and failure! It wasn't the end of the world, but I only got close to meeting any of my goals once:

1st run: Lined up against Topspeed in the first qualifying round of heads-up. This was a pro tree, which I know how to do, but don't like due to my feathered launch method, which requires a bit of time to get started before launching fully. So, I pre-staged first by tripping the first set of lights, but I then waited respectfully for Topspeed to pre-stage. Unfortunately, he not only pre-staged, but fully staged right away!! This was quite disconcerting, because I had done the proper thing by NOT fully staging. Anyway, since he quick-staged on me, that meant I had to get my revs up really high and slowly inch forward, because right after the 2nd car stages, the lights drop lightning quick, and you have to launch immediately. So, I rolled forward slowly while at 6-6500 rpm, and then almost immediately after my 2nd set of lights came on, the lights dropped and I did a quick dump basically, and that didn't work at all. I sorta spun with some wheel hop and had trouble out of the hole, but then snapped 2nd and 3rd en route to a botched 3-4 powershift. Not a great start to the day as I ended up with a 12.7 at 105. Interestingly, this time ended up easily being in the top 10% of all cars for the day, so it wasn't all bad, but I was only concerned with beating myself...not the plethora of 13-sec Scoobies.

2nd run: Ok, I snuck into the regular bracket racing test run lanes and got another chance. This time, on the sportsman's tree, I had plenty of time to do my launch, but WTF, I spun again. I have never spun before, so I'm really confused at this point, but I then go on to hit my shifts just fine, but I only run out of gear in 4th a split second before the traps. I know this means my run is only mediocre. The timeslip shows a meager 12.4 at 109.5, which is not surprising after seeing my 1.88 60'!!! Holy cow, 1.88...if I posted this 60' in the Drag Racing forum, Warrtalon would call me an assface. Hey, nice launch, assface. Also, I don't understand why my mph was only 109.5 if I was bouncing off the rev limiter. This may be because I didn't actually tap the limiter until after the first timing box at the end of the track...not sure.

3rd run: Hmm, now it counts, because it's the 2nd (and last) qualifying run for Heads-Up. I know I'm capable of a 12.2 on a 1.7x 60', but I am quite sure by now that no 1.6x 60' times are in my future due to the apparent slipperiness of the track (or my own ineptitude). Again, I'm up against Topspeed, and AGAIN he does the double stage on me after I politely pre-stage. Oh well, I don't care, because this time I planned on ignoring the Pro tree and just launching my normal way, which meant a slow reaction time. This time, even though I spun some, I hooked decently and ripped through first much more quickly. I nailed 2nd, 3rd, and 4th without a problem, but then I noticed that I was ripping through 4th much faster than normal and that I was going to run out of gear well before the end of the track, so I decided I was going to try 5th at around 7100-7200 and hope that my increased boost along with 116oct would actually make 5th gear useful. Well, again I made the mistake of pumping the clutch pedal at the same speed as a normal shift, but that's too fast for a 4-5 shift, due to the distance of the throw. This caused me to have already released the clutch before I actually got the shifter into the 5th gear gate, and I basically got locked out. I left it out of gear and ran ANOTHER 12.4 but at 97mph. Yes, that's me in the 1st Topspeed video in that long list of videos posted elsewhere. I was actually not far off in terms of ET, but I was way behind due to ignoring the tree and trying to nail my launch after a weak reaction time. So, would that have been a 12.0 or 12.1? Not likely. But would it have been much better than a 12.4 if I either 1) just kept it in 4th and forced my way through the traps, or 2) actually got it in 5th and hit full boost for once? I think so, yes.

