Not a good day racing...

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MB43

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Man, oh man, did I suck bad yesterday.

The first time run, the motor was cold (< 160 degrees)... It bogged and almost stalled during the burnout, then bogged off the line. 60 foot was off, ET was off. MPH was down too.

Then somebody oiled down the track, so they cancelled the 2nd time run for the Super class. It took about an hour to clean up, by the time they were done they cancelled the 2nd time run for the Heavy class (mine).

A few hours later they call Heavy for 1st round. I jump in the car, turn on the ignition and hit the start switch. NOTHING. No click, no crank, no nothing. The voltage meter didn't budge, so it wasn't even trying to start. ARGH. So I rip off the hood and use the old screwdriver trick. Fired right up. Terrific. I roll up to the staging lanes and shut it off. Turn it right back on to see if it'll start, it does. Excellent.

We sit there for half an hour or so, finally we start rolling. I jump in the car to start it up. NOTHING again. No click, no crank. ARGGGHHHH! Good thing I brought my screwdriver!

Normally I move up a bit and shut the car off to keep it cool. I can't do that this time, since I don't know if it'll start up again. By the time I get up to the line the motor is at 190. This car seems to run best if I stage at 180. Normally it's 170 when I pull through the water and gets to 180 after the burnout. Now it's 190 before I even get through to the water. It's 200 by the time I stage. The worst part is out of the 200 cars in my class, I get paired up with a buddy of mine. I've got a 3-1 record against him, though, so I'm pretty confident I can beat him.

My RT sucked, and my ET was 3 tenths off my time run. Of course, I lost. The day's numbers were so bad that I'm not even going to post them!

When I got home I took a look at the video from the in-car camera. The first run was ok. I took some video of another buddy's car in the Super class, that one came out ok too. When I put the camera back in the car for my eliminations run I must've forgot to re-set the zoom. So I've got a really large view of the car in front of me at the beginning of the video, and then an out-of-focus mess for the rest of the run.

Then 3 hours to get home. ARRRGGGHHHH!

:vom: :boxing: :violent1:
 
onehellofadart said:
bad day at the track makes for a long quiet ride home.
Yes.

The BQE was backed up from the exit on 287 all the way to the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. That part of the ride took about an hour. That totally sucked.
 
onehellofadart said:
ive had long waits at island in nj. waited for bikes and jr drags, 2 hours, that sucked.

The nice thing is E-town has an 1/8 track as well, the Jr's race on there. And yesterday was "Yamaha Fun Day", most of the bikes were on the little track as well.

How is Island? We were talking about going there this coming Saturday.
 
onehellofadart said:
ive had long waits at island in nj. waited for bikes and jr drags, 2 hours, that sucked.
I never had long waits at Island, (except to get in)... If I am tuning, I go there on a Sunday. I can get a lot of runs in. Last year my traction problems seemed to get worse there, I haven't been there this year. I have never been there on a normal race day. It is a little over two hours from me, except for the Friday I went for Street night, that added 45 minutes to the trip. Lebanon Valley is a little less than two hours from me. Englishtown is farther than both of them and it takes a long time to get runs in. The only other track I have raced at is Orlando Speedworld when I was in school in Daytona, in 1983.
 
Island is a good track. They say it has a short shut down area, but i think under 10secs have a prob only. Usually as Walter said they don't have many cars on Sundays, I've only been on Sundays, (test and tune). Reality is its not pretty. E-Town is comparable too say Yankee Stadium, Island is like a Little Leage field somewhere in the boonies. Mostly grassy areas too work on car, not too much black top. Also their claim too fame is tech inspections are not too tough.
 
onehellofadart said:
Reality is its not pretty. E-Town is comparable too say Yankee Stadium, Island is like a Little League field somewhere in the boonies. Mostly grassy areas too work on car, not too much black top.
Good description. My wife and my mom ***** about the bleachers. I never use them. :wink:
 
I'm guessing they've never been out to the Long Island Motorsports Park.
 
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