For those like me, racing is as simple as when someone noses up to a traffic light and tries to get a jump on you. I pride myself that our family 3.4 liter SUV enjoys a winning record during our daily commute. My daughter actually expects it whenever we are the first car at a traffic light. that the track isn’t cool anymore. So now he does all of his testing, tuning, and racing on the streets, which in today’s world seems a bit backwards. In my pursuit to find extreme, high-horsepower, big-tire cars to write about, I’m finding that some guys do not want to use the track for their action shots because they fear that it will hurt their “street cred.” The problem is that it’s nearly impossible to do a high-quality photo shoot on the street. There is simply too much gear to move around—but perhaps more importantly, there’s the risk of getting arrested! As a compromise, I’ve even gone so far as to rent a track and have the owners start past the 60-foot prepped line so that we are using an un-prepped surface. But the fact that it’s still at the track stops guys from coming. On the flip side, I’ve rented airstrips and have had the track guys refuse to come. Now for those of you who aren’t familiar with this dilemma, allow me to dive further into the
minute differences in drag racing. Apparently, not everyone enjoys bracket racing and racing against your dial-in number. I, for one, prefer heads-up racing, but do not have the budget to build a car suitable for a pro NHRA class. I also don’t have the time to drive to the many sanctioned outlaw classes available in other parts of the country. No-time racing offers a driver the opportunity to test their car at the track without sharing its performance with everyone watching. Grudge racing gives a racer an opportunity to do heads-up racing at a track but without performance restraints/ limitations of a class. It’s all about the negotiation. No-prep racing is still held at the track, but the starting line was not prepped for that actual event. Let’s make one thing clear here: the “unprepped” surface is still 100 times more sticky than a street. Plus, it offers the added bonus of safety and the legalities that go along with street racing.
Eighthmile and quarter-mile are offered in most all of these categories. It simply depends on the event and how your car is set up. For example, my car is currently set up for eighth-mile races. The 5.13 gear that I have pulls extremely hard and offers me the most performance for my setup. When I run the quarter-mile with this set-up, I run out of gear around 800 feet and hit the rev limiter. My quarter-mile time does not represent the performance of my car at all. But, as part of the game, I run the quarter-mile from time to time hoping to lure in a potential eighth-mile grudge race. They know by the sound of my car that I’m not sandbagging by getting off the throttle early or getting on the brakes near the traps. Little did they know that all I really wanted was the data from the first 660 feet. The rest of the track—and run for that matter—was simply to get people to pursue a money race with me. I wave no flag when it comes to drag racing.
The dragstrip offers a much safer and legal place to pursue your passion for racing. This picture clearly illustrates the difference between a prepped surface and a non-prepped surface.
www.rpmmag.com | january 2019
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