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Originally Posted by stang93mustang  Well...... How did the weekend go? No rain right! |
The weather could not have been more perfect! Friday night was clear and a tad cold, but Sunday was sunny and warm without being too warm.
The racing for me was very strange as I found some rather oddball ways to lose. I thought that I'd already discovered all the ways to lose, but managed to come up with two new ones, one of which was really odd.
Friday night I earned the bye in the first round so things were going well. Second round when I checked to see where my opponent was as I hit the 1000' mark I was surprised to see that he was way back so I immediately lifted. I figured his car had broke. Strange thing though, I didn't get a win light. As I pulled into the pits my wife said that I had broken out. I replied that there was no @%#^&#^ way I broke out as I had lifted at the 1000'. So on closer examination of the slip I find that my dial-in had been entered as 15.69 instead of 13.69. The numbers on my window were very legible.
Now I know that it's my responsibility to check the dial-in, but here's what screwed me up. All season long they've had the dial-in boards right up by the tree, I always checked and it was always right. This week the boards weren't there, so I thought I just had to have faith it was right. After the fact I found that they were posting the dials on the big boards at the finish line, but they never announced that, and I just didn't think of it. So it was my fault in the end. Another learning experience, as I can tell you that will never happen again.
I had two races to run Sunday. The first was the Friday street race series. I'm 4th in the points and was lined up against Rich, the guy in 5th in the first round. Our cars run very similar times, there was maybe a tenth difference in our dials.
Now I see these guys on Pinks looking over at the other car the whole way down the track but I don't know how they do that. I don't usually look for the other car till I'm in 4th gear, around the 1000'. up until that time I'm busy trying to cut a good light, get a decent launch and making sure I hit my shift points. Oh and keeping the car straight and in the groove.
When I looked to see where Rich was, I couldn't see him in the rear view or the side mirrors either one. It's been my experience that when that happens it's because he's in the blind spot just off my rear quarter. As long as the other car isn't a lot faster than mine I can usually lift just a hair at the stripe in those situations, but if I lift too early or tap the brakes, I'll get nipped at the line.
The little lift wasn't enough and I broke out, thus no win light. But when I looked for him in the shut down area, since I had to cross over his lane to get to the return road, I couldn't find him. I thought WTF?
Turns out that he had broken something at the line and was leaking fluid onto the track so the track workers pushed him off right away, which was why I didn't see him in the mirrors. I then found out that even though he never crossed the finish line, and had moved maybe 5 feet max, it was a loss for me because I broke out. I didn't know this rule, but I do now! Most of the guys I talked to didn't know that rule, including Rich who assumed that I'd get the win. Guess I'll have to start looking for the other car earlier. Probably won't be a problem now, but when I get my "real" motor back in the car I'm pretty busy the first 1000'. Us old guys don't multi-task as well as the kids!
I still had one last chance to collect a few wins in the .00 club race. As expected this was a wild one with cars and bikes of widely different speeds all lumped together in one eliminator. I got though the first round with no drama against a Mustang with a similar dial.
In the second round who do you think lines up with me? Will Marks, the guy I just watched on TV taking the runner up at Pinks All Out MIR last week. I gave it my best shot, but I'm not used to running against low 9 second cars in the street race series. I dialed 13.65, he was at 9.28! It seemed like I was at the 1/8 before he even started but did he ever come up fast. When he passed me it was like a jet plane fly by since he was over 140mph. So yeah he got me. Unfortunately my car ran a bit off the pace it had been running all day. He didn't tree me by too much so if I could have run closer to my number maybe I could have pushed him out. I'm sure he's not used to running a car so much slower than his so it might have been hard for him to judge where I was at the stripe.
I didn't have a lot of luck won/lost wise as I won two rounds and lost three, but man it was a great weekend. The weather was finally hall of fame and all my friends were there. As we got knocked out of the competition we retired to the bleaches in what we called "losers row" and watched the guys who were still in it.
There's only 5 more scheduled races this year and I'm not looking forward to the end of the season. It's going to be a long winter.
It better not rain this weekend! 
I was gonna wait until I got back an announce what happened but I'm taking my car to the track this weekend too.
I'm still T&T so just going for times. I will again push for that high 9.
