Opening day Atlanta Dragway.

Mike Puckett

SCCoA Member
One of the benefits of living in the South is that the dragstrips open up early in the year. Yesterday was Test & Tune and the place was packed by midafternoon so I only got 3 runs in. I ran a friends Lightning for him, too, stuck in staging for 2 hrs and finally ran a 13.640 against a Dodge Cummins Turbodiesel p/u with a 14.2. I was expecting to make some high 12 sec runs but the tire spin did me in. I hope the track's better next week for the Summit season opener. My 1st run against a late model Mustang was a 13.250 @ 105.74 to his 14.31. On my last run I ran a turbo Honda. The track writer was interviewing and photographing his Honda because it would supposedly run 11.90's. Well my Bird must have thought the Honda was sushi because we ate him running a 13.117 @ 107.66 to his 14.25 @ 104.71. Both of those runs would have been 12.9's had it not been for too much tirespin on my launch. I was a bit crossways on both runs and had to steer out of it to keep straight. My 2nd run had a decent 60' but it broke loose in 2nd gear. I also put it on the track scale and it came in at 3460 lbs w/o me in it.
 
Sounds like some good times Mike. What were your 60' times? What tires are you running? What do you have done for weight reduction?

Russell
 
I was running my M/T Street's but couldn't get any traction with them. I guess I just didn't them hot enough. My 1st 60' was a lowly 2.104 but my 2nd one was a respectible 1.999 even if I lost grip a second later and got a bit out of shape with the tach showing 5900 from spinning the tires. I'll have to do a better burnout and launch conservatively this weekend and maybe I'll be able to hook up better. I'm dialing in my shift light to go off at 5400. I'll set it for 5000 for brackets to keep me above 13.0 which is my Trophy class minimum.
 
Mike Puckett said:
I was running my M/T Street's but couldn't get any traction with them. I guess I just didn't them hot enough. My 1st 60' was a lowly 2.104 but my 2nd one was a respectible 1.999 even if I lost grip a second later and got a bit out of shape with the tach showing 5900 from spinning the tires. I'll have to do a better burnout and launch conservatively this weekend and maybe I'll be able to hook up better. I'm dialing in my shift light to go off at 5400. I'll set it for 5000 for brackets to keep me above 13.0 which is my Trophy class minimum.
Mike, I'm sure it's more challenging to do with a 5 speed, but the best advice I ever got about heating up the ET Streets was: Spin them until you see the smoke in the rearview mirror. Also, I usually run around 18 psi of pressure, the Mustang guys swear that's too much, but it works well for me.
 
I ran 15 psi on the 1st and 14 psi on the second. I got the Lightning to hook right up even though the owner spun them thru the 1/8 when he ran it. It had 18" Nitto Extreme's on it with 31 psi. Indeed, it's much easier to launch an automatic. I'll go back to my old method of launching off of idle with it set at 1500. My 5 spd has new fiber blockers, so does my spare, and I have 2 extra sets of blockers plus some good used ones. I guess when I run out of spare parts in 10 years I'll switch to an AOD.
 
Nice runs Mike. I was planning on being there until the flu got ahold of me. :( Hopefully I'll get to see your SC in action sometime this year(I usually favor grudge/Friday nights..but I'll probably be there for a few Saturdays to at least watch the Summit Racing series). I need to run my slow turbo GP again soon before it gets warm out, shooting for anything lower then a 14.7 like I ran last year. I'm hoping to knock off 2-3 tenths from that time.
 
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