Finally have my breath long enough (ish) to do a writeup and process photos.
We left the fuel setup from Houston in the car but changed pulleys from a 54 to a 53 to make up for atmospheric losses. Left the same launch control profile in the ignition as well, and went 3.94 off the trailer. A decent hit, quicker than we expected. The track indicated to me that it would hold alot more.
So I fed it alot more in the launch control for Q2. Not quite the kitchen sink, but something that was safe-yet-aggressive. We rolled a little bit of timing into it, and went 3.92. The track had ALOT of grip in it, not enough to upset the tire, but plenty to take a little more.
Several other cars took the launch control all the way out, and subsequently smoked the tires. I threw a lot more at ours, and I wasn't really sure if it would hold or not after watching the smokeshow, but I was confident that it wouldn't smoke the tires. Sure enough, it slowed down a bit on the 60', but the extra wheelspeed picked up at the other end to do 3.90.
We got home around 3AM, I went to bed around 4 and got up at 1. We left the house at 2, got to the track at 3, and did a full service on the car before Q4. I went up and walked the track several times - before any prep was done, after they scraped it, and again after they sprayed. I was really skeptical initially given the 136 degree track temp and softened launch control setting to the Q2 level, but once they scraped and sprayed it, dad and I decided to throw the Q3 setup at it - knowing it would stick in E1 once the sun went down. So I put the Q3 launch control profile in and dad and I both prepared for it to smoke the tires - I moved the over-rev control RPM down from 8400 to 8200 (we launch at 3300 and shift at 8000, with high-limiter of 8600). It definitely slid the tire hard and killed the 60', but at least it stayed hooked up and gave us data.
At that point, E1 was a guessing game. We dialed what it ran in Q2, figuring the air and track were fairly similar. WRONG. Luckily the driver in the other lane red-lit, dad was able to send it out the back door to a 3.90.
And we stuck with that number the rest of the night. Round 2 was fundamentally a Top Alcohol Dragster that was slowed down to get under our 3.66 field cap, running 3.70's - spotting most of the field by over a tenth and 10 MPH. The driver in the other lane, being unable to see over the sidepanels, was going to go out the back door, and dialed what they ran in E1. So dad prepared to drop if she was ahead significantly. It was a close race, dad stayed with it to go dead-on while she went 2 hundredths too fast.
That put us in round 3. We stuck with the 3.90 dial going out the back door and had to run our friend Rusty Baxter. He's usually pretty good on the tree and runs the number, so we knew we had to match his run. Dad had a great light, and the car actually slowed down for an unknown reason. Unfortunately, the onboard data recorder activated too soon, so I lost all the data after the shift. Running the timeslip numbers, I knew it slowed in the backhalf.
For the final, we had the guy parked next to us, ironically. He's a big hitter, too - John Biagi. He'd been running 4.00's all day with great lights. We rolled some base timing into our car to try and get back to the 3.90 dial. Dad had his worse light of the day, but so did John - which saved us as the car slowed to a 3.91 once again - and he broke out trying to get there after being late at the tree.
There was one crash on Friday night, when Jonathan Johnson had no parachutes and panic-braked, pitching the car sideways and into the wall head-on. He was okay.
Tap to view!
photos.app.goo.gl
Tap to view!
photos.app.goo.gl
Tap to view!
photos.app.goo.gl
Tap to view!
photos.app.goo.gl
Tap to view!
photos.app.goo.gl
Tap to view!
photos.app.goo.gl
Tap to view!
photos.app.goo.gl
Tap to view!
photos.app.goo.gl
Tap to view!
photos.app.goo.gl
Tap to view!
photos.app.goo.gl
dragchamp.com
