race report 6-21-13 another very good night
I’ve gotta say I’m a bit blown away by how good this racing season has gone so far. Everything seems to be going my way at this time. The car is hooking hard, running great and very consistently with no breakage to speak of. The driver is hammering the tree and actually making the right calls at the stripe. It’s been magic so far with 7 trips to the track resulting in bringing home the gold 4 times! Four wins is the most I’ve ever had in an entire year and there’s still 4 months to go in this one. I’m even the points leader by a fair margin. Magic I tell you! I intend to fully enjoy it while it lasts as I’m aware it could go south at any time.
After having very short fields in our class most weeks we finally had a good turnout last night with 13 cars entered in street stick. The regulars were me, Dennis, Chris and last year’s champion Brandon who was making only his second appearance this year. We asked him where he’s been and he said he just bought a house and has been very busy. We need to talk to that guy about priorities.
The other 9 cars were guys we didn’t know. Some seemed to be complete noobs, but a few had stickers from other tracks on their cars, and were driving cars that looked like race cars. I think some of those more experienced guys were thrown off by the pro tree though as their lights were not so good.
We got 4 time trials and I was planning to dial 11.91, same as I’ve started with the last two times out till the last trial when I ran 11.85. I wanted to stay with my “dial hard and run it out” strategy so I put 11.85 on the window to start eliminations.
I only have one decent video from time trials but it illustrates a point I think. Notice how late the other guy is in leaving the line? That’s a killer when eliminations roll around.
http://youtu.be/5NVCuHbjFzg?t=34s
We regulars usually try to avoid running each other in the first round with a big field, preferring to “thin the herd” first and knock each other out later, but the lanes were kind of a mess first round and Dennis wound up matched with Brandon while Chris and I did each get a noob. Brandon showed he was a bit rusty as Dennis took him out easily. In a big upset Chris lost to his noob when he had trouble with his line lock and wound up red lighting.
As for me I got an obvious noob who was dialed at 14.40. I never have as good a light when I’m chasing, and I didn’t have a particularly good one here, but his was positively horrid (.608), and he ran well off his dial. Anytime you give a 3+ second head start to the opponent and still catch him before the 1/8, well it just doesn’t get much easier than that. I just coasted to about as easy a win as you can get.
With round one over Dennis and I discussed strategy for the rest of the night. Seven cars were left and Dennis had the bye rights in round two. Only Dennis and I were left of the regulars so we looked ahead a bit. With the bye we knew Dennis would advance and went ahead and assumed I would also. That would leave the two of us and two “irregulars” in the third round. We decided that when third round was called Dennis would go over immediately and try to line up with one of them while I’d dilly dally a bit hoping to get the other. Then if we both won, it would be Dennis and I in the finals.
Second round I get matched with a 2000? Camaro, a car I knew nothing about. I looked for his dial so I’d know if I was going first or not and was amazed to see he was dialed at 11.40. Appearances are indeed deceiving sometimes as I would have pegged this car as a 14 second ride as it looked to be bone stock, even down to the tires. Of course I knew something was up and assumed a power adder was involved, which meant I could expect him to close real fast at the end. This race was won at the tree as my .044 was too much for his slow .311. With his tires he also had a crappy 60’, but once he got going it was hold on time! I looked for him at the 1/8 and he was way back, but I stayed hard on the gas, and sure enough as the stripe came up he was really gaining. Still I felt I had enough margin to tap the brakes, and crossed first by about 8 ft. His car that didn’t look like it could cover the 11.40 dial had run 11.29 @ 133! Definitely a sleeper.
Third round went exactly as we’d planned. Dennis hurried over and lined up with a guy in a white Mustang while I got the other kid. Dennis took care of business and so did I. My run was another real easy one where I braked early with a big lead due to a huge advantage at the tree. It shows how important the tree is that this was the second round where I got the stripe without breaking out while my opponent did run under and still couldn’t beat me to the stripe. Most races are won or lost at the very start.
So now for a little while Dennis was no longer my friend, instead he was the guy I wanted to put on the trailer. We discussed lane choice as there had been several oil downs throughout the night, all in the left lane. Dennis didn’t really want the “greasy lane”, but that was fine with me as I usually prefer the left lane when I’m being chased. I can see the chaser better looking across the car than looking to my left.
Show time and once again the tree was the story. I had a decent .033 while Dennis napped with a .118, but I did get a bit of spin which made it real close. At the very end I felt a light brake tap was in order and for once I played the stripe game properly cutting the MOV to less than 4 ft.
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Thats getting it done...
Originally Posted by Hissing Cobra
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