2024 Drag Racing Stuff

[Basement Paul]

Wednesday, Wednesday, WEDNESDAY!!! Tonight is finally the first Wed night of the season at Kuhnle Motorsports Park. In a off season full of drama, at least they're open and the gates open at 5. I don't know much about the rest of the evening schedule or classifications, but I'll be there with bells on in the Corvette.

-BP

[TireSmoker]

I just pulled the Chevelle into the lift bay. It'll get an oil change over lunch today, because I spent too much time working on Maliboost last night.

Should be a good night, I've heard from a few friends who aren't regulars who are planning on going out tonight. I think Team Tiresmoke will be well represented too.

-Dave

[MostMint]

Gonna try and get there by 5 so I have a little time to reorient myself to this place. Have not been there since it became KMP.

Time for some baseline numbers and start learning how to drive this slick black Cadillac

[Basement Paul]

For those who weren't there last night, the new track management has a lot of work to do to get organized. Hopefully they can get it figured out over the next few weeks. There was just a lot of confusion and lack of preparation on their part. It was frustrating. That being said, it was fun hanging out with everyone and a shoutout to MostMint for making the drive from Wadsworth for that mess.
Despite them switching to 1/8 mile for eliminations I was able to go three rounds in stock class, but the left lane was just completely terrible and I spun to a loss. The Corvette doesn't spin that much on the street...

Here's a few pictures of non-race action since there was time.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

I also forgot to mention, that despite the rather bad air quality, there was a decent tailwind, and I was able to get my best ET in time runs at 13.66 and my best 60' at 1.80. The car is dead consistent with even decent traction. Three time runs at 1/4 mile were 13.68, 13.68, and 13.66. This is the new torque converter doing it's job. With decent air I suspect it will touch the 50's.

-BP

[wxo]

I assume you were running with traction control off. I was wondering if there is any benefit to using it at the strip.

[MostMint]

Despite the disorganization and general slowness I was able to get six passes in at the track.

Near the end of time trials someone who had a car they had no business racing managed to dump fluids on the track. I laughed when the announcer said it would take 2 hrs to clean up. Attendance was already light for opening Wednesday - probably due to the off season drama where they said they were not going to open - but this announcement sent a lot of people to the exit. In reality it was an hour maybe a little more before they got it cleaned up.

The Cadillac did well for being 100% stock - it ran 14.25 @ 97 mph first pass. The trap speeds were different for the two lanes so I can't put too much credence in the speeds. Despite all the waiting late in time trials I pretty much had to hot lap the car in round 1 and it cost me almost a tenth and a chance to make my competitor break out. His approach is to get ahead and just stay there and to beat that I needed to be loser to the number. Reaction times were almost the same. Still have a lot to learn about how to make the car consistent and get dialed in on the tree.

I could not get the wheels to spin even with TC off. I was staging at 2500-2700 RPMs though I did learn at the end of the night it can hold well over 3000.

Pretty sure I as the only Cadillac there - surprisingly a few people showed interest in it. Besides the regular array of drag cars, there was a C8, a Lamborghini, and a lot of Chargers/Challengers.

[TireSmoker]

The disorganization was off the charts. Are we running 1/4 or 1/8 mile? Why did we have three different announcements about it? Why is this even a question on Wednesday night? We're gonna start calling classes to the staging lanes like a Saturday? It was clear to me that ownership/management opened up on Wednesday without much of a clue what they were doing or what they wanted to do. Compound all of this with a PA system that was barely functional and it was hugely disappointing.

Doing time runs as 1/4 mile and then switching to 1/8 for eliminations is totally unacceptable.

Pros: they at least had two lanes for taking money and getting people in the gates. Good job there.

I ran my 2nd best ET ever 12.18 and it hardly seemed to matter.

-Dave

[Basement Paul]

My Vette doesn't have traction control so that's a non-issue for me.

-BP

[TireSmoker]

Team Tiresmoke was well represented in Steve Stanley's post on FB.

[Basement Paul]

Dad and I went to KMP last night for another go at it. The improvements from last week that I noticed were that there were more people at the entrance gate getting signatures and taking money, so that went quickly. There is now at least a couple working speakers that I heard, so it's easier to know what's going on, as long as they actually tell you what's going on. That being said, the track prep was IMO worse last night that last week. People who ALWAYS hook, were spinning off the line, including me. And this was a problem in BOTH lanes. I watched them spray the track before eliminations and it did not help. This tells me that more preparation was going on behind the scenes last year that these guys are not doing. I know Curtis used to do lots of scraping and dragging the track and that has NOT happened here.
Also, the program is still pretty messy. Nobody seems to know or call out when the staging lanes close before eliminations, and the program in general is just much slower running. Again, there were less cars this week than last week, and it still took a LONG time.
I was too worried about trying to launch my high 13 second car on drag radials carefully and I red lighted first round. 32V pulled a truck trophy. And since it's the 2nd week, they still don't have trophies with correct plaques on them. They're just old trophies from the last couple years... C'MON MAN!

-BP