[s-cars] Friday Night Drags at Mission Raceway (long)

[Bob Frizzell]

Sean,
>From my limilted experience with friends who raced years ago I'm sure your
car will run 14 seconds or even sub-14.  Did you power shift it - i.e., pull
and push on the shifter like there's no tomorrow when it's in gear, then hit
the clutch and ram it into the next gear?  Accelerator to the floor all the
while.  That's what we used to do back in the 60's but I'd understand if you
didn't, I wouldn't with mine.  It's probably worth a second in the 1/4
though.
Bob
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sean Douglas" <quattro20v at telus.net>
To: <s-car-list at audifans.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 11:07 PM
Subject: [s-cars] Friday Night Drags at Mission Raceway (long)


> I went out to the street legal drags at Mission Raceway (near Vancouver,
> BC) last night. This was my first time (newbie), so bear with me.
>
> After tech, I weighed in at 3910 lbs with driver (I weight 150 lbs) and
> was in the Sport Compact class (a 3900 lb sedan is a compact?). This
> mostly consisted of Integras, Eagle Talons TSIs, Honda Civics, etc.
> There was a really trick 1994 Toyota Supra, modified to 475 HP ATW (I
> saw his dyno graph), he had a hard time hooking up and was in the
> mid-13's. A lot of the cars had turbo kits on it and were stripped down
> to only the driver seat. There was only one other Audi, a 2001 bi-turbo
> S4, tweaked with a chip and exhaust. I spoke with the S4 driver, who
> didn't do very well that night as his shift knob broke off in the middle
> of a run, but he said his best time was 14.2 sec. My car was the only
> "family car" in the Sport Compact class and I left the baby Recaro seat
> in for kicks. I received a few funny comments about that!
>
> Spec on my car: RS2 turbo, RS2 exhaust manifold, RS2 injectors, RS2 MAF
> and 370HP chipset from B. Pastore. I had a 3/4 tank of 94 octane with
> about 15% toluene, which by my calculations netted 96.5 octane. The
> weather was overcast and warm, 24 celcius. Boost was hitting 25-26 psi
> and holding past 6,000 rpm.
>
> Since I am a newbie, I'm not familiar with the whole Christmas tree
> thing. From what I can tell, it's a "pro tree" and after the yellow
> pre-stage and stage bulbs are lit, all three amber lights come on at
> once, then there is a delay (presumably 0.400 sec) then green. I figured
> out by the 2nd run to react as soon as the 3 ambers are lit.
>
> Run #1: R/T 1.475, 60' 2.569, 1/4 14.527, MPH 99.77
>
> On my first run, I ended up staging too far and turned off the pre-stage
> bulb. This confused me and I blew the start and by the time I realized
> the green light was on, over a second had elapsed. I slipped the clutch
> at about 2,500 rpm.
>
> Run #2: R/T .584, 60' 2.434, 1/4 15.015, MPH 94.53
>
> On the second run, I tried dumping the clutch at 4,000 rpm. It didn't
> work, the whole car shuddered and I think the EDL kicked in and applied
> the brakes to one of the wheels, it sound like a bang, like the ABS was
> cycling and for a while I thought I broke something.
>
> Run #3: R/T .658, 60' 2.530, 1/4 14.523, MPH 101.71
>
> On the third run, I slipped the clutch again at about 2,500 rpm.
>
> As you can see, with 370 HP (advertised) my car is not terribly quick,
> slipping the clutch at 2500 rpm causes the motor to bog down. I figure
> by slipping the clutch at a higher rpm will probably reduce the 60' time
> and hence 1/4 mile by maybe 0.3 - 0.4 sec which would net me in the low
> 14's. In the interest of saving the clutch lining, I didn't attempt
> this. I figure this is how the road test drivers for car magazines do it
> and assume this is how Car and Driver gets 14.9 sec from a bone stock S6
> with 227 HP.
>
> The one thing that still confuses me is that I don't think the R/T is
> used in any calculations of ET. On run #1, I had a horrible R/T, but
> still managed a 14.5 sec ET. From what I understand, the timer does not
> start until the car leaves the starting line (unblocking the stage
> beam).
>
> Any words of wisdom or advice from experienced drag racers would be
> appreciated.
>
> Sean Douglas
> 1997 Audi S6
>
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