Drag Racing - 11th & 12th June

[Krazyken]

A date for your diaries for 2 days of Drag Racing at the Shakespeare County Raceway, Stratford.  I did this with BPMC last year for 1 day and it was brilliant fun, we got 11 runs in and people pay to watch you do it!  Cost is around £20 per day and you can race against your chosen opponent from the club.  There will be camping overnight onsite along with the usual BBQ and "light" drinking party atmosphere.

This has been brought forward from the original July date and this event also features Tractor Pulling, Google it if you don't know what this is - it's fun!!

[Krazyken]

Please note the change of date for this one, a weekend of fun and as many runs down the drag strip as you can fit in with an official timed print out of every run you do.  If we get enough we will probably arrange for a BKCC camping area and may be able to prise open the club coffers towards the cost of the BBQ and cooked breakfast.

So, who is up for this?  Please express your interest below.

['The Gaffer']

Me

Oh and here's an hour full of tractor pulling. Not the sort of stuff you stuck behind on country lanes .



Quite looking forward to seeing this at the drag strip as well as getting as many drag runs in as possible. Should be a great weekend.

The crew and racers at Shakespeare County Raceway..

[Krazyken]

Don't forget this event tomorrow, Dave Bence & I are leaving at 7.45am.  Only worth going on Saturday as Sunday is set to be a wash out.

[Denzle]

Sorry Ken, Cant make this one......
 
Have the Vintage gathering a couple of mile from home, so must plug my show there.

     Hope you have a great day.   Next time a definate.

                                         denzle.....

[Krazyken]

An enjoyable if slighly frustrating day yesterday at the drag racing.  Dave Bence & I were the only BKCC members to partake with what appeared to be a perfect weather forecast.  How wrong they were.

The first notable event of the day was how seriously Dave was taking the drag racing.  I had left my Marlin in road trim complete with road tyres whereas Dave had taken as much weight out of his Onyx as possible removing the passenger seat, lights and mirrors.  We had decided to do as many head to head runs as possible and were all ready to go when the strip opened at 10am when most runners were still getting ready.

As usual my response times were better but Dave had clearly been on the Red Bull or Expressos as his usual half second response time had gone as he was clearly up for it.  Last time I always got away better but Dave always overtook me in the last quarter of the strip.  Daves preperations clearly paid off as I had no chance of catching him and he easily beat me in the first 4 runs before lunch.

My competitive spirit came to the fore so over lunch I removed every possible bit of weight I could (incl. tissues) took off the front dive planes to reduce drag and levelled the rear spoiler to minimise and drag from the rear.  Unfortunately the first shower came along and delayed the restart until 3pm allowing for the track to dry out.  The first run we had I easily won but that was because Daves battery had died which seemed to cut his ECU as he went for 2nd gear.  Further investigation also revealed an oil leak so it was a DNF for Dave which was a shame.

I took some advice from some regulars we were next to in the paddock and dropped the rear tyre pressures to 14psi and put the fronts up to 30psi.  I also took the dampers off completely on the rear and increased them on the front to give as much traction to the rear as possible.  My aim at the start of the day was to crack 14 seconds for a run and exceed 100mph for a terminal speed.  After all these adjustments I only had 1 more run until rain stopped play for the rest of the day.  I came close, very close but the results from slips below give the readouts from my best 2 runs, a combination of which would have achieved the targets I set.

                          5th Run           7th Run
Reaction Time          0.249secs        0.097secs
60 feet time             2.060              2.433
330 feet time           5.893              6.262
660 feet time           9.039              9.368
MPH1                      78.68              79.30
990 feet time          11.649            11.949
1320 feet run time   14.020            14.277
Terminal Speed        98.40MPH       101.95MPH

So the start on the 5th run combined with the speed and gearchanges on the 7th run would have ticked all the boxes.  Time to get ready to do it all again on the 9th July.

['The Gaffer']

Nice write up Ken, sorry to hear of your problems Dave - hope they are not too serious.

I had to have a definite sunny all day forecast to have enjoyed this event, one run on my last attempt because of rain was just too much to handle

Look forward to the next one, and recommend a few more have a go at this amazing sport.

[Hairy Santa]

sounds like the 2 of you had a lot of fun, shame about the rain

fingers crossed for the 9th

['Mendip Wurzel']

Presumably to keep weight to an absolute minimum you did all runs in your underpants.... LOL

Interesting write up and sounds like you had a great day.