Another fun night. Unfortunately I was eliminated in the final round so I am only a runner up. Had a crap burnout in the final and stalled out in the water box basically no recovery from that. Check out car 52's reactions, he is an old guy maybe in his 80's cutting .010 & .012 on my ***.



We also had an award ceremony for the champions last year, where I got this.


Not sure about Sac next week yet, but I will text you 18.

 

Look, even a cat-astrophic night at the drags gets you props here. Hehehe.

:like cat:

(sorry, the pun is strong in me today)

 

Ha! Thanks Baron!

So somehow we were able to have the only dry area, for the only dry period of time for miles and miles around. I am completely astonished that we actually finished the all classes tonight without a downpour. I went out in the first elimination round. Cut a beautiful light, passed my opponent and should have hit the brakes instead of letting off. Oh well, next time.


Loving the Sacramento trophy

 

Had a fun time in Sacramento. Got to see Vlad for a little bit, great to see you man! I will probably be back there a few times this year. Vlad is an excellent driver, I saw him save a slip that would have put many people into the wall. Good save!
After a bunch of trash talk, even by the officials about me winning. I must have bumped my cruise control switch which my boost solenoid draws power from. It felt like something was wrong on my first elimination round and I was a second off my dial. So basically I drove 4 hours to race for about 40 seconds, would totally do again. It was still fun to visit with everyone.


At least I was cutting decent lights. Was only 1 hundredth off last time I ran wastegate pressure, maybe I should be dialing 13.57 on low boost for elimination.

 

So good seeing you Carlos! Yeah, I had a pucker moment lol.
And thanks for the tire pressure gauge, going from 38psi to 22psi shaved an entire second off my ET. lol talk about a rookie mistake
Can't wait to do this again and see you out there killing it as always.

PS: Sean finally let his miata eat on the last run and ended up with a 12.6 @ 117 spinning about halfway through lol

 

It was good to meet Sean too, not to mention his crazy boosted K24. Glad he got to let 'er rip at least once. See you soon.

 

Does Sean have a build thread? That sounds like a lot of fun!

sorry to hear about the lame cruise issue but glad you're still out there tearing it up Carlos.

 

I think Sean is pretty old school, his parts were mostly fabricated. I can't remember for sure but I think he said it had a Nissan trans and an 8.8 diff, used to be a V8 and a big power BP before that. Not really sure about a build thread.

Thanks Ed, my car is running well. I remember being all happy with myself when I ran the solenoid off the cruise switch, thought I was pretty slick, boost on the fly and all. There's even a light to confirm it's on, unfortunately the steering wheel obscures it from my seating position. That and the fact that I can easily bump it. Well, let's just say it didn't turn out as great as I imagined.

Also very happy with the Tecnas. I have only gotten to setting 10, but it is still comfortable. It really puts the power down predictably on mountain roads last time I ran some on 8 all around. Don't really have a good recipe for a 60' yet, not as efficient at R&D as you guys.

 

So this time the guy with the crazy turbo K24 MR2 was there, and his car worked. I saw him run a 10.4 or something like that at 100mph, obviously off throttle on the finish line. He Smoked the auto hellcat that ran a 10.8. His car was running 117 in the eighth. He ended up dialing 10 flat but I didn't see his last runs.
My car was running ok, unfortunately I went red on the 2nd round against one of my friends. The Tecnas were on setting 10 all the way around and I was getting decent 60's. So it seems softer doesn't necessarily launch better.

 

We were back at it again, made it to the 3rd elimination round before I red lit. I seem to be having an affair with Roxanne again, need to cut that **** out. Anyway had a blast racing my friend in the orange hellcat, can't pull on him yet. Got my crank sensor replaced and my engine diaper didn't melt or catch fire, or cause any overheating.



So some of us are planning to go to Sacramento next week, maybe see you there Vlad. I will text you if my plans change, otherwise I will be there. I you don't make it, no problem, we will be back there a few more times.

 

Another fun night at Sacramento. Missed you Vlad. It was kinda slippery this week, I had a few pucker moments myself. Not too fun feeling slip at 100+ mph. I actually let off on my last 2 passes, was wishing I had a softer wastegate spring. I even saw it in my log, the rpm line was super wavy. Oh well, at least I didn't put it into the wall. Should be back at Sonoma next week.

