At the risk of being shunned...

[28HopUp]

...I took my SSP to the dragstrip last night!

As background, I should state that the entire reason I started looking for a 5.0L Fox Mustang was becasue I wanted another 5spd car to race at the track. I missed banging gears and excercising my left leg after selling my 2006 Mustang. Hearing my complaints, a friend suggested that I look for a 5.0L/5spd Fox to race with. Two weeks later, my older son's gym teacher approached me and said he was looking to sell his CHP Mustang that had been sitting in his garage for a long time. A deal was struck. Although the initial intent was to make it a streetable weekend racer, the SSP history changed my direction a bit, and since then I've been working on makin' my CHP a fun all-around car. The car has been back on the street for about 3 months now, and I continue to work on it. But I hadn't raced it yet.

So last night the stars aligned so that I was free on a Wednesday with nice weather. Jack (13yo) and Ray (12yo) served as my pit crew, and we drove about 35 minutes to Cecil County Dragway (in Rising Sun, MD) for their Test & Tune. Paid at the gate, and went straight to the staging lane for tech. The place was pretty crowded, although I've seen it worse. Ray is a foster child that came to us over the summer, so this was his first visit to a dragstrip. The sights and sounds had him jumping around every time he saw a cool car. While Jack and Ray walked around, I stayed fairly close to my car after "passing tech" (CCD is fairly loose in how hard they inspect the cars) in case I needed to move my car towards the line. I talked with quite a few people in the staging lanes, despite what my parents taught me about talking to strangers!

As I said the place was crowded, and people kept breaking down and scattering parts/fluids on the track. Finally, I was able to stage for my first (AND ONLY!) pass. Driving on 255 BFG street radials, I just did a quick spin after driving around the water box. Pulled up alone to the tree (officials were cleaning up parts from the other lane), and staged by lighting the first beam and stopping just as I tripped the second beam. Watched the ambers drop, revved up to 1800, and slowly eased the clutch out. Ahhh, the sound and feel of a 5.0L was so awesome! Sorry to say that my scanner won't pick up my slip, but I'll give you the details:

• 60' . . . . . . . 2.403
• 1/8 . . . . . .10.048 @ 70.64mph
• 1/4 . . . . . .15.489 @ 91.21mph

No surprise or disappointment here. I babied the car off the line to avoid wheelspin. There's an easy 4/10ths wasted at the line. I also granny shifted at 5K RPM's, and held on to 3rd gear through the traps. Yup, the car is still running those highway gears (3.27:1 ratio). Also, as near as I can tell the motor has never been rebuilt after over 160K miles. And it needs a tune-up. And I was running full street weight (with spare tire and tools). And I hadn't dropped my rear tire pressure. And I had 3/4's of a tank of gas. [I know - EXCUSES EXCUSES! :P ] Given the numbers, a driver mod (ie getting more than one in for more experience), and track conditions, I know the car has 14's in it without throwing any new parts into the mix. All in all I am so happy with how the car ran. I just wanted to see what the car would do, and it was so much fun banging gears too.

Reflecting back on the night, there were TONS of Fox Mustangs there. But the lady in the timing shack held up the cars behind me to ask about my CHP Mustang. She even yelled over to her helper to come out of the shack and look at the car. I was happy to give them details - hope the racers behind me didn't mind waiting a few extra moments for their slips.

I guess my petition into the UASSP will be black-balled now, huh?