tintedpane.com

Took my car to Texas Motorplex tonight. First time at the track. I’m sure most of you know what they do at drag strips — run quarter miles, where cars start from a dead stop and accelerate until 1320 feet later. The elapsed time and speed at that point is recorded.

So being my first time, John kindly walked me through the procedures: Don’t go through the water — it’s for people running with slicks, inch the car forward until both staging lights are on (this means you exactly at the right position — not too far forward or back), try to get to the staging area first, take a few breaths and rev to a good speed and get ready to dump the clutch when the light turns green. Plus a bunch of other stuff concerning first time jitters resulting in revving too high and just sitting there with the wheels spinning.

To get to the meat of it, I think I did ok. John ran my car first (stupid technicality*) and got 17.450sec @ 77.59MPH. He managed to break traction in first and second gear. Usually I break it in first but never second. Anyways, my first run I got 17.612sec @ 77.80MPH. Not bad, I think. The second time I did much better: 17.475sec @ 78.43MPH. I’m pretty pleased with it as it’s 25 thousandths of a second within John’s time. And John is probably the most competent driver in our group at the drag strips, usually beating or breaking even with people in their own cars. (that sentence took a long time to formulate…)

Here’s a pic of the slips:

I also got a pretty good shot of Shahab’s Type R:

The rest of the photos are in the gallery. IM me for the link.

* I was wearing shorts in my first run but they saw me and wouldn’t let me run so I let John have a go. Note to self: Wear pants at driving events.