4th run: Ok, so I didn't qualify in the Heads-up (top 8 Evos), but at least I was faster than 6 of the 8 WRXs that qualified, haha. This time it was bracket racing, which I'm fairly proficient at, but I had the quandary of deciding on whether to dial in conservatively and try to win that or dial in aggressively and shoot for my personal record time. Well, I decided to be a little aggressive by dialing in a 12.1, despite not beating 12.4 all day. The WRX next to me was one of the 100s there that was running high 13s, and he dialed in at a 13.9 or something. His light dropped, and he took off, but then my light was right behind, and I absolutely ripped out of the hole. Again, I was spinning all 4, but it was a very controlled spin that rocketed me out of the hole with a very nice .05 reaction time. I snap-shifted 2nd and immediately caught the guy by the end of that gear. The moment I shifted to 3rd, he was in the rearview, and the race was won, but I kept going full bore for the sake of racing. Well, this is where I made my mistake. I had hit 4th on a clean powershift and was racing towards my best ET _EVER_ when my bracket racing instincts kicked in, and I noticed that I was several hundred feet ahead, so I rammed the brakes. In bracket racing, you want to beat your opponent by the least amount of distance possible, but even with ramming my brakes for a good 2-3s, I was STILL wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy ahead. I actually rammed my brakes twice with a brief let-off in the middle. Right as I crossed the line, I saw my win lights come on, so I knew I hadn't "broken out," but this turned out to be a mistake. When I got my timeslip it showed an astonishing 12.52 at 81.8mph. I had gotten my best 60' of the day along with my best 330', 1/8th mile, and 1000' of ALL TIME. It's hard to guesstimate how much difference a solid second or 2 of braking makes at the end of the track like that, but I am quite confident that it would have been my first 12.1 ever, if not a potential high 12.0x. Oh well, I should have just kept going ***** out to the end and ignored the bracket racing portion of it, because if I broke out on a 12.1 dial-in, it would have only meant that I got AT LEAST a 12.0x, which was my whole point of going to this event. Damn...

5th run: Went up against another 13.9-sec WRX . He took off decently, but then my lights dropped and I again ripped out of the hole, but this time I redlighted by .06, so I automatically lost. I tried to run it out just to see what I could accomplish, but I missed the 2-3 for the first time in 30+ runs, and that pretty much ruined the run. I still got a 12.5 at 108.5, but that was a pretty useless and anticlimactic ending to a fairly disappointing day.

Oh well, I at least had the POTENTIAL to beat my 12.2, but I had no chance of 11s with only mid 1.7x 60's. I don't know if it was the track or if it was my driving, but I hadn't hit anything worse than 1.7x on the stock clutch, yet at E-town, I hit three HIGH 1.8x 60's and only two 1.7x 60's, neither of which were better than 1.75, which sucks *****. I either have to get used to launching with the ACT, or I need to go to another track soon and see if it hooks better. It may just come down to lowering tire pressure below 30, too, but we'll see next week when I go to a local track...

 

That sucks dude, but it shows that everyone is human and you put very HIGH expectations on yourself/car. I am sure you will get your time good luck!

 

Your still fast for whats done man.

 

Warm day. Not many 11sec runs at all.

 

I was at e-town that day for Import vs domestic. All I can say is the track conditions were ****ty I could not hook up for ****. One run I would hook really well and the next I would spin all over the place. I kept everything the same from run to run. Same tire pressure, two stepped it at the same rpms did a second gear burn out until the tires got hot enough that it draged me up to the staging lights, and so on. Anyway the best I pulled that day was a 1.81 60 foot the rest were 1.91's. This was on BFG DR in my FWD civic.

 

Glad to hear confirmation from a different type of car. I only had 2 1.7x 60's in my 5 tries. The other 3 were 1.8s, which is awful. Each time I spun enough to cause white smoke...

 

Warrtalon, how much peak boost do you run on pump gas. Also, could you please pm me w/ the type of data-logging unit you are using to log timing, tps, and 02?

 

I only run 20-21 on pump gas IN THE SUMMER. I see knock at full boost and high rpm in the summer heat if I'm running more than 21.

I can PM you more details if you prefer, but I just use a Palm M100 and the free Palm'n'Stein software for my logging. It's only narrowband, so it's not the greatest, but it works for me.

 

1.88 60'....nice 60' assface J/K

Congrats on the new time

 

Good stuff!!