I skipped yesterday's TMP points race #11 to race in the Grand Bend
Mopar day, especially with the Dakotas. Last year, the R/Ts went
into the Street class instead of the truck class so I went into Street
class (14 and up) yesterday. Guess what? The R/Ts went into
the Truck class :-( Hmmmm :-) Really didn't matter as Jim Knox
in his 91 4x4 took care of everything but I'll let him write in about
his race day. General observations are that the R/Ts were running
mid-15s all day :-(
In the three time trials, I ran 14.77@92.90, 14.58@94.99 and
14.55@94.91. Absolute barometric was 28.4", temps ranged
from 79 to 84F, humidity from 53 to 48%, winds light from every
direction (:-( ). The sun was just murder!
With a 14.55 dial, I was matched against a supercharged Dakota
with a 13.64 dial in elimination round 1. He also entered into
the Truck class as well. WHOA! Both Street and Truck classes
are 14 and up. How can someone be allowed a faster dial than
14.00? He had lane choice and put me in the left lane. As it
turned out, he got me at the lights with a .610 to my .630 (no
reds in this round!). At the 1/8th, I picked him up in my mirror
and thought that he was farther back than I would have thought.
At the 1000' mark, he was closing but I didn't think fast enough :-)
Turned out that he could not catch me as I crossed with a
14.57@94.34 to his 13.76@98.34 for a MOV of .0829:-)
I was planning on saying something to the track officials but I think
a Truck class racer beat me to the punch when the Dak racer
hurried back for the Truck class. The announcer finally made
an announcement that all Street and Truck racers could not
put up a dial lower than 14.00. It turned out that Grand Bend
was this guy's regular track and he had won the Street Class
Championship last year! Take that :-)
In round 2, I wasted a perfect, shallow stage and bulbed with
a .488 :-( My opponent was in a late 80 or early 90 Daytona
with a 16.00 dial. Rather than run full out all the way (my 1000'
time showed that I was on track for a 14.56ish run), I decided
to practice driving the line. I eased off the pedal and held it there,
coasted across the line just ahead of him with a 14.74@85.91
to his 16.001@85.47. Would have been hard to beat someone
1/1000 over his dial unless I cut a far better light than he did!
Felt really good racing with mopars!
Bob
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 06 2004 - 11:46:35 EST