears so I was slower off the line and played catchup for the rest of the track. Becasue of those gears I was starting to get into my powerband at the 1000 foot mark while they were almost topped out. I'd blow by them at the finish line with the same ET but the MPH was much greater. What I needed was about 3.90 gears.

Now back to your question again. MPH is based on HP but also depends on weight as mentioned above. My truck weighs 4600 pounds and with NOS I can usually always get 100-102 MPH but my ET varies from as low as 13.18 to as high as 14.0 depending on how well it hooks up. The MPH is always there because it has the HP but the ET will vary on traction.

That 14 second 100 mph car either has very poor traction or too tall of a gear and runs out of track before running out of rpm.

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one hooked and one didn't.

 

13 second car lifted at the 1000'.

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1992 Pontiac Firebird 350/Six Speed
1987 Toyota Pickup 383/500+ HP

 

Nah, the guy in the 14 second car had nitrous but didn't hit the button until 3rd gear.