Ford vs Buick Results

[TurboTR]

Yes I agree in this case. I don't really see the point of racing say, a true 13.50 car with an 11.50 car (on spray) and feeling like that is some great victory? Not much of an accomplishment really- kinda hollow IMO. But the young crowd around the lanes seemed to think it was each time- woo-hoo! Wouldn't it be more interesting to run an 11 sec car vs your 11 sec car??

I mean that's kinda like taking a 9.50 street car and thumping a 17 sec winged Civic, then getting out afterwards and jumping up and down and chest bumping the homies and all. Oh well...

TurboTR

On the sandbagging issue when a car is qualified with a 13 something it shouldnt be able to get away with a 11.30 time later. I think ANYONE that is faster than a 3 tenth breakout, the rule should be that they are out.

 

[lilthumper]

We could have had more time to race if the stupid down time to clean the track every 3 runs.......... Most idiots dont remember when the car is pouring crap out of it to get over to the side

On the sandbagging issue when a car is qualified with a 13 something it shouldnt be able to get away with a 11.30 time later. I think ANYONE that is faster than a 3 tenth breakout, the rule should be that they are out.

Now I cant complain about my race as the guy qualified with a 10.47 and ran a 10.35 so that to me is an acceptable change. I saw several cars get better than 1 second from the qualifing runs so to me that should be discussed.

The .3 breakout is silly. Especially when you only get one or two qualifying passes. I had 2 passes of 12.02 and 12.29 with very poor sixty foots caused by a cold track. I hooked the night before and ran 11.80 with a 1.90 60ft. On my final, with a warm track, I cut a 1.74 60 ft which should have been a low 11 second pass. Of course I got lucky when I missed 3rd and the buick blew up at the same moment. The sandbagging will continue by both sides. My buick dialed in an 11.60 and told me his car runs 11.20's. I say alot of sandbagging is not on purpose.

 

[Danster]

I have to agree with the last post. I qualified with a 11.66 but got out of it at the end because of knock showing up on the knock gauge.

I made some fueling adjustments via trans plus and did not get a chance to run it again until eliminations. I ran a best to date 11.59 at 114 MPH with a little TA-49. :biggrin:

My opponent was a Ford Lightning and he qualified with a 12.0. So unfortuantely he already new it would be tough to win due to our qualifying times.

But it's a little hard to swallow when there is a 1 to 2 seconds difference in ET's.

Dannyo

 

[19GN86]

I have to agree with the last post. I qualified with a 11.66 but got out of it at the end because of knock showing up on the knock gauge.

I made some fueling adjustments via trans plus and did not get a chance to run it again until eliminations. I ran a best to date 11.59 at 114 MPH with a little TA-49. :biggrin:

My opponent was a Ford Lightning and he qualified with a 12.0. So unfortuantely he already new it would be tough to win due to our qualifying times.

But it's a little hard to swallow when there is a 1 to 2 seconds difference in ET's.

Dannyo

I totally agree about the 1 sec and more difference but this would have been me if I had not got my second time trial. My first pass was terrible I pinged all the way down the track and let off near the end and ran in the mid 15's with my 72GS. I worked on the car all morning having timing issues and carb problems.

I made some progress with the car and ran a 14.5 on my second time trial and this pass almost didn't happen they announced the staging lanes were closed as I was driving up and I had to plead to get one more.

Being that I was in the bottom 10, I don't know if it would have made a lot of difference but I did a 14.4 in the final. If I would have qualified with the mid 15, I would probably won my race but caused a slower car to move further up the ladder so I don't think the outcome would have been much different but we would have had a car qualifiy 1 sec slower than what was ran in the final race.

And you can see how that would look bad.

Sorry guys I didn't realized I was signed in as my son. Sorry

FAST86GN Moderator Texas section
David Newton

 

[fast86gn]

Now I'm signed in correctly



I totally agree about the 1 sec and more difference but this would have been me if I had not got my second time trial. My first pass was terrible I pinged all the way down the track and let off near the end and ran in the mid 15's with my 72GS. I worked on the car all morning having timing issues and carb problems.

