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Halloween Classic Diary
The Hubby Car
Hubby's car is a 1979 Ford Fairmont Futura. He's got a .351 Windsor engine in it, bored out to a .406. It's considered to be a "sleeper," in that it has an ugly paint job on it, and it's not really one of the "classic fast cars." At the Salt Lake City track, it generally runs the quarter mile in about the 10.40 second range--which is fast. In Idaho, closer to sea level, he runs much faster than that, so he has to shift it at a considerably lower RPM than he's used to, because the NHRA has rules about cars that can go faster than ten seconds, and his car doesn't comply with any of them. So, he's walking a fine line here, trying to go really fast without getting kicked off the track.
What is bracket racing?
First, a few words about bracket racing, for those unfamiliar with it. Bracket racing is basically a handicap race where they stagger the start so that the cars will cross the finish line at the same time. This is purely a driver's race; the ability of the cars to go fast really doesn't enter into it (although it increases the "cool" factor). Therefore, a car that can go ten seconds in a quarter mile has no advantage over a car that can only do it in fifteen seconds.
There are two elements to bracket racing. The "tree," or light, is the first. A "perfect light" is .000; anything over that will factor into the win or loss difference. And a driver who leaves the trap early will "red-light"--and lose, because that's a foul. My Hubby considers anything under a .050 light to be a good one.
The other element is the "dial-in." The driver tells the officials how much time he thinks the car will take to run down the track. This keeps the drivers honest--because if they run under that time, that's a "break-out" foul, and they lose.
So, for example: Say you have a car that runs the quarter in fifteen seconds, and another that does it in ten. They line up at the start together, the car that does it in fifteen dialed in at 15.10 and the car that does it in ten dialed in 10.10. The 15-second car gets a five-second head start, and starts tooling down the track. The other car sits there (as the driver watches the tree intently), takes off five seconds later, and starts reeling the first car in. Assuming neither of them go under their dial-in, the one that crosses the finish line first will win. Most of the time, this is the driver who ran the race closest to his dial-in, and/or had the better light. Both the dial and the light are crucial elements, and many a race has been lost at the tree by having a crappy light--even if the driver ran right on his dial-in.
The above is just a rough sketch of what bracket racing entails. A driver has two chances for error: one at the tree, and the other at the finish. The win margin is determined by who had the least amount of error at both spots.
So far, we've seen folks from: Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, and Texas (!), as well as Canada. This is a truly huge event for drag racers in the region. One of the classes had 128 cars in it, and we probably have upwards of 700 cars altogether here.
Thursday
The Hubby competed against 95 other drivers the first day (Thursday), and finally went out in the 4th round, when he ran a 10.10 on a 10.13 dial-in. His opponent also broke out by .03, so that race was determined by thousandths of a second. Exciting stuff. And, hey...I got about 1500 words written, split between two fics. The TempCorporeality fic is percolating along (I think; I also have the awful feeling that it sucks quite a bit, but I guess we'll see); and I've started a new MustardVerse fic, set between "Pottage" and "Reward," where Spike goes to LA and meets Lorne for the first time. That one will be somewhat experimental, because I'm writing it in first person...from both their points of view. Go, me, breaking new ground. Woo-hoo.
Friday
The next day, some poor schlub, who came down all the way from Calgary, Canada, competing for a spot in the Super-Quick race, blew up his nitrous car at the start line--literally. I was clear down in the lower pit area, probably a half-mile away from it, and I heard it happen. Fortunately, the driver was unhurt. The car, however, was totaled. Both carburetors blew off the manifold and through the hood, about 50-75 feet up in the air, both the fuel line and the nitrous lines were severed, and they were both on fire, which melted the windshield all over the dash. It's really lucky that it didn't happen when he was down the track doing a hundred miles an hour, or it could have been really bad. He had it fixed the next night in time for the wheel-standing competition.
Racing luck was awesome for us. The Hubby made it clear to the final round of the bonus race, up against a Corvette from Idaho. With Utah and Ford pride on the line, he cut a .001 light and ran a 10.11 on a 10.08 dial, against a .006 light and 11.05 on an 11.03 dial. The margin of victory was .0028 seconds...and he nearly gave the race away at the end by letting off on the gas. Whee! They took our picture and gave us a really nice plaque.