 

Finally getting some points again, only semi final but better than going out on the first round. Had fun and my car was super consistent until I bogged the launch in the semi final. Practice was 12.28, 12.26, and 12.28 again. Got super lucky against the guy in the Bel Air with his .008 light, and then he spun.




Got one of the cool burning tire medals, they seem a little nicer than the trophies, but I'd rather take 1st.
They are running money races this weekend with Wally's for the winners on Sunday. So I might run both days but definitely going to try for a Wally on Sunday.

 

What a fun time and a beautiful day. Got taken out on the first round by a local kid with a real NHRA number, but a 19 second Hyundai. He's a good racer, I have seen him on Wednesday nights. He cut an .010 light against my .046, which wasn't bad, and we both broke out. Should have stuck with the 12.35 dial.
It was good practice for Wally's tomorrow.


The sponsor for today was unhappy saying this is a dying sport. So I am here to say, come on out and race, it's fun and more challenging than you think, for only $40 you can at least make a few passes down the 1/4 mile. Ok done ranting.
I know this isn't a big deal for folks like Emilio, Sonny, Ed, and Andrew. But for me, this is luxurious. Let's just say that I am extremely fortunate this weekend, because parking is very competitive on a big money race day.


Back to attempt to acquire a Wally tomorrow. I'm a manual so it's difficult to be as consistent as an automatic.

 

Well, no Wally, not that I expected to get too far against the automatics. Still had fun. These 2 days show that I need to tighten up my game at the end of the track. Both days I lost the 1st round but was ahead of my opponents by enough to have won. If I can learn to just keep my bumper ahead instead of a whole car length, I will have a much better chance against these guys.



Yes, I had the privilege of using the garages again, super luxurious.

 

Ok well maybe not the kid in the Hyundai, I needed to let off and and let him cross first. Tough call against an .010 and with such a difference in speed.

 

What I've seen in the last while is that these sports can be wildly inconsistent. The last NASA event at Sonoma was jam-packed, while the previous one was pretty empty. I think maybe people picked up other hobbies or travel further for the things they do, so they may be somewhere else or doing something else on any given weekend.

Frankly with the heat this weekend, I'm not surprised attendance was low. San Jose feels like a ghost town - I think everyone is hiding indoors waiting for the heat to let off. Lots of idiots driving around after sunset with their pop-pop-pop exhausts, burnouts, and inability to shift up a gear. But during the day? Crickets.

 

For us, I think it's a different problem. Attendance was high, it was jam packed for this event. It's just that this was the 2nd event this year. Also we only have something like 14 Wednesday night events this year, compared to 26 or so previous years. Hence why I am at Sacramento more often now.
Unfortunately the master promoter, Kyle, bless his soul, has passed on. No one can replace Kyle, so we all need to help a bit if we want to keep drag racing, in my opinion. Instead we get fake book people whining about it to the guy trying to do the best that any of us can, and he doesn't even get to race anymore. If they **** him off too much we might not get any Wednesdays next year.

 

Had a great weekend at the NHRA Sonoma Nationals. I had the privilege of running the street exhibition against my friend Tom in his blue Corvette. Got to meet tons of cool racers and see the nitro cars run 3's from the water box on Friday night. We ran today(Sunday) only got to make one pass, Tom went a little bit red. I now have a new NHRA competition license number, so my car will always be H773 now. It was a blast and an honor to be chosen to participate in the national event this year. Thanks to everyone who made it possible!

 

Unfortunately I had a leaky front tire this week, the guys were filling me up between rounds, but it sucked. Had a fun time other than that, the first time sheet was messed up, so I got a print out, lol. Oh well maybe time to get some drag radials for the rear... Nah!!



Patrick took me out in the first round with his hellcat, it was a good race, I was on the brakes across the finish line but still broke out worse. I need to work on that.

 

Had a blast on Wednesday. Got a double oh two on my first pass, only to go with Roxanne in the end. I did make semi finalist, got the $2 bill, the sticker and won the best light pot. Woo hoo!