It turns out this was a much bigger event than we had given it credit for. To think that I was planning to blow this off! Pomona is the premier West Coast 1/4 mile facility but I didn't know that because I've never been there because they NEVER let use low life street car jockeys race there. This is strictly a professional venue.
Only 6 of the invited 21 drivers showed so I should have had a shot but the 6 that did show where the hardest of the hard core, quite frankly I think a few were ringers who were pros themselves. The cars were hard core too, not one ricer showed. The slowest car there (besides mine) ran mid-12s. I wasn't worried though because I figured I'd just do what we are always supposed to do which is run my own race and not think about what other people were doing. (This was strictly a reaction time competition anyways.)
Since this wasn't about the car's E/T this time I ran full weight, nothing removed so I wouldn't have any traction issues. I even ran with a bit more gas than what Dave would normally allow us to run. Again, I didn't know that Pomona was a whole different animal.
The event was set-up to be deliberately hard on us with us only getting ONE practice run and ONE main run. They were trying to find the best of the best after all.
Remember what I said about Pomona being a premier facility? I immediately knew when I tried to heat my tires that this track was STICKY! So I figured I could get away with raising my powerbraking RPM a little so I could improve my 60' time a little so I could improve my E/T a little. (I was already forgetting my rule about only focusing on the R/T.) Well, my car hooked WAY too well, so well in fact that my R/T was affected. I redlighted badly on my first and only trial run. Everybody else redlighted too (!) except for one dude who, ironically, went on to redlight on his main run instead. (There may be another dude who didn't redlight on that first run, I didn't keep track of everyone, but there were 4 of us talking and the dude who didn't redlight said that all of the rest of us except for him had relighted.) The general consensus was that the super sticky track had thrown us all off from what we were used to. (Although some of us may have been trying too hard too! Not me though!)
On the main run I did everything as before but I powerbraked less aggressively so that I wouldn't launch so quickly. But this great hooking track still reverse stung me by causing B1's ever so slight softness down at the very bottom of his powerband to weaken the launch a little too much which tanked my R/T. Now remember, we are talking very subtle nuances here. This wasn't what you would call a bog or stumble, it was just a little softness in the bottom end that wrecked my R/T (.260) because the track was so unforgiving. (Now remember, B1, unlike B3, does benefit from being powerbraked!) The extra weight we were carrying wound up hurting us here too. Something that I thought would help us actually wound up hurting us. In hindsight that was clearly another error on my part. I had thought about taking at least one of the child seats and the spare out after the first run cause I now knew that this track was hooking but I was too afraid to jack with the combo too much. I should have gone ahead and did it. Mainly though I simply needed another run where I could be like Goldilocks and find that just right spot somewhere between that first run's powerbrake RPM level and that second run's powerbrake RPM level. That would have gotten us in the hunt but this event was supposed to be all about getting it right the first time. The winning R/T by the way was a .020, which wasn't even good enough to be anywhere near even qualifying to run in this event. (The slowest qualifying R/T for this event was a .012) Oh well. I can still say that I got to run at Pomona which is something that VERY FEW people will ever get to do! Plus this event was free for us, plus they fed us well (No nappy cheap hot dogs like I figured it would be), PLUS they are going to buy our next street legals racing card for us! Got some cool stickers too!
Here's the good news: despite everything, B1 still pulled his best E/T to date on the second run! Despite the mediocre launch and extra weight, despite the fact that I didn't get to hot lap him, and despite the fact that I wasn't running my "good" #002 ECU, the ECU that has gotten us the only other 15s that we have ever seen in B1! (All 3 of them!) I had left the 002 ECU out because I wanted to keep the combo exactly the same as it had been when I got the .001 and .005 R/Ts but it turns out that I had read my notes wrong and I had had the 002 in on the .001 run but not on the .005 run. Maybe the fact that this track doesn't run uphill helped!
Dave, B1 was ALREADY in the 15s, don't you remember? He's just a little DEEPER into the 15s now! Since last Spring the sig has been reflecting the 15.95 that we got whilst we were repeatedly and thoroughly spanking the Sauceman's BMW. Haven't you been paying attention?
And yes, I did wait till after the event to eat, and yes, I left the lunch with them so I wouldn't have even more weight in the car!
No, I did not blow on the windshield but I've got to remember to try that some time!
Regards, Eric
...you're shitting me?
