Today turned out to be a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and a light breeze, a great day for racing. Today we are racing in what the track calls the “Quick 16″. (That means they qualify the fastest 16 cars on the grounds for this race). They try to have one of these races a month. It brings out a lot of very fast cars, and the payout is the same. The biggest difference is that you only need to win four rounds to pick up the thousand dollar check.
Â
The car was finally working a lot better. I had installed new rear drag slicks this past weekend and they were just starting to get scuffed. We had three qualifying rounds and the INS dragster ended up qualifying in the number six position with a 7.76 with a 9 dial. The number five qualifier had a 7.76 with an 8 dial. (Just a .001 difference between positions 5 and 6). Qualifying number six means we would race the number 11 qualifier in the opening session.
At 1:23 we are finally ready for first round of the Quick 16. The INS dragster ran a 7.806 on a 7.79 dial which is fairly close. My opponent, who qualified slower so he gets to leave first, had a -010 red light. Race over, and we win the first round. One hour later we are back for second round. The car seems to be working much better now and the driver seems to have his head on straight for a change. We have lane choice and choose the left lane. As luck would have it, we had a .015 reaction time and ran a 7.85 on a 7.82 dial and got another round win. Moving on to round three… At 3:10 we line up for the third round. Again we have lane choice and, of course, choose the left lane. We dialed a 7.79 and ran a 7.83. Having a better reaction time than my opponent, we were headed for the finals.
At 3:46 we pull to the staging lanes for the final round. I can honestly say I was in uncharted waters having never gone to a final. Remember that number five qualifier I talked about earlier? Well, here he was in the final with, of course, lane choice. You quessed it - he put me in the right hand lane. You see, there is a fairly good bump at about the 1000′ mark and the INS dragster definitely does not like this bump. I had not had a very quick run in this lane all day, so I decided to keep my dial at a fast 7.82 and use the brake to slow down before crossing the finish line. Again we had a better reaction time than the opponent, but his 6.45 to my 6.47 at the 1000′ mark put him ever so slightly ahead. The bump was very unsettling on the car and I knew I had little time left to tap the brake. This time I knew we were on a good run and we were going to go too fast (break out). My opponent tapped the brake and I tapped it twice before I took the strip, or crossed the finish line. End result was that we both went too fast. His was less, so needless to say I didn’t finish the job. All in all it was a great weekend for me and the Team INS dragster. We didn’t bring home the trophy or the huge check, but we gave it our best. Can’t wait to return and try again.
