ANTILAG RACING 2011 shootout experience
Where to even begin with the review of the 2011 dsm/evo shootout. I will start of by saying, if you have never been to one of these events, you should start going, it is pure 4g63 nirvana.
For those of you that do go these events, I am sure you will understand when I talk about the stress, the anxiety, and the franticness of getting the car ready, to actually making some passes. This was no exception for our car.
Getting ready to leave and our little caravan
The “To Do List” with any drag car, just seems to be never ending, and as usual I was scrambling to get stuff completed the day before we left, things like building circuits, bolt checks, tin work, getting race gas and trailor supplies, dominated my schedule. But the beauty of it all, is when you pull into the town of Norwalk, and see dsms and evos around almost every corner, all that stress is a fading memory as you are engulfed with the heart pounding sound of cars on their launch control systems. Like every other shootout, the number of people that showed up is increasing at an exponential rate, which is surprising in these economic times, but brilliant in regards to the DIE HARD mentality that most gear heads in this sport have.
Saturday Rolls around and we are off to the car show. I will say, that even though I look forward to make the pilgrimage to Buschur Racing, hear cars making dyno pulls on the “heart breaker”… being at the track was just awesome and a welcomed change. There was a lot of space to park, the vendor row was amazing, and watching the autocross was absolutely jaw dropping.. I mean, where are you going to see 9 and 10 seconds cars.. autocrossing ? You will at the dsmshootout in the Max effort Class.
Here we are next to the English racing crew
And a shot of the autocross set up
I didn’t take a lot of pictures at the car show, but I have to say that one of my favorite cars out there was dave buschurs 32 coupe. That thing is absolutely insane on so many levels. Here are a few pictures
English Racing., I really look up to this gentleman, and his team. He has always been down to earth and humble when talking to a amateur such as myself… None other than Mr Jeff Bush
Here are some shots of his amazing machine.
Yes that is Titanium piping
RACE DAY
As always with the shootout, there has to be rain, I don’t know if this is Gods way of playing a cruel joke on us or just plain old bad luck.. We get to the track and unload the car, and wait for the track to be dried off, from the rain. Hopefully someone got a picture of that Turbine on the Track blow drier…. Now to figure out a way to mount that to a car .. Hmm
Anyway, we are attempting to qualify for the Quick class QWK 16 or gamblers race… So I am in the lanes, walking around, nervous as ever, before I make my first pass. Jeff Bush comes up to me , I think he could see it in my face that I was nervous…He told me to calm down, take a deep breath and focus…” You are not here to impress anyone.. just DO your job and try and qualify, sit at the line for 5 minutes if you have to …” Thank you for the talk Jeff, I really appreciate it… I however was not able to do what jeff told me to do.. my nerves were frazzled to say the least.
\Even Dave Buschur came by for a chat and complimented my car which I must say I am humbled by that..jeez I must have looked like a nervous wreck out there.
Pass #1
So I get strapped up, say my Hail Mary;s and get in the burnout box.and as usual couldn’t do one. Forgot to hit my line lock, forgot to activate my vacuum pump, forgot which button was for my nitrous, forgot my head at the trailer…..I stage and the car leaves piss poorly..during the pass probably 400 feet in , the car felt slow as shit..and sure enough when I got my slip it was a 11.80 at 131 mph.. WTF how can we be that far off from our previous 147 mph trap speeds…. During this pass we ran against the 4G63 bmw.. such a awesome car.
Back in the pits, I check to see what the hell is wrong with the car, all the pipes looked good, everything seemed to be in place, Took a little fuel out of the car, because the Air was as thick as molasses juice, drained the puke tank , added some gas and waited till we were called for our second qualifying time…Jake, dave, scott and andy were helping me with all of this.
Pass #2
Not so nervous anymore. Remembered where all the buttons were … still a shitty burnout.. the car left well this time…we ended up getting a 1.69 sixty foot .. holy shit the best to date….but again half way down the track I could read a damn book, because of how slow the car was… it was nice getting passed by Jeff as he hurtled by me at over 150 mph. The slip was 10.9* something at 130mph.. What the hell is wrong with this car….. ?
Frustrated and pissed off we get back into pits. We decided to say fuck it, we leaned the car out more, checked our timing, it was at 0 degrees base WTF…. Put it back to 12 degrees , turned the boost down and added a bigger nitrous pill, I really don’t know what shot it was.
Pass #3
This is our last shot at trying to Qualify for Quick 16 class, if we can get the same 60 foot and spray down the track, we could possibly have a chance, I Think the cut off was a 10.40s.
Get in the burnout box, sprayed the car and do a great burnout… ( we are running against the Top level performance Evo.. That car is fucking sick)
Even though this was qualifying I wanted to have a little fun, so I held the button at the line and launched..wow the car feels ggggggggreat now…. But I knew that evo would walk around me ( I think he runs low 9s @155), so half way down the track I sprayed the juice…OLD GIRL LOVED THE JUICE…Come to find out that he broke something .. which was too bad , I hope their car is ok.
Get the slip 10.69 @ 140 hell yes new personal best, but we did not qualify….
A video of that pass thank you dave for the footage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2munA...ature=youtu.be
Back in the pits, we adjusted cam timing again and added a little fuel into the car and headed back to the lanes, so we could get one more pass out of Janet..
We were graced by the legend himself “john shepherd” in his meticulous 1g
He was going to make an exhibition pass in his car…It was spine tingling as he approached the staging lane, Everyone shut off their engines, the crowds were cheering as the rock star of the dsm community was welcomed back to his stomping grounds in the iconic car..
The music that was being played by his pistons and valves, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and then he launched……………Holy shit it was like a bullet being fired out of a cannon. Unfortunately John ‘s car broke, at the 660 foot mark.
IT WAS SUCH A THRILL TO SEE A CAR THAT is probably responsible for 99 % of the motivation for myself to want to go faster in this addicting hobby. Welcome back john shepherds 1g
PASS#4
Get to do a great burnout and stage it up, this time I stayed on the nitrous; got the rpm up to 3900 and let janet eat…….. HOLD the f*&K on warren …… wowwwwwwwwwww hoooo the car was out. I could tell by the ass dyno that we were back in the game.. come on baby hold on for just a couple more seconds, as I tried to put my foot through the firewall and press the nitrous button a little harder…….and crossed the line..after getting the slip I was overjoyed with our result a 10.36 @ 142 with a 1.74 sixty foot……. We just shattered our personal best record by almost 0.4of a second….
Here is a video of that pass, thanks again dave for the footage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oig4K...ature=youtu.be
Firstly I want to thank my Crew for all the help and support this weekend
My wife Ashley for making sure I was drinking fluids and motivating me to do my best
. Andy for taking tire pressures, loading and unloading the car and making sure everything was in order…
Dave for helping where ever you could and ensuring that the car was in one piece
Scott for all the help with the camera and loading and unloading of things
Trinh for all the camera footage
The master Jake for helping out with getting most of the power back .. by the end of the day.
With out you guys and girls it would not be possible for the car to make it down the track in one piece.
Also thank you dave buschur and buschur racing for putting on such a great event and Summit motorsports for the stickiest track in the country… we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves
I hope everyone has enjoyed my little shootout experience, and hopefully I will see you in 2012.
Sincerely
Warren from ANTILAG RACING
Reply With Quote