In one of the rounds, he also ran the fastest he's ever run: 10.07. He discovered, by doing this, that one of the lanes is just a little faster than the other one, and has decided to try to avoid that lane, because of the aforementioned rules. Fortunately, he had a bye run that round, so he didn't lose the race, even though he broke out considerably from what he'd dialed.
I didn't get much writing done; a little on the TempCorporeality fic with a conversation between incorporeal Spike and dead Lilah. Not quite 300 words. It would really help if I knew where I was going with this. I feel like I'm flailing around with no direction--which, heh, I guess I kinda am. Argh.
Wonder of wonders, Da Boy actually requested to go to bed around 9:30. Those of you who know of my bedtime battles with him know what a miracle this is. We were in the upper pit area talking with some friends, and when we came back down, he went potty, brushed his teeth, got a diaper, had a story, and crashed. It was beautiful. And he's been doing really well, potty-wise. He tells me when he needs to go, and he hasn't had an accident yet. *knock wood*
Saturday
Hubby made it through the first round of the Classic, running a 10.117 on a 10.10 dial-in. Unfortunately, his water pump chose the end of the race to start punking out on him, so he had to do some mechanical work on it before the next round. We break something every year here.
A couple of cars wrecked at the top end of the track, colliding with each other as one car suddenly went to the lane opposite of the one it was running in. Both drivers were okay, but the cars, which rolled, were totaled. Thank God for the safety standards of the NHRA.
A storm was sneaking up on us, so they ran an extra round that night, which they don't usually do. By the time it was the Hubby's turn, it was about 11pm, and he was pretty tired--and he unfortunately red-lit. So that put him out for good.
Which may have been a good thing. Because, sure enough, Sunday dawned with big rain. We hooked up and left the track around 11am. I wanted to wander over to the Boise Mall for a bit, because that's where we got the puzzle book that Da Boy is so enamored of. I grabbed two more for him, we ate, and started home around two--by which time it had stopped raining, so hopefully they got to finish up all the racing. Stopped along the way to help a fellow racer out alongside the road with a blown trailer tire, got home about 8:30pm, and here we are. And *whee!* While we were eating breakfast, a DC Talk song made me think of a hook for my new MustardVerse fic, so hopefully I'll be working on that some as time goes by.
We had a great time. Can't wait to go again next year. :-)
Hubby's car is a 1979 Ford Fairmont Futura. He's got a .351 Windsor engine in it, bored out to a .406. It's considered to be a "sleeper," in that it has an ugly paint job on it, and it's not really one of the "classic fast cars." At the Salt Lake City track, it generally runs the quarter mile in about the 10.40 second range--which is fast. In Idaho, closer to sea level, he runs much faster than that, so he has to shift it at a considerably lower RPM than he's used to, because the NHRA has rules about cars that can go faster than ten seconds, and his car doesn't comply with any of them. So, he's walking a fine line here, trying to go really fast without getting kicked off the track.
What is bracket racing?
First, a few words about bracket racing, for those unfamiliar with it. Bracket racing is basically a handicap race where they stagger the start so that the cars will cross the finish line at the same time. This is purely a driver's race; the ability of the cars to go fast really doesn't enter into it (although it increases the "cool" factor). Therefore, a car that can go ten seconds in a quarter mile has no advantage over a car that can only do it in fifteen seconds.
There are two elements to bracket racing. The "tree," or light, is the first. A "perfect light" is .000; anything over that will factor into the win or loss difference. And a driver who leaves the trap early will "red-light"--and lose, because that's a foul. My Hubby considers anything under a .050 light to be a good one.
The other element is the "dial-in." The driver tells the officials how much time he thinks the car will take to run down the track. This keeps the drivers honest--because if they run under that time, that's a "break-out" foul, and they lose.
So, for example: Say you have a car that runs the quarter in fifteen seconds, and another that does it in ten. They line up at the start together, the car that does it in fifteen dialed in at 15.10 and the car that does it in ten dialed in 10.10. The 15-second car gets a five-second head start, and starts tooling down the track. The other car sits there (as the driver watches the tree intently), takes off five seconds later, and starts reeling the first car in. Assuming neither of them go under their dial-in, the one that crosses the finish line first will win. Most of the time, this is the driver who ran the race closest to his dial-in, and/or had the better light. Both the dial and the light are crucial elements, and many a race has been lost at the tree by having a crappy light--even if the driver ran right on his dial-in.
