Posts Tagged ‘omega drags’

Man, that was a hot day!  I’ve been to a few drag events where I’ve come home with sunburn but after this one I just felt completely dehydrated (despite drinking over 4l of water) and worn out.  Temperatures of 33C or more and 90% humidity at a minimum with almost no shelter meant that in order to survive you just had to embrace the fact that you were going to be wet and uncomfortably from sweating for the majority of the day.  Once you’d come to terms with that fact you would be a lot happier.

I headed up to the drags with a car that felt pretty strong, although one that was a little down on power since the rebuild according to my power figures.  That is probably due to a more conservative tune being applied in the form of a degree less timing and a little less boost (now only spiking to about 1.72 bar as opposed to 1.82, although still holding at 1.65bar).  Was hoping for a solid performance and just praying that nothing would blow up and I’d be able to drive home under my own power!  I was also looking forward to setting up my 3-step launch control.  This was a new bit of code that had been added to my ECU by Andy at geekmapped.com and it is kind of a crude traction control system.  The idea is to have a stationary launch control rpm limit (e.g. 5,000rpm), and then 2 other launch control rpm limits at low speeds (e.g. 5,500rpm @ 20kph, 6,000rpm @ 29kph), which would slightly limit your acceleration speed off the line in the vital fractions of a second so you are not breaking traction and just spinning wheels on the line.  This was particularly important for me as I’m one of the relative few people up there who is racing on street tyres (Potenza RE-01) and not drag radials or slicks.

So I got up there and got things set up while I waited for the drivers meeting.  Was surprised to find there were only two foreigners racing, myself included.  The other guy is a decent guy known as “the fastest gaijin in Okinawa”!  He’s got a 850-900whp GTR and with his new slicks and launch control ALS system was looking for a solid performance in B-class (5.5-6.0s to go 150m).  I was in the much more lowly D-class (6.5-7.0s).

Free practice didn’t pass without claiming the first casualty of the day.  A Verossa with a huge Turbonetics turbo on decided to do the whole run with his right wheels spinning while the left ones were sticking.  Have no idea what happened there but it wasn’t good and that was the end of his day.  Although to be fair it was a car prepared by Ram Garage, who don’t really have the best reputation for building solid cars.  They did have by far the loudest car there though: a naturally aspirated 1st generation RX-7.  The thing was pretty but damn was it loud!  As he was cruising down to the starting line he was putting his hands together and doing an apologetic bow in his car while everyone was trying to plug their ears!

A second casualty was narrowly averted when a red Hachi Roku’s bonnet flipped up on the first practice run of the day.  They were lucky the bonnet was carbon fibre or that could have smashed the windscreen.  As it happened there was no damage at all and it could continue running through the rest of the day.  That Hachi Roku was by far the best looking car out there at the drags this time, although it was surprisingly slow for a car that had been completely gutted out for racing.

Timed practice then followed and I was consistent, but not setting the world on fire.  Best thing in these runs were my reaction times, 0.100s, 0.043s and a very impressive 0.005s.  While the latter could be deemed as a great reaction time, it is also dangerously close to a red light.  Things were feeling great though, even though I was a little off the pace (7.0s for the 150m including my reaction time was about 0.2s off my best), but I wasn’t up there to break records this time.

When qualifying came around I was in a pretty decent mood, despite the heat.  Unfortunately, my luck didn’t hold through the qualifying runs.  We had 3 qualifying passes and on 2 of them I went a fraction too early and red-lighted.  I think there were a couple of reasons that my reaction times were so low in practice and then were causing me to red-light.  Firstly, the temperature was hot  as hell on the track and plenty of rubber had been laid down at the start so maybe I was making better traction than before.  In addition, the launch control and motor mounts were helping me to stay planted on the line and not wheelspin as I was before, making me a bit zippier from the start.  But two out of three qualifying runs red-lighted was not great.  I was hoping it got them out of my system but I had to be careful in the afternoon.

So my car had made it through the morning session and while everyone tried to keep cool during the lunch break.  I went out to take a few photos of the cars but didn’t have so much energy to be fair so apologies if the shots are not up to their usual standards.  But after some photos and more taking on of liquids it was time for the tournament proper.  This would be a knockout, first-past-the-post affair, so getting to the 150m mark before the other car and without getting a red light was what it was all about.  I went up to the board and was surprised to see that despite my not so great 7.1s showing in qualifying, there were only 2 cars in the class quicker than me!  Possibly the heat had helped traction but just taken the edge off everyone’s speeds.  Whatever had caused it, this class was now wide open and I had a bye in the first round due to my time.

