Drag Racing

I haven’t done this in awhile, but the topic came up in my brain.   My current car is a 2009 Dodge Charger R/T, with the 370 HP 5.7L HEMI V8.  I’ve already covered that in the past, and in any case haven’t drag raced the Charger, so I’ll stick with the story.

In 1992 I fell in love with the Pontiac Firebird Formula, in particular the model with the tuned port injected 5.7L V8, the L98, commonly known as a Formula 350 to distinguish it from most ’87-92 Formulas, which had the 5.0L (305) V8.  The 350 was born in 1967, amidst the performance age, first offered in the brand new 1967 Camaro SS, whereas the 305 came on the scene in 1977.  Both have the same stroke, 3.48, but the 350 enjoys a 4.0 inch bore, whereas the 305 has a 3.74 inch bore.  Sadly, this effort to make the V8 more fuel-efficient also severely compromises its performance potential, as that smaller bore prevents the engine from breathing properly, no matter what kind of intake, camshaft, or cylinder heads you’ve got.  Bottom line is that if you have a 305, you’re best off replacing it with a 350, as they’re the same size externally with far more parts available for the 350.  Since the advent of the LS series engines in the late ‘90s, the 350 is no longer sold in any vehicle you can buy at a dealer, but Chevrolet certainly still sells the engine in crate form. 

Anyhow.

By June 1995 I finally scored my much-desired Formula 350, and eventually took it to the local dragstrips.  I went to Maryland International Raceway (MIR) in south eastern Maryland one especially hot day in the summer.  I was there practically alone.  I learned to drop the tire pressure in the rear tires to hook up at the starting line.  My times were in the mid 14s.

Soon after, I learned of another dragstrip, just south of Frederick, Maryland, 75/80.   I took the Formula there several times.  Mostly I did Test & Tune (i.e. not actually racing).  On one date I decided to do a competitive race just to get one more run in.  The other driver redlighted – lost by default – so I was told to continue to the next round.  The next driver redlighted as well!  Back for another run.  This time, I redlighted.  D’oh! The winner (driving a 327 powered ’68 Camaro) went on to win the final race, meaning I essentially came in third place simply by joining one race.

Part of the fun of drag racing is that you can bring your street car to the dragstrip, then when you do a run, you get a quarter mile time and a MPH time, which corresponds apples to apples to the professionals in NHRA.  Granted, you’re running 14s and they’re well below 10, depending on whether they’re Pro Stock or Top Fuel, but the same standard applies.   Is there any NASCAR track that allows you to run your street car around the track?  Is there any NASCAR track that allows ordinary drivers to race their street cars against each other?  Somehow I doubt it.

The Tree.   You get three yellows then a GREEN.  You leave at the green.  If you leave before the green you redlight, and lose automatically.  It’s fairly simple.  Your time from the last yellow to launching on green is your reaction time.  Ideal, quickest, is a half second (.50).  Us slowpokes will start off over a second and work our way down to maybe .60.   I don’t think I ever reached a perfect .50.  

Times.  A slow car might do the quarter mile in 20 seconds.  Most stock Firebirds, Camaros and Mustangs will run 16s.  A fast street car will be in the 14s, and a very fast street car, something like a Viper or a ZR1 Corvette, in the 12s.   Anything in the 10s or lower is almost certainly a non-street legal drag racing car.  

It helps if you’re running slicks, which can cut over a second off your time.  Traction is often an issue with street cars, their treaded tires compromising their quarter mile times but saving them from flying off the road when it rains.  A comrade of mine, driving a 1969 Plymouth Barracuda hardtop, would actually unmount his street tires, mount slicks, and run with the slicks.  This ‘Cuda had no mufflers, a balanced and blueprinted Mopar 360, and a twin turbo setup going through a QuadraJet (???).   He had a roll cage and the doors bolted shut, so he’d have to climb in, Dukes of Hazzard style.  It was blue with 01 painted on the doors.  The thing was extremely loud.  I believe he was running 10s. 

Bracket Racing.  It’s no fun losing to a faster car, so to keep things interesting for those not running actual race cars (“heads up” racing is the standard format where both cars leave at the same time), they developed this.   You pick a dial-in time, e.g. 14.5 seconds.  Your opponent in the other lane does the same, e.g. 15 seconds.  Whoever has the slower dial-in will get a green light faster, by the difference in dial-ins.  If you run faster than your dial-in (break out), you lose automatically unless your opponent did the same by a higher margin.  Ideally they match up cars with similar dial-ins, but occasionally you’d see a 16 second car take off, and four seconds later his 12 second opponent launches and might even come from behind to catch up.  Whoever crosses the finish line first without breaking out, wins.  

My 14 second Formula had a modified 350 rated nominally around 300 horsepower.  Although I replaced the torque converter with a 2800 stall model, put a shift kit in the 700R4, and upgraded the rear gears from 3.23 to 3.73, I don’t think I ever took the car to the track after making those upgrades.  Incidentally, the original owner, after giving the car the SLP upgrades which pushed the HP from 240 (stock) to 290, had the car running high 13s.  To my recollection, my best time was 14.28 at 99 mph. 

