Got my second win of the year at the Canadian Sport Compact Series opener. It was accompanied by a $200 check and a magnum size bottle of Champagne. http://www.cscs.ca

Sunday I got to the 3rd round of the Summit Series event against the V8's, lost on a .010 r/t to a .013 but I broke out by .037.

That was my 8th race of the year, so far 66 passes since 01 May 05 (155 last year). 13 Races left so I am keeping my fingers crossed that all will hold together for the season. I am going to try for an 11 sec pass near the end of the season before my lease expires in Oct.

No new times the 24.5 slicks didn't change my 60' but I have dropped about .1-.15 but for my purpose (bracket racing) it does give a bit more traction so times are more consistent. I ran 4 13.7's in the time trials with a head wind and normally I am all over the map during time trials.



This weekend I am going to an event in our far north which has a purse of $2000 for each day (sat/sun) in my class so should be interesting. http://dragrace.www.ontera.net/index2.htm

Going to try out something different for the rear suspension. This is guaranteed to stiffen up your butt. Those are 4" boat rollers which hold the struts at full extension which will sit the rear up and prevent pretty much any weight transfer. Its just an experiment, may or may not work.



My lastest invention is a Power/Water/Air station for the pits at the track.



Its really a joke but gets lots of attention.

 

I think it's a good thing that you went with 24.5s. Consistancy is I was one of the only manual cars competing last weekend, almost all automatics.

You were right about slicks. They are the only way to go to be consistant.

 

Do you still have the 22s or 23s you were using before? Have you figured out how these are going to affect your gearing when you are shooting for 11s later in the year? More consistency is obviously good for your bracket events but when you are going for a pb it might be a different story.

 

The pb is secondary right now with 22 races this year on my plate its pretty hectic. Really though I think the 24.5's may be better with high levels of spray because I can come out of the hole with a bigger shot, I was only able to use a 50 shot with the 22's on the 3.5. With the 3.0 I could use a 150 and still maintain traction, that the difference between them.

Actually I traded the old 22's for a set of BFG's with only 7 runs on them just for a street legal race if I happen to run into one.

 

Awesome! Nice going!

Please keep us up to date on those 4" roller/spacers. GREAT idea. It seems like it will work if the springs fit ok in the perches.

 

Aaron, not using any springs they go on just the way they are. I have already driven around with them a bit on the street, pretty stiff. May try them this weekend if I get a chance at the track.

Do you have any type of et predicting software? Currently I am trying out Racelog Pro, I may have to buy it. Picked up a weather station last week so just playing with it so far. The guy I park beside with the v8's at the track uses it with excellent results. He now has a 8.4 sec dragster for his Son and he races the 10.0 sec chevyII in the same class. On Sunday they ran against each other in the 1/4 finals and Pop beat Son, was a good race though.

We are going together to the race I mentioned in the first post this weekend, their class pays $5k for 1st place each day so should be good. Not sure I have a chance at all in semi-pro but the street class on pays $300 so may as well go for the gusto. I said earlier the purse was $2k but thats the payout for 1st place. They have 5 races on this tour all the same payouts and I think I am going to hit 3 of them so I may get lucky.

 

What car are you getting to replace the max once the lease expires?

 

All I have now is CarTest2000, which is pretty nice, but it's not easy to get your car dialed in enough to calculate your ET accurately enough to use it while bracket racing. The traps are always optimistic and the 60' is optimistic too. I just can't get my car dialed in on that program. But it's nice when you want to calculate gear ratios and weather changes and stuff.

I've always kept a strict logbook and calculated the air density all through the night while racing. Then, I used the rule of thumb, "for every 500 feet, you lose a tenth". In my personal experience, I have found that it takes a 700 foot rise in DA to increase my ETs by one tenth. But that's all I do. I can usually get within 3 or 4 hundreds of my dial in if it's a decent night. Sometimes, I am all over the map and my times can vary by as much as a whole tenth. But my 60 foot has always been within 2 hundreds no matter what. If I launch without a chirp everytime, then it stays very consistant.

Other than paying attention to DA, I watch the wind a lot. If it has the chance of getting over 5-7mph, then I always pay attention to it. Most of the time, it was gusting in Las Vegas, so I couldn't accurately predict what it would do on every run.

Those boat rollers are hard core! I love the idea!

 

Probably an 03 or 04 depending on what kind of lease takeover I can get.

Aaron, I think I am going to get a Davis Pro weather station, it plugs into Racelog Pro 4. That is the setup my friend has and its super accurate with their 10 sec car. (within .003-4 most times) Not sure it will do the same for me, but lately I have been doing much better with the predicting.

Racelog give you all the times between 0-60, 60-330, 330-1/8, 1/8-1000 and 1000-1320 so you can determine where your discrepencies are and then just address that portion. Much easier than trying to do it from looking at the slip which just give totals for each. Check em out. http://www.ifamilysoftware.com/rlp.html

It will even tell you what ballast to add or subtract if you want to keep your times the same if you want to do it that way as well.

 

Crap, that is some expensive software! But it's much more accurate than trying to use CarTest2000 for predicting ETs. CarTest2000 is only really used to figure how your car will react on the track with changes to gearing, engine power, tires, weather, shift points, traction, transmission slippage, etc.

I doubt I will ever spend that kind of money of that software and a weather station. Instead, I use a digital thermometer and humidity gauge to show ambient temp. When all that information (and knowing the pressure), I can figure up DA while I'm at the track, then get a very good idea how my times will change from round to round. So, if I know the drop and rise in DA, then I can tell how my car will react on average to that change in weather.

A very strict logbook is definitely needed! I know some people enter all their times in a computer program at home and that would come in handy. But, I enter it once in my paper logbook and try to do the math in my head with the help of www.wunderground.com or Yahoo Weather and the DA calculator found at: http://www.wahiduddin.net/calc/calc_da.htm

 

I think I may be able to get the software from my friend. But still have to buy a weather station that is compatible or I have to enter it manually. Guess I'm just lazy. But with the amount of racing I do it would pay for itself very quickly if it works and would last for a number of years. (If I live that long).

Crazy I use that same (wahidunnin) place for the DA as well but I won't have to do that if I get this new setup. I have 3 2-day races coming up in the next month that pay $2k for 1st place each day in my class so I need something to give me a bit of an edge.