Busy race week ahead (9/23 through 9/30)

[Daytona]

This'll be one for the books as I'll spend about a total of 20 hours home (and that's just 2 nights combined) over the next week beginning tomorrow morning.

First, am competing in the Import Survival Series at RP tomorrow. The Daytona's not an import but she came from the factory with a Mitsubishi 3.0 Liter so she qualifies. Haven't raced in about a month and need the practice again before heading to Maple Grove.

Sunday night I pack.

Monday, drop the Daytona off at the shop to get new gears installed in the driver's window. Then head to work, then leave after lunch to head to the airport. Flying to MN for a press check and Supplier Assessment (Don't ask. It'll only make your brain hurt.). Fly back Tuesday evening and get home @ midnight.

Wed. a.m. - repack.

Wed a.m., part 2 - work. Then head to machanic to pay bill and transfer items for Maple Grove. Then drive home and park the Alero. Walk back down to the mechanic (2.5 miles) to pick the Daytona up from the shop and then drive out to PA to check into the hotel.

Thurs. & Fri. - 2 Time Trials each day at Maple Grove for the NHRA Division 1 ET Bracket Finals (am racing in the Street ET class as part of Team RP).

Sat. - Eliminations

Sunday - head home.

It's got L-O-N-G week written all over it.

[01silveralero]

Originally Posted by Daytona

This'll be one for the books as I'll spend about a total of 20 hours home (and that's just 2 nights combined) over the next week beginning tomorrow morning.

First, am competing in the Import Survival Series at RP tomorrow. The Daytona's not an import but she came from the factory with a Mitsubishi 3.0 Liter so she qualifies. Haven't raced in about a month and need the practice again before heading to Maple Grove.

Sunday night I pack.

Monday, drop the Daytona off at the shop to get new gears installed in the driver's window. Then head to work, then leave after lunch to head to the airport. Flying to MN for a press check and Supplier Assessment (Don't ask. It'll only make your brain hurt.). Fly back Tuesday evening and get home @ midnight.

Wed. a.m. - repack.

Wed a.m., part 2 - work. Then head to machanic to pay bill and transfer items for Maple Grove. Then drive home and park the Alero. Walk back down to the mechanic (2.5 miles) to pick the Daytona up from the shop and then drive out to PA to check into the hotel.

Thurs. & Fri. - 2 Time Trials each day at Maple Grove for the NHRA Division 1 ET Bracket Finals (am racing in the Street ET class as part of Team RP).

Sat. - Eliminations

Sunday - head home.

It's got L-O-N-G week written all over it.

correction to sunday - englishtown swap meet

[Daytona]

Nope. F--- the swap meet. Nothing I need there for either car since nothing's ever there for either car. Plus, don't feel like dealing with the crowds and stupid gawkers after dealing with semi-professionals for 3+ days. Going home.

[01silveralero]

Originally Posted by Daytona

Nope. F--- the swap meet. Nothing I need there for either car since nothing's ever there for either car. Plus, don't feel like dealing with the crowds and stupid gawkers after dealing with semi-professionals for 3+ days. Going home.

hey whatever man

[Daytona]

^Nothing personal, dude. It's just a lot of "been there done that" that I'm not in the mood to repeat. And the event has gone steadily downhill for most of the past 15 years.

As for yesterday, lost in the Semis thanks to an .020 red light. Got $50 and a trophy for my troubles. Winning that round would have guaranteed me at least $125 in the Finals, & $250 if I had won that round. Still, the car's dialed and I've gotten a little tighter on the tree (.005, .007, .035) just in time for Maple Grove.

[Daytona]

The Bracket Finals blew chunks! Got home yesterday evening - FAR EARLIER than I had wanted to be able to be home, if you know what I mean.

Wednesday P.M. - picked up the car from the shop. They replaced the entire exhaust behind the cat but still never got the driver's window gear strip in so I had to go through tolls by opening the car door instead of rolling down the window. Had to get my time slips like that, too, all weekend. PITA! Got to the hotel and half the stuff in my room was disconnected, unplugged, or missing. I had the Asst Mgr in my room several times to straighten things out. Plus, how many tables and chairs did they think could actually fit in my room?!?!?!?! I barely had room to move around. Corporate is going to be getting a nice little letter from me.

