My first attempt at an IHRA Ironman…..so close….

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flyfish

flyfish

C8H18+N2O = :-D
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One of my local tracks (Muncie Dragway) switched from NHRA to IHRA a couple years ago. I usually travel to any of the local tracks (besides my regular track) at least once a year to try for a Wally, so this time I made the nearly 2-hour trip for an Ironman.


I (the driver) was very consistent all day, driving both ends of the track well. Unfortunately, my new carb was NOT behaving itself. I thought I had fixed this a few weeks ago, but on occasion when I launch the car the carb would hesitate/cough for a spilt second at the hit of the throttle (probably a momentary lean condition at the hit). This caused some BAD reaction times, even when I knew that I left on time. Anytime your reaction time starts with a 0.1….well, yeah…..it’s rough. 4 out of my 8 trips down the ¼ mile it did this.


Long story short, I earned 2 bye runs over the course of the night (best RT from previous round gets the potential bye), but only got to use 1 of them in the Semi finals…which took me into the final round. I had to race a guy that I already beat in the second round (he double entered). He was dialed hard, I was dialed…. Creatively (even longer story involving bags of sand….), anyway, the carb hesitated at the hit, so I knew I was late. I had room to play (having planned for this) so I used as much room as possible to give the illusion that I was going to blow by him, then I jumped on the brake to possibly force a breakout….didn’t work. Found out after the fact that I was mathematically eliminated at the start due to the carb stumble.


Over all, a good night of racing. Left Muncie at 1am, got home at 3am….I’ll try again next year for that illusive Ironman.

I can post time slips in a bit if anyone is interested.....they are a bit ugly, lol.
 
flyfish said:
One of my local tracks (Muncie Dragway) switched from NHRA to IHRA a couple years ago. I usually travel to any of the local tracks (besides my regular track) at least once a year to try for a Wally, so this time I made the nearly 2-hour trip for an Ironman.


I (the driver) was very consistent all day, driving both ends of the track well. Unfortunately, my new carb was NOT behaving itself. I thought I had fixed this a few weeks ago, but on occasion when I launch the car the carb would hesitate/cough for a spilt second at the hit of the throttle (probably a momentary lean condition at the hit). This caused some BAD reaction times, even when I knew that I left on time. Anytime your reaction time starts with a 0.1….well, yeah…..it’s rough. 4 out of my 8 trips down the ¼ mile it did this.


Long story short, I earned 2 bye runs over the course of the night (best RT from previous round gets the potential bye), but only got to use 1 of them in the Semi finals…which took me into the final round. I had to race a guy that I already beat in the second round (he double entered). He was dialed hard, I was dialed…. Creatively (even longer story involving bags of sand….), anyway, the carb hesitated at the hit, so I knew I was late. I had room to play (having planned for this) so I used as much room as possible to give the illusion that I was going to blow by him, then I jumped on the brake to possibly force a breakout….didn’t work. Found out after the fact that I was mathematically eliminated at the start due to the carb stumble.


Over all, a good night of racing. Left Muncie at 1am, got home at 3am….I’ll try again next year for that illusive Ironman.

I can post time slips in a bit if anyone is interested.....they are a bit ugly, lol.
Click to expand...
I like time slips...:thumbsup:
 
Aside from the periodic stumble....... is it faster than the old carb?

Nice job of working with what you have to get into the finals.
 
Nice job.
I doubt that stumble though is effecting your reaction time at all. You are only moving several inches to break the beam.
It definitely will effect your 60 foot and consistency a bunch.
Nice job.
I got a win this weekend at Norwalk. Had been a while
 
PRH said:
Aside from the periodic stumble....... is it faster than the old carb?

Nice job of working with what you have to get into the finals.
Click to expand...
Not yet, unfortunately. I can fatten it up some....Current AFR is 0.86 lambda, I would like to get it closer to 0.77-0.80 lambda, which should make it a little quicker...but currently it runs exactly the same as the old carb (the one that I built).
 
B3422w5 said:
Nice job.
I doubt that stumble though is effecting your reaction time at all. You are only moving several inches to break the beam.
It definitely will effect your 60 foot and consistency a bunch.
Nice job.
I got a win this weekend at Norwalk. Had been a while
Click to expand...
Oh, it is effecting it, because it is right at the hit that it "hiccups" (for lack of a better describing word) for a split second...as the car transitions into forward motion.

