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

[MostMint]

Made it out to KMP today - and team Tiresmoke was well represented. There were four of us and we all raced different classes.

The weather was sketchy calling for rain in the late afternoon hours which kept a lot of people away. After missing the last time due to sketchy weather I decided I was going no matter what. As it turned out it never rained on the track but it kept the car counts down.

With low car counts I was able to get five time runs in just over an hour. I experimented with lower staging RPMs and going on the second bulb but still got a few red bulbs. Then I upped the RPMs to 2700 and went on the last bulb which got me .006. That's a bit close so I lowered it to about 2200 for eliminations and that got me .03, .09, .16(I was slow and it felt sooo slow) and .06 in the final. I'm in the ballpark here so this was a big win for the night.

ET was another matter. Lowering start RPMs to 1200 cost at least two tenths. It seemed like 1800-2700 were netting similar 60' times, still more data to collect on this. Finished time runs with 9.43 and 9.44 so I dialed 9.42 and it went 9.52 in round 1. Round 2 9.55, then 9.49 and finally 9.38. I don't understand yet which factors caused this or how to predict it. More work in this space.

I won round 1 and 3 when my opponent red lighted, and I got a bye run in round 2.

KMP still has work to do. They did get in the program, the PA and radio channel broadcast worked, but a lot of guys struggled with grip at first (like they didn't prep the track right after rain, they were 30 minutes late to start time trials, we had to run 1/8 mile because the timing equipment at the top end of the right lane was not working and they didn't have spares to splice/repair the pigtail plugging into something up there, and they didn't have any trophies to hand out.

First time I recall making the final at an 1/8 mile race. It was also the first time I recall finishing a Wednesday night before it got dark.

[Basement Paul]

I had my first outing with the Raptor last night. This is a whole new world for me. I was kinda glad they were 1/8 mile just to help me get acclimated to getting a feel for what's going on. I haven't had this thing over probably 30-35mph ever so there were a lot of variables. I was improving all night with my first pass being a 9.82 at 65mph to my best time run at 9.37 @ 68mph. My first round of racing put me against maybe the fastest vehicle in the place, a turbocharged bike dialed at 5.66. I put up a reasonable run at 9.40 on a .35 dial, but my .22 light wasn't enough to keep me in the game.
I made two 1/4 mile passes in time runs later and my best there was 15.45 @ 78mph. This is the maximum speed of this vehicle... It has a speed limiter, so until I decide to do away with that, I'm topped out.
A lot was happening in a short program last night, so there wasn't a ton of hanging out. Dave was tuning and going really fast, Andy was working his car and the field, I was learning a new craft, and Dad was busy winning! So despite the poorly run track, there's still some fun to be had out there. I'm sure we all got our $20 worth.

-BP