The above is just a rough sketch of what bracket racing entails. A driver has two chances for error: one at the tree, and the other at the finish. The win margin is determined by who had the least amount of error at both spots.
So far, we've seen folks from: Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, and Texas (!), as well as Canada. This is a truly huge event for drag racers in the region. One of the classes had 128 cars in it, and we probably have upwards of 700 cars altogether here.
Thursday
The Hubby competed against 95 other drivers the first day (Thursday), and finally went out in the 4th round, when he ran a 10.10 on a 10.13 dial-in. His opponent also broke out by .03, so that race was determined by thousandths of a second. Exciting stuff. And, hey...I got about 1500 words written, split between two fics. The TempCorporeality fic is percolating along (I think; I also have the awful feeling that it sucks quite a bit, but I guess we'll see); and I've started a new MustardVerse fic, set between "Pottage" and "Reward," where Spike goes to LA and meets Lorne for the first time. That one will be somewhat experimental, because I'm writing it in first person...from both their points of view. Go, me, breaking new ground. Woo-hoo.
Friday
The next day, some poor schlub, who came down all the way from Calgary, Canada, competing for a spot in the Super-Quick race, blew up his nitrous car at the start line--literally. I was clear down in the lower pit area, probably a half-mile away from it, and I heard it happen. Fortunately, the driver was unhurt. The car, however, was totaled. Both carburetors blew off the manifold and through the hood, about 50-75 feet up in the air, both the fuel line and the nitrous lines were severed, and they were both on fire, which melted the windshield all over the dash. It's really lucky that it didn't happen when he was down the track doing a hundred miles an hour, or it could have been really bad. He had it fixed the next night in time for the wheel-standing competition.
Racing luck was awesome for us. The Hubby made it clear to the final round of the bonus race, up against a Corvette from Idaho. With Utah and Ford pride on the line, he cut a .001 light and ran a 10.11 on a 10.08 dial, against a .006 light and 11.05 on an 11.03 dial. The margin of victory was .0028 seconds...and he nearly gave the race away at the end by letting off on the gas. Whee! They took our picture and gave us a really nice plaque.
In one of the rounds, he also ran the fastest he's ever run: 10.07. He discovered, by doing this, that one of the lanes is just a little faster than the other one, and has decided to try to avoid that lane, because of the aforementioned rules. Fortunately, he had a bye run that round, so he didn't lose the race, even though he broke out considerably from what he'd dialed.
I didn't get much writing done; a little on the TempCorporeality fic with a conversation between incorporeal Spike and dead Lilah. Not quite 300 words. It would really help if I knew where I was going with this. I feel like I'm flailing around with no direction--which, heh, I guess I kinda am. Argh.
Wonder of wonders, Da Boy actually requested to go to bed around 9:30. Those of you who know of my bedtime battles with him know what a miracle this is. We were in the upper pit area talking with some friends, and when we came back down, he went potty, brushed his teeth, got a diaper, had a story, and crashed. It was beautiful. And he's been doing really well, potty-wise. He tells me when he needs to go, and he hasn't had an accident yet. *knock wood*
Saturday
Hubby made it through the first round of the Classic, running a 10.117 on a 10.10 dial-in. Unfortunately, his water pump chose the end of the race to start punking out on him, so he had to do some mechanical work on it before the next round. We break something every year here.
A couple of cars wrecked at the top end of the track, colliding with each other as one car suddenly went to the lane opposite of the one it was running in. Both drivers were okay, but the cars, which rolled, were totaled. Thank God for the safety standards of the NHRA.
A storm was sneaking up on us, so they ran an extra round that night, which they don't usually do. By the time it was the Hubby's turn, it was about 11pm, and he was pretty tired--and he unfortunately red-lit. So that put him out for good.
Which may have been a good thing. Because, sure enough, Sunday dawned with big rain. We hooked up and left the track around 11am. I wanted to wander over to the Boise Mall for a bit, because that's where we got the puzzle book that Da Boy is so enamored of. I grabbed two more for him, we ate, and started home around two--by which time it had stopped raining, so hopefully they got to finish up all the racing. Stopped along the way to help a fellow racer out alongside the road with a blown trailer tire, got home about 8:30pm, and here we are. And *whee!* While we were eating breakfast, a DC Talk song made me think of a hook for my new MustardVerse fic, so hopefully I'll be working on that some as time goes by.
We had a great time. Can't wait to go again next year. :-)