On Monday, September 22, 2003, at 07:22 AM, DAKSY wrote:
> I guess you'll hafta wait & see & do the write-up!
yup, looks like I'm stuck with that. it's random and of course
self-centered, but here:
so naturally this meet was mainly populated with Mopar Muscle. Darts,
'Cudas, SuperBees and the like. Probably half were trailered, and the
other half driven. there were about 6 other Dakotas there, none of
whom were DML members, and sadly none of whom seemed interested. Drags
were all bracket, divided into three classes: DOT, non-electric and
electric (huh?).
The guy I spent the most time talking to drove a Dak very similar to
mine - it was a black '97 SLT CC 4x4 318. he's done a dynomax cat back
(mine is a Magnaflow) and K&N FIPK (same), but no headers, programmer
or shift kit. the other main differences were a soft tonneau on his
versus my fiberglass topper, his overhead computer, and his buckets
versus my bench. He was also running 255/55-18 performance tires
versus my 30x9.5 a/t's.
the other two I talked to were r/ts. a red one of unknown vintage
owned by a guy named Phil, who brought his ~11 y/o granddaughter, who
loved it =) He was running pretty much all the bolt-ons: M1 intake,
ported TB, better injectors, mild cam, and long tube headers, and a
soft tonneau. He also had some big fat DOT slicks that looked damn
good, but still gave him some traction issues.
His pal had what phil said was an '04 r/t - in white - with some
pointless appearance mods (mild body kit, nonfunctional ram air hood,
small wing on the tailgate), and a cam, injectors, TB, heads, intake
and high-pro round air cleaner. He had some undersized DOT slicks on
17" steel rims (he couldn't find any 16" rims that fit over his brakes,
but he refused to trade rearends with me =( ). He had *major*
traction issues, and 60' times almost as bad as mine (his were ~2.5)
while running low 15s. the crowd appreciated his burnout efforts in a
big bad way though. you couldn't see his truck through the white tire
smoke - seriously.
The Daks I didn't talk to were a pair of relatively modded R/Ts (a
solar yella one and a graphite one), a blue Gen III Sport 2 wheeler
with nothing but a cam in his 4.7 running 15.5s and a red trailer queen
Gen II running I-have-no-idea-whats, but it shoulda been quick.
The other guy I did talk to was there test-and-tuning his turbo FWD
somethingorother (Daytona?, which he'd pulled behind his MotorSports
edition Dak. I want those rims =) He got the truck down to mid 14s
and got bored with it, so started toying with front wheel drives.
the black 97's first trips down the strip (he was a first timer just
like me) were a hair over 17, but at my prompting to let the trans
shift for itself he dropped down to 16.7 on his third time trial run,
which is where I was from the get-go.
I only got two time trial runs, both with utter crap rts (.8 and .9
something), and 16.7 ETs at a hair over 80. I dialed in at 16.5 (I'd
had not enough revs at takeoff on the first run, and traction trouble
on the second, along with bad RTs, so I was afraid I might break out of
the 16.65 I was also considering).
As it turns out, I was the very first DOT class elimination round. I
was up against a '69 Dart Swinger with a 340, dialed at 13.04. He ran
a 13.052 versus my 16.677 on a 16.50 dial. I'd have been damn close if
I'd gone for that 16.65 dial, and would have beat most every other
person in that first round, but not that Swinger. I also had a rather
nice light for a third-ever run: .574.
The other reason I can't feel too bad about that loss is that the Dart
went on to loose the DOT final by breaking out - he ran 13.07 on a
13.08 (first time he'd changed his dial) to his opponent's 11-something
spot-on run. Loosing to second place isn't too bad =)
Both the white and red r/ts made it to the second round (they were each
in different classes - the white one was a 'non-electric', the red a
DOT). the white one lost in the second round, and the red made it to
round three, only to break out. there turned out to be I think 4
rounds of both DOT and NE before round robbin constant-run Semis.
I was kinda disappointed that there wasn't a better truck showing, but
at least I got to see a 15.2 second Cummins 3/4 ton =) (eliminated 2nd
round)
The other notables there on the drag side of the fence were in the
'electric' class. two rail cars (an AMC powered low 9 and a hemi
powered high 8), a 9 second AMC Spirit and a low 9 Dodge Ram. The Ram
was I think a 60's model cab with a flare side bed running One Bigass
Hemi. His blower butterflies read "Yeah, it's a HEMI". He ran
consistent 9.07s and beat the chrysler rail in quarterfinals (9.07 on a
9.07 to ~9.10 on a 9.08. the ram was faster than the rail...) to loose
to the Spirit in semis. the AMC rail beat the Spirit an an AMC final
race. MegaDart was another very, very built green machine, running low
9s and sounding menacing, but I don't remember any notable specifics.
Only one real unfortunate break - a '71 superbee, kermit, broke a rear
u-joint on his first pass, without even getting off the line. it took
out the left side of his exhaust, too, but more unfortunate was that he
drove it up from CT. it was headed out on a private (red crewcab Ford)
flatbed (with about a 30' deck) when we were leaving.
There was only one Dak on the show field, and it wouldn't surprise me
if it was the "Ed Macken [who] works there as an EMT" that Bob
mentioned. It was a red club cab with lots of red split loom tubing
under the hood keeping it's supercharger company, and a dash completely
full of gauges. completely. like a dozen lined up all the way to the
passenger A pillar. which just reminds me that I didn't note where the
passenger airbag fit into the equation. The reason that I expect this
to have been Ed's truck were the highway worker's vests on all the seat
backs, a set of blue lights behind the grille and horns that looked
very much like sirens under the hood, along with a half dozen radios
cozied up to the dozen switch panel in the center console. I really
want to know how he remembers what does what there, since I didn't see
any labels.
Another amusing highlight was that Anne jumped *every time* something
unmuffled started up near her, which I thought was pretty funny =) I
just reveled in the sounds and smells <g>
I'd really recommend that anyone who likes cars head to a meet like
this, or just hit your local drag strip some weekend (harder than it
used to be...). Even if you don't plan to race your first time, enter
your truck so you get a pit pass and can go hang out with the Really
Nifty People who are also there, and get pointers for your first time
down the track. I'd also have to recommend going test and tune for
your first time, since chances are you won't get enough prequals to
establish a baseline worth much of anything, and you'll get a lot more
runs down the track in T&T. I'd have had at least 5 or 6 had I been
T&T, but as it was I got 3. don't count on the folks letting you in
for a guideline on that, either - these girls guided me wrong. oh well
- not a big deal. I still had an absolute blast.
I think that's about all I remember, so I'll call this diatribe quite
enough. I'd like to be able to include a link to results or anything
like that, but the most recent stats on their page are from the end of
august, and I'm not sure they'll post anything for a non-points race
with fscked up classes anyway. if they do it would be
here.<http://dragway.com/pagekeep/results.html>
-- Michael Maskalans '98 Dakota SLT CC 4x4 318 details here: <http://mike.tepidcola.com/dak.html> mobile.612.618.4652 campus.585.274.2246 fax.954.697.0487
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