Daytona and Onyx forced to do battle

[Redog]

That's right, Mitch and I drew each other in the 2nd round today.

Let me set the tone:

Englishtown, NJ
Temp: about 100*
Humidty: high enough to sufficate you
UV index: My Pop Tarts cooked on the pass seat

Our buddy with the dragster went out first round due to a break out, so we lost the trailer to hide in before first round, and only 27 cars showed up in our class.

After weeks of severe traction issues, I finally get the Delta (Onyx) to hook up. The car gained 170 lbs from the last race day. I ran with a full tank of gas and my spare and jack.

My car was off by about .4 to .5 and Mitch's car was about the same. I cut a .019 light against this total douche in an 07 Mustang. He kept revving his motor all the way from the staging lane to the starting line. I won that by a double breakout. I ran a 15.979 on a 16.04 dial and he ran a 14.535 on a 14.98 dial. Mitch took it easy on the tree against his day racer and cut a .078 light and smoked him easy.

2nd round comes up and Mitch grabbed the ladder like he always does. I asked him who I had and he said "me". So we flip for lane choice and I win the flip. We both put "I'm with stupid" and an arrow pointing to the other lane on our back windows.

Mitch dials a 17.10 and I dial a 16.02 (I dialed a 15.99 at first, but switched it at the last minute because my engine temp increased a lot) We line up, Mitch goes, cutting an .018 light, and then I go and cut a .053, red

I caught up to him and passed him, he waved at me and I waved back. Mitch had his feet up and drinking a cup of coffee since his car was so slow. Mitch ran a 17.150 and I ran a 16.011. If I didn't redlight I probably would have tapped the brakes at the top end.

Before the 2md round was over, the track had a power failure, Mitch was staged for 3rd round and the track was shut down with the last 3 sets of "Street" class to run 2nd round.

I decided to run the road course with the Delta. I come back and Mitch was gone. I'll let him explain and read my other post about road racing the Delta

[Daytona]

You still have much to learn, Grasshopper, but you have done me proud.

Ken cut a great light 1st round, having listened to me about reading the tree and when to hit it. I knew he'd be a bit nervous when we got paired (I was too, a little bit, - what would I do if he beat me?!?!?). Losing lane choice wasn't preferable to me but I knew I had to hit him hard. If he cut a good light first round I figured there was a chance of him duplicating that in our match.

The guy I raced 1st round was a Points guy but not a very good one. I knew to not worry about hitting the tree hard against him so I purposefully went easy and cut my slow light. That resulted in the ladder pairing of Kenny and me. If the 1st rounder was anyone else, I would have gone harder on the tree and Ken would have ended up paired with somebody else for 2nd round. Oh well.

I, of course, got the head start and ripped as tight a light as I felt comfortable doing in that lane without chancing a red light. Turns out it was enough. By the time I looked up from the tree my win light was on, as Kenny had suffered from Premature Acceleration.

We were the 1st pair to run in our round. 2 pairs later there was a power failure which shut down everything for over an hour. By then time we got back running again, my car had completly cooled off.

3rd round I got Maffiore, a really tough old school racer, who was a point ahead of me in the standings. We were both going in deep and he rushed in first. That caused me to rush, too, and I realized that that's one of my weaknesses - rushing in to Deep Stage after someone else has already staged. I said to myself "You're rushing too much. Don't do that." But I did rush in and the brought the tree down on me almost immediately after I put the top bulb out. And the result?... Went red. He cut a decent 0.034 green and was .004 off his dial, so he would have been a tough win.

I, on the other hand, mis-estimated which way the car was going to be affected by the changing temps inside and outside. The air was still stifling, and I watched other cars go .05 slower than dial after the power was restored. So I up my dial by only .02, when in fact my trans temp cooled enough and the outside air was changing, too, and it resulted in me going almost .1 quicker instead. Didn't matter since I went red.

When Ken apparently came back to the strip to look for me, I was in the back of the pits getting the car reset for the drive home (replace the filters, reset tire pressures, wash the windows, etc). By the time I came back up to the lanes, Ken was gone. I didn't want to call him yet, in case he was still roadcoursing, so I waited a while.

And instead of me moving up in the standings with that 3rd round out, I went from a 2-way tie for 8th to a 3-way, though me and Jaqui still have an advantage over the other guy in the tie breaker. And I did take a little spacing away from some of the guys above me and put a little extra cushion between me and the others below me.

[lonnie]

Great story guys!

[CharleyO99Alero]

***

Nice day at the track for you guys.

I've not drag raced at a track for about 20 years now.


***

[Daytona]

^You gotta get back there. You may leave the track, but the track never leaves you.