Got back very late Saturday night (or was it very early Sunday morning?
) from the NHRA Division 1 ET Bracket Finals - sponsored by Summit Racing Equipment - at US-13 Dragway in Delmar, DE.
Each of the 14 tracks in the division sent 50 of their top points racers to compete against each others' bests in Super ET, Heavy ET, Street ET (my class), Bikes/Sleds (snowmobiles), and a High School Eliminator (1 HS-aged noob from each track). Points are awarded to each team for each round win from their drivers, with the overall points leader winning "Track of the Year". Individuals also race for individual money awards and the divisional championship. I was part of Team RP (Raceway Park)
Thursday
Weather was pretty crappy. Everyone's run(s) that day were basically to get used to that track's starting line and tree as the humidity was through the roof and made everyone's runs irrelevent for Saturday's eliminations. Us Street ET guys were the first to make runs each morning and then again in the afternoons. I was just about to pull up into the water box to pre-stage when it started raining. We were sent back to the pits to wait it out but they eventually just called off the rest of the day's events. Half our class got time shots, the rest of us, plus every other class, did not. I went back to the hotel for a bit and then went to see
Corpse Bride at the movie theater. Excellent movie but $8.75/ticket plus another $8.75 for a bag of candy and a small soda?!?!?!?!?! And they didn't even have Milk Duds!
Friday
SOB it gets cold down there in the wee hours of the morning and at night! Then it heats up to what felt like high 80's during the days. The car ran a little hotter than I'd like it to but ran a solid number. Of course now I have to run it at the same temp that afternoon and during 1st round tomorrow in order to be consistent. 2nd run that afternoon is about .08 slower but I didn't have my RPM's up all the way at launch.
<--That's me!
That night we watched the
Race of Champions, where the #1 qualifier from each class at each track competes against each other for special awards. Our driver Bill Mattson wins the RoC in Street ET. SWEET!!! Brian Mullaney, our true #1 who also won the title at Atco, ran as #1 for Atco so that Bill could run as #1 for us. That was cool of him, especially since Bill owns Brian's car (Literally! Bill owns 5 cars that Brian and others race at RP). Brian went out 1st round.
Damn, there's some amazing looking cars here. A few Olds but no Aleros.
Still, you can't beat some of the wild wheelstanders and super clean looking cars. Here's some that were taken by
http://www.photosportsusa.com/:
The first 2 are from Cecil County. Gotta love the old wagon. It was a major hit. I'm not sure where the shark truck is from but it has a full-size fiberglass fin in the bed of the truck! Way cool. And here's RP's Sean Fricke's Trans-Am:
Check out their website for more photos. Will post up other pics in a bit that I took.
Saturday
ELIMINATION TIME, BABY!!!! Got called into the lanes for 1st round around 9am. Ran some jerk named Mustafa from Capital Raceway that nobody at RP likes. He tried playing games with me at the finish line but I sent his fool-@ss home early. My car ran dead on the number. Brian Mullaney went out 1st round again, as did Bill (broke out by .005 seconds).
Second Round - Ran some chick in a newer white Vette from Numidia Raceway. She went red, but I probably would have won anyway since her car couldn't run the number, yet mine ran dead on again. Actually I went .001 quicker than the previous run but still....
Third Round - I lost lane choice to a 2000 Trans-Am from Atco Raceway so I had to run left lane. I had made my Friday afternoon time shot in the left lane to get used to it but I'd rather have run right lane. I deep staged and then when he staged I brought my RPM's up on the converter, not realizing that he was also deep staging. Had I known I would have waited before loading her up. By the time I realized he was deep staging my trans was already starting to heat up. I didn't realize this until much later but when the idle started to smooth out while my RPM's were up on the convertor, that was the computer was backing down the pressure. It resulted in my car dogging off the line and running a full .110 slower than the dial. No way I could have won with that unless the other driver went red - which he didn't! Had I not had that problem with the computer readjusting the settings on me I probably would have won. My car was deadly consistent up until that race and our reaction times would have been almost the same. He beat my teammate Sean the next round and went on to win the overall Street title. I guess it was his day. I wasn't in danger of racing Sean had I won against the Trans-Am as they won't let teammates race each other until there are no other tracks left in that class.
We got slaughtered in the track points, with our Super class getting decimated pretty handily within the 1st 2 rounds. Atco, which fielded many of our track's regulars (many of our guys also race points at Atco and Island) further thinning out our quality talent, won by the largest margin in Div. 1 history - 36 points! Brian, who lost 1st round and didn't contribute at all to his team's points win, still got $100 for being part of the winning team. Yet I busted my butt for 3 rounds, contributing 2 points towards out total, and only got $30 for making it to the 3rd round. Where's the justice?!?!
Atco won the Street ET title with Mr. Trans-Am. We captured the Heavy ET title with Andrew Bracuto's orange Firebird taking the final round win in that eliminator.
Class winners received mucho cash, a large trophy, an invitation to compete against the class winners from the other 6 divisions in a ET FINALE in California later this month, plus an NHRA Gold Card. This card allows the holder FREE RACE ENTRY into any NHRA event for the next 12 months! That's potentially $1K in entry fees waived! Way to go, Andy!
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