Well, last Friday some friends and I hit the local Ozark International Dragstrip in Rogersville, MO, just outside of Springfield. Obviously a fun time. I witnessed not only the biggest wheelie I've ever seen in person but some of the fastest cars I've seen in person, along with several burnouts and loud exhaust systems.
The format for a race at a sanctioned dragstrip, for those unfamiliar, is as follows.
You pull into the back of the track, in one of 2 long lines of cars. 2 cars at a time pull forward, one in each lane, and run the whole quarter. After the 2 cars running cross over the finish line, the next two cars pull up, burnout, stage and then launch, as the previous 2 pull off the track onto one of the sidelanes that returns them to the parking lot, where they can either park their car to quit for the night or work on it, or jump back in line for a second run. The track has a large dip in it filled with water, probably 10 feet long, that you pull onto and burn out on, to get your tires warmed up so they stick better. After the burnout, you pull up to the staging area, which is also known as the starting line. The staging area has a system setup to ensure that the two cars are lined up totally evenly, and a system of lights tell the driver how close they are. As you pull up, the closer you get the to right spot, the more staging lights turn on. If you're not up far enough, or you've pulled past it, a lesser amount of lights are illuminated. The further you pull from it in either direction, the fewer amount of lights stay on. Fairly simple system.
If you've got a manual, once you've been properly staged, you "stall" your motor at whatever amount of RPMs you want to launch at, and then let out of the clutch in 1st gear to launch. A tree light system with 3 downward flashing yellow lights and then a green tells you when to start.
If you've got an automatic, you hold the brake down, and press the gas until the motor revs up to the top of the stall converter on the transmission. If you rev past the stall, you'll begin to burnout, which is not an ideal launch. So the most a stock stall converter will allow you to rev before wheelspin is usually around 1400 RPMs. In any case, you rev to the top of the stall, hold it, and when the tree lights hit the green, you let out of the brake and floor the gas pedal.
AND YOU'RE OFF!
Several radar guns time your run at various points. You first are timed on when your car actually leaves the line in relation to when the light turns green, which is appropriately called your reaction time. The best possible reaction time is usually about half a second.
The amount of time it takes for your vehicle to travel it's first 60 feet is then timed, called the 60 foot time. A good 60 foot time for the average street car is 2 seconds flat or below.
You are also timed at 330 ft., timed and clocked (mph) at the 1/8th mile, timed and clocked at 1000 ft., and timed and clocked finally at the 1/4 mile, where the finish line is.
The purpose of all these timings and clockings is so that in depth analysis of your run can be completed. As can be seen, your launch is critical to your overall run. If you have a horrible reaction time, it's going to screw up your 60 ft. time and the whole run in general. If you have wheel spin problems, like my car, you will run bad 60 foot times and not good 1/4s as well. Since the first 60 feet are the slowest 60 in the whole run, improvements of merely .1-.2 seconds in your 60 ft. time can help your 1/4 as much as a half second or more. Your reaction time has even more of an exponential effect on your quarter mile as a whole.
There were some awesome cars there, and my friends and I ran as well. A huge amount of 1st generation (60's) Camaros were in attendence, with a smaller amount of 2nd gen's (70-81), merely two 3rd gen's (82-92), and a decent amount of 4th gen's (93-2002). Technically, I was the only 3rd gen CAMARO there, as the only other 3rd gen was a Firebird Trans/Am.
A huge amount of *CRAPSTALLIONS* showed up as well, mostly 98-2004. A few 80-93 *CRAPSTALLIONS* were there as well. The 80-93 were usually heavily modified and blew the doors off of the 98-04 *CRAPSTALLIONS* in general, who were mostly stock.
A mere 6 imports total were there, consisting of a Mazda RX-7, a turbocharged Mazda Miata, 2 Acura Integras, 1 POOPMOBILE Civic, and a Saab station wagon.
And of course there were several other assorted muscle cars and drag cars.
Here is you-know-who, illustrating a decent launch. Unfortunately, they didn't take any pictures of my burnouts, which were spectacles as usual.
This is my friend Shawn Boland in his 1994 Pontiac Firebird Trans/Am. He's only staging in this picture.
This is a 2nd generation Camaro with huge scoop for a supercharger doing a big burnout. There were about 4 or 5 of these, all white. One of them was amoung the 10 or so cars to blow it's motor up on Friday.
Here is one of the many 1st generation Camaros that were there, this one an SS, doing a burnout.
Here is yet another 1st gen launching. This car also would fall prey to blowing up later that night.
This was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in person. This, yet ANOTHER 1st gen, is distinguised from the one above by it's later-style grille and lack of a massive cowl hood. This insane launch propelled it to something absurd like an 8 or 9 second pass. I can't even imagine what it's like to launch a car like that. A little dangerous, but more awesome than anything!
And while that Camaro was certainly fast, this obviously heavily modified 1st gen I can confidently say would blow it's doors off. This is the type of car that would be way too much of a liability and expense to own right now, but I would certainly love to "borrow" for a weekend. The full blown drag cars like this commonly dyno over 3000 horsepower and use as much as 17 gallons of race gas per 1/4! The price paid for a 4 second pass at over 300 MPH! ;D
God only knows what in the world this thing is, but it was clearly the fastest car there. It's big-block V8 powered and obviously running a healthy amount of boost from a massive supercharger. It's launch didn't even look real. It looked like it had been fired out of a large cannon or something. Never seen anything like it. It was a BAD machine.
And that sums up the recent trip to the season-opening night April 1 night at Rogersville. I'll use this thread to update on any activity of either of my cars there over the last few months of my stay down here, as the drag season rumbles on. And of course, supply cool pictures. All pictures from Rogersville can be found at
www.racingpixs.com/mp_includes/index.asp .
Just click on view and order online, which lets you view them free. You only would order if you wanted a large copy. I saved mine by using the Print Scrn button (next to the scroll lock on the keyboard) and pasting the image of the whole page in Microsoft paint. I then cut them out from the rest of the page and doubled them in size with the "Stretch/Skew" function. A LOT of cool looking cars on the page that I didn't include, worth the visit!