So I took the first run nice and steady, making sure I didn’t go too early.  My 2nd run was against the green RX-7, and next to that thing I could hardly hear my engine at all!  Was a little distracting but I got staged first and waited on the line for him to roll up.  As the lights went green I dropped the clutch and got ahead right at the launch.  I was expecting him to pull some ground back on me through 2nd and into 3rd gear but I kept a decent lead on him and I think I won by a car or two’s length.  Probably made a few people happy up there as they were no longer in danger of hearing loss!  It also got me one race closer to a final.  One thing I was noticing now though was that I was very wary of the starting lights and not wanting to red light.  While this morning I was dropping the clutch as the 3rd amber light lit up, now I was leaving it a split second longer, doubling my reaction times and more to 0.243s.

My 2nd run was almost a carbon copy of the first, with me getting a decent start off the line and then keeping the lead as I went through the finish line.  The other non-Japanese guy was doing pretty well too, getting through to the semi-final as I had just done.  He was making little tweaks with each pass and looking stronger all the time.  We were also talking between runs about how we both like to get staged at the lights before the other guy so we’re not rushing to do everything once we’re in position.  And yes, there is a surprising amount to watch and think about doing drag racing – it’s not just plant your foot and go for it.  But I was in the semi-final and whatever happened I would have two more races to go.  I went down to the start line to take a look at the tournament table and just as I did a car that was running in my class started to dump coolant all over the ground at the line, but then proceeded to do a full run (perhaps not noticing the huge leak).  And the leak was pretty substantial – it required a bunch of people with towels and such to get the track dry.  It looked like it had blown a radiator or a hose had come off for it to have dropped that much coolant in such a small time, and was probably close to overheating (if it hadn’t done).

But that wasn’t my concern at the moment as I had a semi-final to compete in.  Got to the line and staged first, going through my gears to make sure all the synchros were lined up and ready.  As the lights ticked down my thought process went something along these lines: “Lights ticking down… floor the gas… third amber light so drop the clutch… great launch and I’m ahead as I fly up 1st gear… grab the clutch and shift into 2nd… shift into 2nd… where the (insert expletive of your choice here) is 2nd???… ah, there it is… damn”  And that was the end of my hopes of a final.  I just couldn’t find 2nd gear for a split second and then had too much distance to catch up.  I was making a lot of ground on the guy but just not enough.  Meanwhile, the other foreigner was having similar luck, having forced to stage second at the lights and not having the best of starts.  But at least we both had the chance of a podium finish.

In other races, the highlights were provided mainly by a green S15, which not once but twice tried to go into the mountain at the end of the strip!  The first time it had all wheels locked up and was sideways trying to slow down (coming pretty close to flipping to).  And then the very next run he did he had all 4 tyres locked up as he was trying to brake before heading off the tarmac.  This second time he actually had to reverse out of the grass just before the mountain to get back to the pit area.  Reaction from the crowd at his antics was pretty mixed.  Initially people were willing him to pull out of it and avoid a collision, but then when he did there was a definite air of disappointment that there was no contact.

And so it came to my 3rd place race, and a chance to get another podium finish and trophy.  Headed down to the start line and waited while the racers in the class below me finished their final.  As I was going to pull onto the strip itself the guy in charge of the track looked at me and crossed him arms in front of him in a “do not pass” manner.  Wound the window down and asked him what the matter was as I’d made the 3rd place final.  Was then told that the car that had blown the radiator was the one I was supposed to be racing but couldn’t be repaired and had to retire.  Therefore I had won 3rd place by default.  Have to confess I was pretty disappointed as I was really up for that final race, and I don’t like to be just given a prize because the other guy couldn’t race.  Another guy summed it up pretty well though.  He told me that my car had held up to a day of racing whereas this other guy’s hadn’t, so my car and the build I had done on the engine deserved the award.  When put that way, it does give me a pretty nice feeling that I had done a pretty decent job on rebuilding my car’s engine.

So that was third place for me and only my 2nd podium finish.  Not a bad result at all considering I was expecting to be nowhere near the trophies at the start of the tournament.  Unfortunately, the other foreigner missed out on 3rd place by 0.03s.  The other car got the jump on him at the lights and he was making up ground quickly, but the finish line came 10m too soon.  He did come up with the highly impressive figures of doing a 0-100mph in 5.2 seconds though.  So the awards were handed out and everyone wearily packed their gear back into their cars and prepared to fight the traffic in Nago on the way home.

Whether I’ll be here in September to report on the next drag tournament I can’t yet say for sure as I’m still waiting on jobs, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to report on further drags in Okinawa in the future.  To see the full gallery of the drags, click here.