i have a friend that let his wife drive his super street car. htis was her first pass ever she pulled in too fast and crossed the start line. the starter backed her up to the line and stopped her. she brought the rpm's up and the lights came down. she launched, still in reverse. luckily she got it stopped.
Bad news; Good news. The bad news is that the last time I took a car down the 1/4 mile was the late '70s. The good news is that I don't remember any goof-ups. I am really enjoying this thread. I can actually see myself in a couple of those situations.
I still can't stop laughing at "Matt's Excellent Adventure" (the pictures are priceless)! Keep 'em coming guys.
Burned out,backed up.Inched to the line,first light comes on,second. Starter is knocking on my window.Open the door,he tells me to back up-I had staged the rear wheels! I have a pretty cool vid anyone tell me how or where to post it?
I still remember it well............1977, Columbus Dragway, Columbus Ms, Sunday grudge racing my 67 Mustang, 302,yes it had been swapped in, do my first burnout, ok, back up, do second quick burnout, back up with door open trying to stay in my same tire tracks, wham! Back in to idiot in VW Beetle who was in too big a hurry to try to do a burnout! Didn'nt hurt either car, but embarasssed the heck outta me when the starter announced over the PA " Uh, the guy in the Mustang needs to talk to the guy in the Bug and tell him to stay the hell back outta the way 'till its his time! After a very breif conversation with said idiot in bug, made the run but lost due to my tires cooling off. I waited on the Bug on the return road but he never made a run, guess my threat of bodily harm to him must have scared him, but I was a lot younger then and sometimes let my mouth overload my a$$. I hope I've mellowed since then..............
I just havn't been doin it long enough yet, my days are numbered for sure. I can relate a story that's more stupid than funny. I'm at a T&T one night and I happen to line up against this guy in an S-10 pickup, mind you I don't care what this guy is running I'm not out there to race. We get the green and I'm steadily puttin distance between us, THEN he hits the juice and starts to close the gap, as he approaches the front of his truck starts to jump up and down, he's got to be hittin with the juice intermittently to get the truck to hop like that,we are close to the finish so we are over 80 mph easy, I can see the front of his truck out the passengers window, then he loses it, shoots over into my lane and careens into my gaurdrail missing the backside of my car by inches. I'm comin down return road and he's standing there lookin at his totaled truck, I didn't even stop I was so pissed off. It was obvious he had never ran the juice before or had never put so big a shot to it or both. But thats the risk you run when on a T&T night when they let anyone with rubber tires run. That was just one of the reasons the Mav is retired from racing.
Rick, I can relate to that story. The last time I went to our local track, it was in such bad shape that nobody could hook. Cars were crossing the center line on almost every run. Thank goodness most people had the sense to run one at a time. They eventually shut the lights off and just let people mess around. Im still not sure why the track was so slick that day. Maybe somebody lost some oil or coolant on it...
I was doing a burnout in my '78 455 powered delta 88(hey it ran 9.60's 1/8)w/2.41 gears.I had on m&h's so when they got sticky...BAM!The ring gear was sticking out of the inspection cover;it shattered all the spider gears.Only took 5 guys to help push it back to the pits.
Grew up in the farming country and a lot of us raced what we drove all week. A friend had a right hand drive, two wheel drive, International scout with a pretty warm 350 and a 4 spd with a vertical gate shifter so he could shift it. On the launch all the mud from the dirt roads we lived on dislodged and dumped about 20 lbs of dirt clods on the start line. Took them 20 minutes to clean it up. No, we weren't looking like country hicks!
Was driving my friend's 73 Formula Firebird (SD 455 no less!) and he had a decent nitrous kit on it. Launched the car good, clicked second, clicked third......then a cloud envelopes the interior of the car! Little did I know, he had the nitrous supply line run through the floorboard and the grommet had long since disappeared. Line kept rubbing the metal floorpan and presto....instant nitrous cloud. Kept my foot in it though......10.85 at 130 mph. Safety truck followed me to the time slip booth and stopped me there. I didn't want to roll the window down and talk to them......couldn't just waste all that laughing gas!!! Needless to say I was in no shape to drive anything for an hour or so.
Lets talk removing seat form your butt for weeks...Had a 67 f150 with a roller 302. Nice truck, ugly as sin. trying to race tune 600 holley ,so hood up and down. Got distracted by sweet looking girl, sadly boyfriend didn't think I was her type. Got ready to stage...race started fine, bout 330' mark hood reminds me that I forgot to lock it down..did not break window, but taco'd the hood.Truck had run 9.40's all day, that last run netted a 16.20 in the 1/8.