Starting line was sketchy due to who knows what, later in the race the 60' went down the drain.

You got a W at Monster Mopar? Nice!
 
flyfish said:
Oh, it is effecting it, because it is right at the hit that it "hiccups" (for lack of a better describing word) for a split second...as the car transitions into forward motion.

Starting line was sketchy due to who knows what, later in the race the 60' went down the drain.

You got a W at Monster Mopar? Nice!
Click to expand...

Yea. It was cool. In fact a race i sponsor. In the final the guy wanted to chop the pot and i said no way, its my money.... lol
 
LOL, yea I was going to ask if it was the class you sponsor...was that 11.5 index?
 
Here are the slips….if the ET and MPH look funny, it is because I have not had time to order a new rev limiter chip, so my motor was smacking the limiter well before the finish line. My workaround for this was to lift at the 1000’ marker and coast the last 320’ (basically spot drop the car). The beautiful thing was, most of the guys in this class ran in the 12’s at about 108MPH. My drop at 1000’ made my car run about 10.70 at 108MPH, which gave the illusion that I was flying up on them…when in reality I was backing off. This made it easy to judge the stripe and decide if I wanted to take the stripe, or not….it also caused a lot of folks to breakout.

I’ll skip the time trials slips and start with Rd1.

Not much to say here…tree’d him, did the spot drop + a little more brake for good measure.

IMG_3704.JPG
 
Rd 2. Had the potential bye, didn't get it, had to race the guy that I later met in the final who double entered. He was red so I got a freebie to test my drop as the air get better (9:30pm).

IMG_3708.JPG
 
Rd 3...This was a gift....MAJOR hiccup at the start = really bad light. I drove hard past the 1000' marker to make it look like I was going to catch him, then dropped the anchor and let him have the stripe....got very lucky on this one.

IMG_3709.JPG
 
Rd4...car spun, had to play catch up...I did my drop a little late to make up some room and noticed he was out on me a bit, so I pulled in behind him for the W.

IMG_3711.JPG
 
Rd 5, bye run into the final...car hiccuped...I intentionally hit the tree hard enough that I should have been 0.00x or red...got a 0.066. I lifted after the 330' mark and took a stroll down the 1/4.

IMG_3713.JPG
 
Rd 6, final round...I already explained this mess in the beginning of the post, so here is the ugly end..... hiccup + spinning = bad 60', lol

IMG_3714.JPG
 
So I was just wondering and I'm not trying to be talking out of turn here, but what's the difference between what you are doing and what I hear people calling
"Sandbagging"?
 
Nothin ugly about it as long as you had fun!
 
j par said:
So I was just wondering and I'm not trying to be talking out of turn here, but what's the difference between what you are doing and what I hear people calling
"Sandbagging"?
Click to expand...
Nothing! He gently implied as such in his first post. (even longer story involving bags of sand….)

Great job flyfish!!!!!!!!!

Sandbagging take more skill then a car/person that run on his number every time(something we all wish would happen every time!)
I have lost more races sandbagging then i have one.
If you think sandbagging is a "bad word", then how about "driving the finish line":poke::D

All you racer out there, don't take offence. I'm just having a little fun.:thankyou:
 
I never understood bracket racing... hard to hit the brake pedal when you're leading.
 
j par said:
I was trying to Rattle him not you...
Click to expand...
LOL, I don't take offence. Like Cudafever said, "driving the finish line" is harder than dialing hard and running it out the back door. Its really easy to screw up when you add more variables. In Pro (the class I normally run), its 1/8 mile, and I normally dial it what it will run because at my local track I know the track prep is good (95% of the time). If I don't trust the track prep, or the car, or the driver (some days I can't hit the tree to save my life), that is when dialing a little soft is helpful...but it can easily cost me the race.
 
Hello flyfish, I also live in Indy, have never raced at Muncie, when I get the car back together I will try that one.
I have ran several times at Bunker Hill, its a little back woods, nothing like Lucas Oil, but also unlike Lucas, on Test and Tune
nights you can get multiple runs in without waiting hours.
 
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