The Charger is rated at 370 HP, so I suppose it should run faster than the Formula.  Oddly, it’s a 2009 but the 2019 Charger R/T is still rated at the same power – though now there’s the SRT8 at 420 HP and the supercharged Charger Hellcat – for a mere $70,000 – putting out 700 HP; the engine itself available from Mopar Performance as a crate engine… for $20,000 [https://www.motortrend.com/news/dodge-hellcat-crate-engine/].  According to the Interweb, the ’09 Charger R/T is supposed to be able to do the quarter mile in 13.9 seconds.  Actually not that great considering the original owner of my Formula, rated at 300, was able to get that car to do the quarter in 13.8 seconds, as noted above. 

As for bringing the Charger to the track in the near future?  75/80 is closed, but Mason-Dixon in Hagerstown is still open, as is M.I.R.  The two quarter mile dragstrips in Virginia are in Richmond and down southwest of Petersburg, too far away to be worth visiting.  I have no interest in any eighth mile strips.  I may well take the Charger to Hagerstown….

Welcome Back to 1995

It’s been 20 years.  What was life like – for me? (as if you care) – back then?

Household.  This was an efficiency at River Place, Rosslyn, Virginia, across Key Bridge from Georgetown, DC.  Since my brother was working next door at a Dilbertesque defense contractor, he was living with me at the time – about the only time since since college that I had a roommate.  A few years later he got married and moved out.

I’ve mentioned Rosslyn in a previous blog, so it doesn’t need much in the way of ad nauseam Turtledove repetition, but suffice to say that, with a Metro stop and walking distance to DC, plus Route 50, I-66, Route 29, and the GW Parkway, it’s hard to find a more convenient place to live in Northern Virginia.

Job.  I was working for Jerry, a sole practitioner who had moved to Virginia from California.  I had sworn into the Maryland bar in December 1993, passed the February 1994 Virginia bar and swore in down in Richmond in June 1994, but spent most of 1994 unemployed.  By December 1994 Jerry hired me back part-time.  By June 1995 I was back to full-time again.  The “firm” was just the two of us, so it gave me a lot of experience at a local level.  I zipped down to Richmond a few times to file appeals on concealed weapon permit cases.  Mostly I was handling traffic, criminal, and uncontested divorces in Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax and Prince William.  Although I was also licensed in Maryland, Jerry wasn’t, so he was reluctant to have me screw up there without the benefit of his supervision.  Fortunately I handled a few cases there without a problem.  If there was a hopeless case I could cut my teeth on, Jerry sent me there to get experience (e.g. kept Pablo out of jail despite a JDR judge who hated his guts).  Plus we’d go to the range or the gun stores – fairly often.  It wasn’t great in terms of pay, but it was very satisfying.

I also started working part-time at Trak Auto, plus taking automotive classes at NOVA Alexandria.  I learned enough in those classes to be able to pass a few ASE exams: engine repair, automatic transmissions, and manual transmissions. 

Two Weddings, A Beginning, and no Funeral.  In May, my friend Jim married his first wife Elizabeth, in Princeton, New Jersey.  I attended that wedding but left the reception fairly soon.  The very next weekend my sister married her first husband Kyle in Gaithersburg, Maryland.   In October, my friend Phil first met his ex-wife Julie at a bar in Arlington.  As for myself, I wasn’t even dating anyone – any dates were one-and-done – and my next GF wouldn’t arrive on the scene until October 1999.

Performance Upgrade.   In June 1995, after searching for a year and a half, I finally got the car I wanted as my daily driver: a 1992 Pontiac Firebird Formula “350”, one of the rare models with the 5.7L V8, the top engine available.  This was purchased used from a couple in Maryland, it was blue-green metallic with black interior, and no options except the potent V8.  The original owner had given it the SLP package, an impressive 50 HP upgrade installed by Koons Pontiac at Tysons Corner.  It wasn’t black, but it was very fast: almost 300 HP, a substantial difference from the 200 HP in the 1992 base Firebird I had been driving up till then, and which I sold to Jerry immediately. 

In fall of that year, my friend Phil and I took a trip up to Detroit in an attempt - unsuccessful - to purchase a 1968 Pontiac Firebird 400.  This was white with an ivy green interior and automatic.  It had been in California for most of its life, so it had no rust.  But it wouldn't start, and we couldn't get a tow truck to bring it back, so we had to cancel the purchase and drive back in a rental car.  Too bad.

Music.  I saw Hawkwind at Jaxx, Grateful Dead at RFK (one of the last shows with Jerry Garcia), White Zombie (twice), once with Kyuss, and Ozzy Osbourne.  I had my Gibson SG ’62 reissue, my Gibson Explorer ’76 reissue, a Fender Stratocaster (62 Vintage Reissue), and my Marshall 2554 Jubilee Edition 1x12” combo, 25/50 watts. 

The outside world.  Bill Clinton was President – he’d trounce Bob Dole in 1996.  The Internet was just getting cranked up; most of us still used America Online (AOL: “You’ve got mail!”) or Prodigy.  Cell phones were nowhere near as ubiquitous as they are now, and we still kept land lines as a matter of course.  The top films were “Twelve Monkeys”, “Toy Story” (the first one), “Braveheart”, “The Usual Suspects” (one of Kevin Spacey’s first films), and “Batman Forever”, Val Kilmer’s only shot (Riddler & Two-Face were the villains).  Kilmer also managed to do “Heat” in this same year, a seriously underrated film which puts Al Pacino and Robert Deniro against each other.