I made some progress with the car and ran a 14.5 on my second time trial and this pass almost didn't happen they announced the staging lanes were closed as I was driving up and I had to plead to get one more.

Being that I was in the bottom 10, I don't know if it would have made a lot of difference but I did a 14.4 in the final. If I would have qualified with the mid 15, I would probably won my race but caused a slower car to move further up the ladder so I don't think the outcome would have been much different but we would have had a car qualifiy 1 sec slower than what was ran in the final race.

And you can see how that would look bad.

 

[Jeasen]

Can anyone tell me why they were running a pro tree, I thought the event was put on by the Buick guys and everyone knows that owns a turbo Buick that the car needs time to build up boost on the line. If I would have brought my car down with the trans brake I would have been screwed. Didn't even seem like there was enough time to build boost with the foot brake.

What was the deal with the 2 hour delay on pairing up the cars, why couldn't they have typed in all the #'s on an Excel spread sheet, and then let the program sort them. It should have been a 15 minute job tops.

Other than these 2 complaints my Dad and I had a really good time, but I think if I attend next year I will definitely bring a car to help put those mustangs to shame. :biggrin:

 

[LV GN]

a pro tree is not so bad. tsm uses a pro tree. you just have to go in hot. light the first yellow and start building boost. i wait untill i just can barly hold the car with the foot brake. and then i set the trans brake. most of the time the roll from setting the tb will get me the 2nd light and mash the pedal. once you get used to a pro tree its not so bad.

 

[Jeasen]

a pro tree is not so bad. tsm uses a pro tree. you just have to go in hot. light the first yellow and start building boost. i wait untill i just can barly hold the car with the foot brake. and then i set the trans brake. most of the time the roll from setting the tb will get me the 2nd light and mash the pedal. once you get used to a pro tree its not so bad.

I was not sure if you could do it that way or not, that did come to mind though when I was at the race, I just didn't know how the tranny would like the T brake engaged after you had allready started building boost.

 

[Kansas T]

I love the pro tree. I've been racing heads up classes for several years that way. Here's how I stage my car:
I let my opponent light his first stage light.
Then I bring the rpm up alittle and quickly light both of my stage lights.
Once I have both lights lit, I go to WOT until I get to the desired boost level.

I leave off the foot brake now, but I've used a tranny brake with this method and never had any problems. It shouldnt take very long to build boost if your combination is setup right.

 

[Kansas T]

I was not sure if you could do it that way or not, that did come to mind though when I was at the race, I just didn't know how the tranny would like the T brake engaged after you had allready started building boost.

If you have worn transmission clutches, the stage right brake wont always engage under boost. I dont know about the other styles of brakes.

 

[Jeasen]

I love the pro tree. I've been racing heads up classes for several years that way. Here's how I stage my car:
I let my opponent light his first stage light.
Then I bring the rpm up alittle and quickly light both of my stage lights.
Once I have both lights lit, I go to WOT until I get to the desired boost level.

I leave off the foot brake now, but I've used a tranny brake with this method and never had any problems. It shouldnt take very long to build boost if your combination is setup right.

From what I seen at OK with the pro tree, they would not let you light both of the lights, They were making each person only light one at a time. I seen many times where they made guys start all over for lighting both staging light at once.

 

[Kansas T]

From what I seen at OK with the pro tree, they would not let you light both of the lights, They were making each person only light one at a time. I seen many times where they made guys start all over for lighting both staging light at once.

Yes, thats courtesy staging. Let your opponent light his first light before you. Then you can stage it anyway you want. If you light both stage lights before your opponent lights any, thats not right and they will back you out at Thunder valley. I have staged my car the way I suggested for several years and never had any complaints.

 

[UNGN]

Can anyone tell me why they were running a pro tree, I thought the event was put on by the Buick guys and everyone knows that owns a turbo Buick that the car needs time to build up boost on the line. If I would have brought my car down with the trans brake I would have been screwed. Didn't even seem like there was enough time to build boost with the foot brake.

