So I went to the friday night street drags in Calgary here hoping to get a couple runs in with my car to see how the new tuner from Brenspeed has paid off (if at all). I get there at 6:30 expecting 20-30 cars and I'm welcomed to like a 100 of them! This is really unusual to say the least. I schlep up to the front of tech only to hear about 5 cars from the head of the line that they are short helmets and maybe you should see if you can borrow someone elses. Thankfully I saw another guy I met last year at the drags and car shows and he had a helmet, they almost turn me away as it's a bit old but I guess they said as long as it's not a 9 second car it's OK, umm yeah we're OK there buddy. So I have to wait for my friend to clear tech and then he lines up. Well they get about 4 runs in and some twit in an Acura Integra (a whole lot of first timers out that night) decides that a mashed throttle and dumped clutch would be a great way to launch, that may have been the case but his blown tranny and fluid a third the way up the track would attest to the case that it was not a good strategy. So we have to wait over half an hour for that to be cleaned up, then they start running again and some other rookies who were learning how to stage forced a reset of the lights, 5 minutes go by and I look back to see some 90 other cars had lined up behind the guy I'm borrowing the helmet from so I decide to get in line, no worries about not having enough time to get the helmet to me. So far I've been at the track over 2 hours and the only thing I was able to do was detail my engine bay while I was in the lineup for tech. Anyways I get in line, they are moving through the cars pretty quickly, the lines are still long though and it's an hour before I see the front of the staging area. I'm 4 cars from going to so I stuff my head into my buddies helmet (way too small and claustrophobic) and get ready. What's that? Another honda blew his tranny on the starting line? Get out! He manages to man up and limp to the 3/4 mark of the track and was nice enough to keep his tranny fluid to himself but we gotta wait for the flatbed to go extricate him from the track. Great only another 10 minutes, what's that when you've been waiting 3 hours? Watching the next few people go and fumble with the staging lights is torturous, in the mean time a kid in a 07 Charger SRT8 asks if I want to race (he's right next to me). I'm like sure, you'll probably kill me but whatever. So my turn comes up, we finally get to go! Yay! I disable traction control, turn O/D off and wheel around the water. Surprisingly it looks like the Charger does too, oh great he knows something. I pull up and shallow stage and quickly hop on the brack and flash the converter up (so does the charger). You have to do this really quick as they don't give you any time to set up at the tree. Thankfully I hadn't lost my routine since last summer and I am good to go, jam the throttle at the third yellow and launch really hard (Thanks Brenspeed!). Only a little tirespin and I shoot out of the gate, bang second, bark the tires a little and then the car is just sailing, I'm expecting to see the charger pull by at any moment but no sight of him, the tranny is shifting hard and fast like I've never felt it before, she's pretty happy to finally be going. I fly through the traps at the end with no sign of the charger to my left, he finishes a car length back! I don't know what happened to him as he didn't seem to be blowing off his tires on the line. I did beat him out of the hole by 2 tenths (I cut a .3 he cut a .5) but that doesn't account for it. My other friend was in the stands watching and the spectators were all writing me off saying I was done against the SRT8, I guess I showed them. He said when I left the line you couldn't tell when I shifted it was just one continuous tear down the track. I have to say, that Brenspeed 91 Octane tune is the cats ass for automatics! Anyways, the info. R/T - .325 60' - (Left lane wasn't recording it properly) 330 - 6.210 1/8th - 9.361 1/8th MPH - 78.36 1000' - 12.066 1/4 - 14.344 MPH - 98.59 What's great is that all the #'s are a full 10th better than my best run with nothing changed other than the Diablo tuner last year, it's even .5MPH faster than my one fluke run last summer when I was averaging 97MPH and had an aberration with a 98.3MPH. I had better #'s than the Charger at every point except MPH at the 1/8th, he edged me 78.65 to my .36. His final 1/4 mile ET was 14.912 @ 95.16 Keep in mind this is at 3500 ft and the air here is really bad so the density altitude can be much higher. I plan to buy a weather station to get better conversion #'s. Converted for sea level using 3500ft as my # the #'s are around 13.7 @ 103MPH. Anyways these were my single best times I've ever gotten and always with a full load. My fat ass at 220#'s, floor mats, spare tire and a 1/4 tank of gas. Needless to say I'm pleased with the run. I never did get another one in, by the time I was done the lineup was 100 deep again and I didn't want to wait yet another hour to run and my friend needed his helmet back as he was running once more then heading out. I'll get there earlier next time and finally get around to buying my own helmet if this is how it's going to be this year. Usually on a really busy night there are 100-110 cars, this night they had 194! It's possible it wasn't an SRT8 but I'll count it as an SRT8 kill. It looked exactly like this and my buddy and I walked through the staging lanes after dropping off my friends helmet and found the car again and it did have the SRT8 badges like I recalled from the wait earlier.
Congrats on your sweet run...once you got there! Also on the SRT8 kill...whatever the case, a kill is a kill. Sounds like you need a better track or better time slot to hit. Is there a Mustang club in your area? I know the one I'm in here in Virginia, rents out a NHRA track one Sunday a month. A few weeks ago when I went there about 50 Stangs and a few invited other makes(knew club members)showed up. I ran 6 times in a matter of 30 minutes total. I was hesitant of getting the auto last year as all the manuals in any color I could've stomached were gone. After ordering some goodies from Brenspeed and installing the 4.10s, I love this car! Just point and shoot! Yeah I miss being able to rev it up right before I go as 2 of my 3 previous Stangs, but it is much more fun than any of them put together!
Yeah I don't think the Mustang club has done any track days at all. It's weird though, in previous years it was no big thing to get 3-4 runs in easy. In fact the two times I was out last year I had 5 and 7 and could of had more, just decided to head home. Once a few years back I had 9! It was a really nice day and I'm sure a lot of it was lets get out and have some fun, the #'s will probably drop off a bit over the next couple weeks as people head on vacations and stuff. I'll just make sure to have my own helmet for next time and get there when the gates open so I can be ready to go ASAP, I am usually pretty near the front when they finally start letting cars run. If I had a helmet I could have gotten in 2 minimum without having to wait too long (outside of breakages and what not).
