One Lap of America Round 5 - Tulsa Raceway Park Drag Racing

Tulsa Raceway was about an hour from Hallett and this was the only day that had 2 events in the same day. Since we were running in the early run group at Hallett, we got there with plenty of time to come up with a strategy. There were going to be 2 different events. The first was a "low ET" competition for full points, just like any of the other events, where lowest time down the 1/4 mile stip would win.

The second would be a bracket race, where, based on your first run, you "dial in" how fast you think you will run and then you need to come closer to your time than the guy next to you, without going faster, or "breaking out". If the slower car dialed in 15 seconds in the 1/4 mile and the faster car claimed 13 seconds, then the slower car would be given the green light 2 seconds before the faster car. The idea is that both cars should cross the finish line at the exact same time. But, since man and machine are not perfect, it is a challenge that awards consistency over outright speed. Considering that I can count on one hand how many times I’ve drag raced, and the fact that I’ve never launched our car the same way twice (let alone even tried to do a drag racing launch with it), we were fully expecting to be knocked out in the first round of the bracket. Are you as confused as I was? Since I didn’t know what was going on, I decided to intimidate my competition by quoting lines from The Fast and the Furious. "I live my life one 1/4 mile at a time!" LOL!



The Low ET (elapsed time) competition was up first. Kevin coached me on a launch strategy for the car. The nature of his car being turbo-charged and having an extremely aggressive clutch would make this extremely difficult. He and I regularly stall the car when driving it around and I was just hoping not to do so at the start line! On the subject of the turbo, it makes immense power, but only under load and above a certain rpm. The tires cannot hold down the power in 2nd gear unless very warm, let alone 1st gear, so the launch will typically result in 1 of 2 things: A) "bogging" the motor, meaning that the clutch engages and the tires don’t slip much, so the engine rpms are below where the turbo makes power, resulting in a slow start. Or B) obliterating the tires. The engine is in boost and the tires are broken loose, but we just sit there spinning them instead of getting traction to move forward. It is almost impossible (at least for me) to find that perfect in-between. Kevin’s strategy was to hold the brake on with the ball of my right foot, bring the revs up to our powerband for the turbo, and bring the clutch out so it was slipping a bit, building turbo boost and priming the drivetrain, so as to not shock it with a sudden torque spike.

In the actual drag race, the launch would have gone great, but there was a ton of traction compound laid down and there was just immense grip. The motor bogged and so my launch wasn't good, but the traction was unbelievable. As the new Camaro SS next to me pulled ahead on the launch, my 315/30/18 Michelin PS2’s actually held 1st gear and the forward propulsion pinned me to my seat unlike ever before. I grabbed 2nd gear and by the time I hit 3rd, I had the Camaro sucking down my exhaust. I pulled several more car-lengths before crossing the line at a 12.62 seconds at 119 mph. Kevin wasn’t particularly pleased with the number, as low 12’s should be easily achievable, but was understanding of how difficult the car was to launch. While the car is one of the quicker cars in the competition his time was only good for 14th position overall, so not great, but not terrible. There was a new One Lap record set that day, by the stock Porsche 997 twin turbo. That car has all-wheel drive, a rear weight bias, launch control, and an automatic transmission. The result was simply unbelievable, at a 10.90. This was an utterly stock car.



In the bracket race, we "dialed in" a 12.4, in case I got a decent launch and went faster. I actually got a great launch on my first bracket run and stayed in it until I could see that I was ahead of the other car. Once I knew I had him beat to the finish line, I backed out of the gas to make sure I didn’t beat my dial-in time. So, possibly by a stroke of luck, we weren’t kicked out in the first round of the bracket. So half the field got to pack up and get going, while we stuck around to play for another round. This went on a few times and we eventually found ourselves in the Top 8, tieing for 4th place before finally being kicked out. Considering that we were expecting this to be a throw-away event, these were some awfully nice bonus points! We gained a spot in the overall rankings up to 9th and furher solidified our lead in class. This was at the expense of a reasonable departure time, though. We got packed up, though, and headed on to St. Louis.