My Day at the Races
If you are not interested in reading this story and want to go directly to my timeslips click here
On April 11, 1998 the Mid Atlantic F-Body hosted the VA/MD Viper Club, the Northern Va. Vette club, and The Hampton Roads Corvette Club in the V-V-F Dragathon(Vette, Viper, F-Body) at Maryland International Raceway, in Budds Creek MD.
Myself and two of my friends, Stan Wisnewski, and Lee Wroten attended. This was my first attempt at drag racing in 20+ years, and my first attempt ever with a manual transmission.
Needless to say along with being very excited I was also very nervous. What follows is a summary of "My Day at the Races."
The way the event worked was this. We had the track almost exclusively to ourselves from 9:00 am. till 2:00 pm. From 9:00 till about 12:00 was a test and tune session, in which you could get in as many runs as your little heart desired. I personally took advantage of this to the tune of 8 test and tune runs!
At 12:00 pm. the elimination rounds began, the cars were separated into four classes: Camaro's, Firebird's, Vette's and Viper's. Each of these classes was eliminated down to one on a handicap basis.The winner of each class received a trophy and the final four cars then raced against each other on a handicap basis to determine the overall winner.
We got there bright and early at 8:30 am, paid our entry fee ($20.00, you couldn't beat the price) and headed straight to tech inspection. Once through tech we were free to hit the track. While Lee went to put on his new drag radials, Stan and I went to get in a run or two.
My first trip through the staging lanes brought back memories of my adolesent years at Maple Grove Raceway in Mohnton Pa. But it also brought with it some huge butterflys as I remembered that, it had, as I said earlier, in fact been 20+ years since I had done something like this. And in those days I had an automatic transmission!
My first attempt was a disaster, as could probably be expected. I drove around he waterbox as we had been instructed to do if we were on street tires. Did a small burnout just to clean the tires. Then proceeded to drive right through both the pre stage and stage beams. The starter backed me up into place and we were ready.
The lights started down the christmas tree, first yellow, second yellow, third yellow, green. What the heck was I wating for a written invitation! When I finally did react the revs climbed but the car didn't seen to move, my tires were going up in smoke. I backed off the throttle just a bit and then got right back in it, same thing. So I left off the gas, and tried it again this time it hooked and off I went. Wound up the revs, 3000, 4000, 5000, 5500, "shift", 2nd. gear, 3000, 4000, 5000, 5500, "shift", "darn missed 3rd. gear." I backed off the throttle went back for 3rd gear and finally got to the finish line.
"Man, that was embarrassing, I hope nobody was watching." I headed up the return road to get my timeslip," this should be good." [email protected] mph r/t=1.191 60ft.=3.434 What could I do but laugh. The only place I could go was up!
Well things did get better as the day went along. I started to get the hang of it little by little. My E/T's got lower and my reaction times got quicker. By the end of the day my best reaction time was .506 on a .500 tree! Then came the moment of truth as they started eliminations. My first race in eliminations was against a 96 Camaro SS, black just like mine. Below you will find the timeslip from that race.
That's me in
the right lane, car # 737!
Well, I lost this race!