Pro tree was my Idea. Before Pro tree, the Buicks didn't have a chance, period. We would be so far behind the fords by the time we got to buicks with trans brakes, it wouldn't matter if you had more time to launch or not, your race wouldn't matter, anyway. They had to do something.

If you think it's tough to launch a buick with a protree, try consistantly launching a manual transmission mustang with street tires with a pro tree.

The Pro tree has been a a net plus for the Buicks since the shootout went to it, even though the mustangs have gotten turbo'd and are much faster, now. We aren't loosing 15 races to push-through-the-light-reds and almost every race ends at the finish line and not at the start, so it's better for the spectators, too.

 

[1ARUNM]

We were having a lot of people red light and thought this would help. It seems to have worked, but we still seem to get a few red eyes. A bad light is better than an automatic loss.

I don't think I have ever heard anyone complain about it since we started using it. You will probably like it too if you give it a little time

The problems exactly matching up 200 cars in one big race are too numerous to list, but we do use a spread sheet program to do it. There are just a lot of problems with input of the correct information, ie. no tech card, last nights number on car, can't read someone's writing on tech card, car broke can't race,etc. etc. etc. Just to mention a few. All 200 cars have to be matched up correctly. This looks real simple from the outside, but if you were behind the scenes you would see how difficult it is.

We appreciate your patience and hope you make it back next year

 

[19GN86]

Yes, thats courtesy staging. Let your opponent light his first light before you. Then you can stage it anyway you want. If you light both stage lights before your opponent lights any, thats not right and they will back you out at Thunder valley. I have staged my car the way I suggested for several years and never had any complaints.

Brian, if you light the second light first then go under boost waiting on the other guy he can set there forever and burn you down

To me this is not the way to do it. He'll wait until you have to get out of boost and then he'll set his second light.

I'm surprised this hasn't happened to you????

The mustang guys around here will burn you down at the tree if you give them the chance and there are a lot of Texas Fords at Noble.

 

[Kansas T]

Brian, if you light the second light first then go under boost waiting on the other guy he can set there forever and burn you down

To me this is not the way to do it. He'll wait until you have to get out of boost and then he'll set his second light.

I'm surprised this hasn't happened to you????

The mustang guys around here will burn you down at the tree if you give them the chance and there are a lot of Texas Fords at Noble.

I have had that happen, but most tracks I race at use a 7 second auto start. Meaning after I final stage, he has seven second to get in or he'll get an automatic red light.

 

[soonergn]

I was the red light king before they started using the pro tree. I brought up switching to the pro tree every chance I got and was glad when they finally did it. No more red lights for me! It didn't change the way I stage, either. Just light up the first light, build about 5 or so pounds of boost, ease off the brake just enough to creep into the 2nd light, then stand on the brake pedal and bring the boost up to where you want it. As far as someone trying to burn me down, I let my opponent light the 2nd light first and then I build my 5 lbs and creep into my second light. If they want to burn me down it forces them to do it before I build any boost. Problem solved.

I don't mind sandbagging by the other team at all. The guy doing it will benefit from it but he screws several of his teammates. Say he's fast enough to qualify 10th but sand bags and qualifies in the 30th spot. 11 thru 30 just got moved up the ladder one step higher then they should be and now are forced to run a faster car than they would have. Say another guy sandbags too. Now some of the cars could be moved up 2 steps and are running against even faster cars. Boy, what a selfish act. So I say the more the marrier. But it sure sucks if you're the guy paired up with the sandbagger. Just take one for the team 'cause everyone will know what just happened to you. You're the good guy and he's a dork.

 

[BUICKTR]

I hate to see when V6 people post about a V8 beating up on a little V6 turbo. Everybody comes to race "so run what you brung". I love Turbo Buicks but the V8 Mustangs start to dominate in the 9 sec class and faster. I do feel its wrong when an 11 sec car sandbagged in order to run a car that is a second or more slower. I do agree there should be AT LEAST half second break out rule of your best qualifying time. This will help just in case you have a very bad sandbagger.