TireSmoke.org

The S10 was all over the board last night. 11.75, 11.81, and 11.70 in time runs. I dialed a .74 for the first round of Truck and dad gave that one to me. I ran a .68. The last time I raced the truck got slower in the 2nd round, so I dialed a .70. Well that logic was out the window when I raced Gigantor in his Ram. He cuts a .04 on me to my .10. I knocked 5mph at the stripe hard on the brakes and still went an 11.66. He was about .06 off his dial so I had a pretty narrow window. Night over.

Oh well. Now to focus on dirt racing. There's a race at Dragway 42 on Friday September 13th, and another one the following Saturday the 21st at Canfield Fairgrounds. My quad is ready to go, and I think we'll be towing it there with Dad's Jimmy so he can race too. I have a couple runner ups with the quad, but I haven't won any classes yet and I'm hoping the new gearing will help me get to the winner's circle.

-BP

BP and I went to Dragway 42 for some Friday night drag racing in the dirt.
My 1st experience for dirt racing was at the Lake County fair, a 200 foot track.
We took my Canyon while towing BP's Yamaha Raptor.
There were 2 classes for me, Gas Truck 4.5 @ 200 ft and 4x4 4 and 6 cylinder gas.
The starting tree was a Pro Start and you had to lose twice to be eliminated.
I made 5 passes.
Run..Reaction..Time......Result...Class
1.....0.249......5.116......lost.....Gas Truck 4.5
2.....0.153......5.088......win......Gas Truck 4.5
3.....0.325......4.914......lost......Gas Truck 4.5
4.....0.504......4.847......lost......4x4 4 and 6 cylinder gas - MostMint's Caddy
5.....0.315......5.195..... lost......4x4 4 and 6 cylinder gas - Caddy wins the money

That dirt adds an element to drag racing that I really enjoyed.
BP won the very last race of the night!

As always, drag racing is just good fun!

Three generations participated in the dirt drags mentioned above as Rachel joined us also. Turns out the Charger and her are a pretty good combo as she was the last one in the winners bracket. I had her beat in my 2nd race but broke out by .002. The blue F150 from losers bracket won twice against her so she got runner up in street gas. So she's been drag racing twice in her life and cashed both times!

Good thing I had a V6 to run in the 4/6 cylinder 4WD class or there would not have been a class.

Raced against my old man and my daughter in the same night.
This car is much easier to stage than the boosted car but I'm still slow on the tree. There is work to do there. The day was kind of a whirlwind as I literally drove it for the first time that day up to inspection and then to the track later in the day.

Overall it seems pretty consistent hot lapping though the first pass after a break was a bit slower due to heat soak I'd guess.

Very patriotic group picture, red, white, and blue.

I started going through my time slips and I was definitely getting quicker as the night went on, both in reaction time and ET. So changing the rear gear got me down to a best of 4.22 and my best reaction time for the night was .057, with a couple other 4.2x runs and several (in competition) low .1xx and high .0x lights.
Since the gear swap I've been having a hard time shifting from 1-2 at speed. Because 1st is so short, it winds up too fast and it requires a slow shift to get it into 2nd gear. My more experienced quad racer friends are telling me not to use 1st gear at all, and launch in 2nd. I can definitely understand how that will significantly improve my times as it really takes off now when I hit 2nd correctly, many times with the front wheels in the air. It's the execution that will require some time to master with consistency. I would expect to be in the 4.0s if I can figure this out.
I was able to cash out in two of my four classes netting me my entry fees back, but that victory is still alluding me. All in due time as I figure this thing out. I'm getting closer.
There's a big race called North vs South in Osgood, IN I think. It's at the beginning of Nov and it brings in some heavy hitters I guess. I might give the S10 one more shot there and also see what I can do with the quad. It's a two day event and is about five hours from home. I haven't committed fully, but am leaning that way for sure. If they didn't cancel the Canfield race next week, I might not care, but I'm left thinking I need to do this at least one more time this year.

-BP

I will need more seat time on dirt to get the reaction time down. Also no idea yet what is the best tire, what E85 can do, how much more power is there with tune up and basic performance mods. For the street has I might also need to experiment with touring mode vs sport mode to keep it from breaking out.

I was contemplating doing an October event but there’s a lot of stuff to get done around here so it’s not likely I’ll be back on dirt in 2024.

For almost not going, it ended up being a great night for Team Tiresmoke out at Kuhnle tonight.

Paul won Truck,
Andy runner'd-up in Stock,
I runner'd up in Animal

I also set a new personal best with a 9.81 @ 136
It wasn't completely without issue though -- I leaned on it hard right before my street and all of a sudden I smell hot water and my window is all foggy, and temp gauge shot to 210. I shut it off and coasted into my driveway. It blew the lower radiator hose off the radiator-- that's new. I'll check it out tomorrow.

Despite the insanely terrible managemental organization last night, the outcome was still good. I'm glad they opened too because up to this point I had taken no hardware this year at all. I won against Gigantor in the finals by .0482 hard on the brakes. I ran a 11.58 on a .57 dial and knocked 8mph off at the stripe. We both had .08 lights so it was an ET race. He went 14.53 on a 14.48. I owed him for beating me the last time we raced a month or so ago.
It was cool to see all the 'Smokers going rounds. I was bummed when dad went red, and was even more bummed when I saw it was a -.001. I get it though, as he was racing Justin (Gigantor), who is a good competitor, and his truck is WAY louder than most vehicles there. If they're open next week, I imagine I'll put myself through it again.

-BP

Well the red Caddy made it's 1/4 mile debut last night to good success.

Best ET was 14.13 at 97.48, and it was the last run of the night as stock class had the highest car count and I was in the final. I won two races outright, won one when a slower car redlighted and got a bye run to the final. Sadly I tripped the red by .04 but still got some hardware, er... well a baby trophy thing I guess.

Actually I got the other trophy I was owed from May 29, making this the first time I got two trophies in one night lol.

The other first is this is the first year I ran three different cars on the 1/4 mile.

First impressions are this is a way better bracket car than the turbo - less work to make it consistent. Must remember to turn the grannys off though, as I ran my bye run with them on and it was a solid 3 tenths slower. Stupid stabilitrak was no doubt unhappy with the g-forces and took a little off the throttle - luckily you can turn that off just have to remember to do it each time you start the car.

Great result for Team Tiresmoke

Some video from the dirt drags on 9/13/24

https://youtu.be/5cUb1a9LuZg