Thursday - weather sucked (rainy and hot) and everyone was way slow, though I still had great 60-fts. What sucked worse were the Google Maps direction to the hotel and the track. And 1 wrong move on those hilly turns would knock you off the road and into a ditch or corn field instantly. Got 1 time shot @ 9:30am and the 2nd one @ 5pm (and I thought RP runs slow!). -.005 red right lane and then an -.015 red left lane as I wasn't used to their track and tree position. Stayed past 10pm to help a buddy run 2nd round with his dragster.

Friday - Air was much better and I cut .025 first time shot in right lane @ 8:45am and was paying more attention to my RPM's second time in left so my light was only .125. Cut my quickest .60' time in YEARS on that 2nd run. Again stayed well past 10pm until Mike ran his 2nd shot. They still had much of Super Pro and all of Bikes/Sleds to run that night. Literally almost every 3rd run right lane would go red and we all thought it was a weird fluke and left lane rarely went red. Now that I think about it in hindsight I think those lights are either spaced together slightly differently than Left or they cycle at a different (slower) pace those last 2 ambers because....

Saturday - I get called in for first round by 8:45am. The air was much better than yesterday. I took right lane as I liked it better there than left, totally disregarding everyone's red lights from the day before since I cut a good .025 green then. I figured the car would pick up 0.05 seconds and dialed down acordingly. At the last moment the father of our Team Captain came over and said that everyone ahead of me was going a full tenth quicker from yesterday and tried to convince me to change. I dialed down an extra .02 to a total .07 under yesterday afternoon's run, knowing she wasn't going to pick up a full tenth.

I had been told about Maple Grove has an obvious bias towards their own racers and what they will do to screw with others there at the starting line to the benefit of their own guys. And they also hate drivers that Deep Stage (which I do). NHRA ran the show but MG employees manned the starting line. They started mopping up in front of me when I pulled around the water box (I dry-hop before staging). No big deal, I thought, since they'll do that occassionally after a car leaves and maybe dragged too much water out of the box on their burnout. My opponent was from Cecil County so I didn't think there was any fix going on.... until he was allowed to do his full burnout and was almost staged and I was still being held back while the MG guys slow mopped around. This is exactly what I was warned that they sometimes do, especially when that person is racing one of their own. Pissed, I did my dry burnout anyway and startled the guys since I pulled up inches from them and began reving my engine for another dry-hop. They eventually moved out of my way and I rushed in and staged. Don't know if that threw me off my mindset but...

I got the tree first and ended up RED! MOTHERF-CKER!!!!!! Way Red! In the Right Lane! After that BS with the mops! He went -.004 red, too, but it didn't matter at that point. Flat out my car ran 0.014 slower than my dial (0.006 quicker than my original dial) and he ran .05 or .06 slower than his dial. I could have easily have won that race had I not f-cked up and given it to him! I had never before lost 1st round at the Finals. My day was over by 9am.

I hate to use excuses as to why I lost because ultimately it's my responsibility to cut a good light and my fault when I don't, but the circumstances didn't help matters. My rollout might have also been affected (reduced) when I re-equalized the tire pressures on all 4 tires a few weeks back, effectively making my RT's a little tighter than before (which would help explain last weekend's RT's relative to the previous month's Points races). I'll have to take a few pounds out of the fronts next time to give myself more rollout and soften my tree alittle back to where it had been.

Jim Shreiner, our track's #3 guy in Super Pro who rarely ever goes red, cut a red twice as bad as mine 1st round in (you guessed it) the right lane so I didn't feel as bad, but still felt crappy. Mike, #10 in Super, was going to set his dial to 8.27 but was talked out of it and left it at 8.28. He runs alcohol which is affected less by weather changes than gas engines. He ran 8.279 on an 8.28 and broke out (yes, he ran left lane). Then my other buddy Doug lost 2nd round in Street and at that point I helped him and Mike pack their trucks and we all left, seeing as how our track as a whole was doing unusually poorly and had no shot now at winning the Team Championship.

Drove the 2 hours back to Jersey & got home at 6:45pm. Went to sleep 2 hours later (had been up by 5:30am every morning out there).

[Daytona]

...still pissed off about the weekend.... ...at least there's this Saturday's NHRA Sport Compact race to help ease the pain.

[01silveralero]

Originally Posted by Daytona

...still pissed off about the weekend.... ...at least there's this Saturday's NHRA Sport Compact race to help ease the pain.

u miss a great time at englishtown

[Daytona]

^No I didn't. Been going there since '87 and even worked there for a few years back in '91-94 when I worked for the track. Hasn't been worth my while in several years.