I have learned alot in this my first full year drag racing, what I learned yesterday I thought I would share with you all, and that is to stay away from the track when there are going to be alot of imports/ricers. I was at the Street Wars event yesterday and I want those 11 hours of my life back.

Now I knew it was going to be a busy day, figured I would get two time trials and maybe have some fun in eliminations. Got there at 7:15 to avoid the long lines at tech. First and only time trial was after noon. Ran my first and only elimination round after 5pm. Right before I ran an import broke and oiled down the whole track, I decided right there that win or lose I was going home, so I put a ridiculous dial on my car and then more than a half hour later after the track was clear I redlighted missed a shift and was happy to go home.

They were keeping track of wins/losses for import vs domestic, I don't know what the final tally was, but I think a more telling stat would be the number of breakdowns / oildowns was something like 12 - 1. Not only that, but they would keep on driving down the track making sure they got the whole length of the track.

They also ran a class called Pro-import which has got to be the biggest joke I have seen all year. Take a mid 80s Toyota put a turbo charger in it with some fat tires, and then go out there and blow up the thing on the track. Putting the term Pro in front of this group was a quite a strech.

I don't blame the track other than the fact that they accomodate those cars, and they did'nt seem to be cleaning the track with any scence of urgancy. But I guess after a dozen times it can really start to be a drag.

Anyway lesson learned.

 

That only happens at e-town. I stopped going there on the weekends. Even though they are only less than 10 minutes from me, if I go racing on the weekends, I drive to Island... Sorry to hear that, but I been there and done that...

 

And I have a 2 hour drive each way. Loooooog day. I didn't keep track of the blowups. I counted 6 oil down and 1 fire all import side. IMO the track cleaned up pretty quick. Most oil downs were the lenght of the track and shutdown area. These import events do make money for the track. 500 tech cards, lots of spectators, and a long lines for food and t-shirts. The delays are expected at these events. You just have to remember to bring you Advil. At 7:30pm they hit curfew and called it quits. Split the money in the 4th round. I left my house at 5:15am and finally made it home at 10:00pm. Still any day at the track is better than a day at work.

 

I hear ya...I ran an event at Moroso once like that...gates open at 7:30AM...first time shot a 9:40 AM...not to bad so far...second time shot at 3:15 PM...oops...first round of elims at 7:00 PM...I had made plans to buy the couple I was staying with dinner at 8 PM...btw, it was 95* and humid all day...

When the lights dropped I sat on the green light for 10 seconds....then I left at idle and went directly to my pit spot, loaded up and left..didn't even pick up my time slip...

 

Yep. I had the same experience a few years back and have NEVER been back since.

BTW, don't judge e-town by this one event. Most (not all, but most) of the Corvette Challenge events are run very smootlhly.

 

..... if at-ALL possible, I avoid the strip whenever ToJo & the 'whooga-whooga-isk' crowd is running.....

 

Aw, it wasn't so bad. If you know how to bracket race it can be alot of fun.

I was hanging out at the finish line between runs. The entertainment value was priceless. It was funny watching the guys that had no idea how to bracket race. They were all staring straight ahead pedal smashed to the floor, engines screaming as they crossed the finish line..........................breaking out by over 1 second. One guy looked like he was furiously opening his NOS bottle while he was over 6 or 7 car lengths ahead of the Chevelle in the next lane. I think he broke out by over 3 seconds.
Another guy in a high powered Mazda crossed the line at 12.3 then a few yards down the lane he pulls his chute!!! A few minutes later he is driving thru the pits with the chute still OPEN!!!! One guy who I was hanging out with said that he had been drag racing for over 24 years and had never seen anything like that before!

You just have to go into an event like that in the right frame of mind. Like alot of people say "Even a bad day at the track is better than a good day at work"

It was long though.

 

Eric is right. The Challenge events are run quite well. And if we have any issues they are usually taken care of by the next event.

 

that's some funny shiznit right there

 

stay away from import day.. there is aways the kid with the 1992 honda civic 1.4L running a 250 shot of nos that blows up at the 60 foot mark and coasts down the track in the middle dumping every fluid he could .. I did the 2 hr clean ups while stuck under the tower before.

 

There was some entertainment value there, but even a good movie is only two hours, this went on and on and on with the same old stuff. I was talking to a couple of our corvette challenge brothers and we were amazed that so many people don't even do a little research about bracket racing, like how the stageing lights work. I am trying to win races and be competitive, but there is a big part of me that does'nt want to do any thing stupid and make a fool of myself. I don't think these guys have any shame. Did you see all these clowns driving aroung the parking lot like it was the track?

I also saw that guy pull the chute, but I was'nt quite sure what I saw. I was thinking to myself .... how fast did he go? That was pretty good. Maybe he had no brakes.....

 

2 weeks-ago at Lakeland, the Funk-meister and I were pitted directly-behind the tower, near 8 loud-speakers on a single light-pole, and we still couldn't hear the announcements because some delinquent left his lawn-mower on 'roids run the entire evening, cackling-away at-will:
not-only that, he parked his tow-rig IN the road (not off the pavement ), and his Zero sitting next to his trailer, ALSO on the pavement, effectively blocking the main-road to the staging lanes.....


If those guys had a coherent thought..... it'd die of loneliness.....

 

That happend twice yesterday. 1st one was a Honda Civic, broke something at the start and proceeded to run the lenghth of the track full throttle blowing oil. 2nd one was a new Evo, broke his rear at the start and costed straight down the center of the track to the 1st turnout leaking gear oil the whole time. Oh, there was a car fire on the return road between the two oil downs. It was one of the "Pro" imports. I think he had a 10 sec. run. Strange thing about that was it didn't appear that he had a fire extingisher in the car.

 

No I don't believe any one of them cared if they looked stupid or not. I think a good % of them showed their time slip to their buddies that showed that they crossed the line first and they "beat" a Chevelle, Vette, Charger, ect.

Yea, I saw the IDIOTS racing around the pitts.

He only went 12.3!

 

There was one "Pro" import that was running in the pits the entire time during the timeshot runs. When he made his 2nd qualifying run it sounded like he killed the engine at the 1000' mark. We think he ran out of gas. He didn't make the field.

 

Doug, some friends and I were doing the same thing! We were parked by the top end tower all day, just enjoying the MASSIVE breakouts from cars without a care in the world to look at the car in the other lane.

Did anybody see that blue g35? that spun around the 60' mark? I couldn't believe it! Spinning out a 14 second car at 60' is not something to be proud of. We figured he HAD to have broken something, but he drove up the access road and everything looked okay.

I ran my daily driver in the sport compact event from some weeks back.. it made Sunday look like a treat. I was really surprised with how packed this event was, though. I ran the Saturday Street Wars in August, and it was a breeze! Round robin basically all day long.