I found out very quickly how much weather plays a part in the equation. On 2/APR/99 I went to Cecil County. The weather was no where near as optimum as last time. Temps. were in the high 50's to mid 60's with the humidity anywhere from 85% to 95%! The car ran pretty well considering the weather, but not nearly as well as it did in the near perfect weather.

Since the weather was so different from my previous time out it's a little hard to determine if my added mods made much difference. I am happy though, because it seems that unless I miss a shift, or smoke the tires, I can run mid 13's@103+ pretty consistently.

A couple of weeks later, on 10/APR/99, MAFB had their third VVF Dragathon at Maryland International Raceway. These slips are from this event. Unfortunately MIR doesn't put athmospheric conditions on their timeslips, so I'm not sure of the weather. I do remember it sure seemed hot and humid that day! The first nine runs were during Test-N-Tune.

Eliminations started and I decided to dial 13.67. In the first round my opponent couldn't run his number and I was only .06 off mine and won by .220! In the second round I stuck with the same 13.67 dial. The result was pretty much the same thing, my opponent couldn't run his number and I was only .05 over mine, but I redlighted so I lost on a foul.

I'm finding out that there is more to bracket racing than meets the eye. I'm also finding out that it's a lot of fun, so I'm going to keep working at it. Hey, you know what they say: Practice makes perfect!

These next runs were on 30/APR/99 at Cecil County. Weather conditions were OK, but not great. The humidity was low, but the temps. ranged from the high 50's to the high 60's. The place was crowded and there were a couple of long delays because of oil downs. Because of this I only got five runs and was very inconsistent. You will notice that on my first run my MPH was only 87 and my E/T was 13.8 because I missed 4th gear. On the third run I smoked the tires after a big oil down and only ran a 13.80.

On 15/MAY/99 I went to Cecil County for their Saturday Night Street Racing. It's just like Friday Night Grudge Racing except there are three classes of bracket racing you can compete in. To qualify for the bracket races you have to be one of the sixteen quickest cars in your class. If you qualify it's an extra $20.00, $25.00, or $30.00 depending on class. The winner gets $200.00, $250.00, or $300.00 depending on class. I entered the Super Street class. To run this class you must be running on DOT tires. The weather was warm, but the humidity was low and the barometer started around 30.33 and rose to 31.11 by the end of the evening.

My third and sixth runs were qualifying runs. I qualified thirteenth in a sixteen car field with a 13.66. My first round opponent was driving a very nice '69 AMX. He dialed 10.96. Even though I qualified at 13.66, I had run as quick as 13.57 during T-n-T so that's what I dialed. Big mistake! Check out the table below to see what happened. Since my opponent qualified better than I did he got lane choice. The right lane was the best lane all night. Needless to say, that's me in the left lane.

As you can see, if my table is not too confusing, neither of us was able to run our number, but he was a hell of a lot closer to his than I was to mine. Plus, he left on me. So with a 13.57 dial I didn't have much of a chance to win this race.

As I said earlier, I'm having a lot of fun so I'm planning to continue trying to get better and make my car faster. So follow the link below to see what happens.