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The temperature was about 55 degrees today at about 2400 feet elevation. I was running Shell 91 octane.
Both of my runs were launched at 3000 RPM and with all nannies off.
The first run, had a strange feel. It seemed as if the traction control were turned on. There was kind of a shudder (I'm not certain that is the right word) all through first gear. I also ran up to the rev limiter (unintended). Then no problem. Maybe that "shudder" was the wheels hopping, but still getting some traction.
I was surprised my ET 14.270 and speed 101.91 mph were as good as they were (about what I thought I might get if I had a better launch than I did) since I don't street race, and this was my first time at the drag strip as a driver.
The second run, at the line, I didn't keep my foot on the brake, so I rolled back slightly as I revved the engine to 3000 and kept it there. My staging light went out and my pre-stage light was on. No red light. So I was slow to react (momentarily not certain what I was to do), but I went on the green. Still a very slow reaction time (although a lot of people had 2.5 seconds and thereabout). I think 1.313 was actually not much worse than average today. It seemed that most anybody that had a reaction time less than .6 was red-lighted at -.13, etc. With an ET of 15.561 and 99.96 mph I was disappointed. A lot of cars that ran in the 12s were at about the same trap speed.
On this second run, I had no traction through first gear, no traction through second gear, and no traction through part of third gear. I hadn't really expected that (since my first run was a whole different feel), but I wanted to see what would happen if I kept my foot in it again.
The left lane may have been slicker than the right lane too. That would explain why when I pulled in to the left lane, there were far fewer cars lining up for the left than for the right. Maybe they new something I didn't about lane choice today.
It's a good thing for everybody it was test and tune. Some of the pro-bracket cars didn't even keep on it after the 1/8th mile even though at this point, we were running 1/4 mile. Apparently working on their launch technique?
It was a lot of fun. This was the first test and tune event of three scheduled for this spring. I might go next Saturday. If I go, I will be certain to show up at the start of the event, since I missed two 1/8 mile runs.
OT: I tried to turn off my DRLs. The switch in the off position still left the lights on. I could not get them to go off. What's with that? I think today was the first time I had tried to turn them off.
[scottwww logged in on tracie's account]
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