Do we need a DragWeek 2018 Thread?

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

I stopped by my local track when Dragweek came through a few years back.  Got a chance to meet up with some GRM'ers.  Having done OLoA, think of Dragweek as a leisurely OneLap. The typically put on less than 1,000 miles in that week, not 3,500.  Sure, you have to keep your car performing but many just make one pass at each track and save the car.  

Where as OneLap is a competition that few come to spectate, Dragweek seems to be more of a rolling/caravaning car show (and competition) that many come to spectate.  

Still, doing Dragweek would be great.  

Sleepy, thanks for the links.  I have been watching. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Keep posting them, good stuff. Drag week is a someday event for sure. 

Me too.  After the challenge we can go with more motor in the wartburg.  Just have to switch to ladder bars because they don’t allow 4 links in the gasser class.  

A Q about drag week for those in the know.  I was watching a vid of the MEchanical Stig from MCM driving the Ford straight 6 turbo powered Cresta doing the last one recently.  I assumed it was straight up drag racing or a dial in.  But in many of the passes they showed of his, the tree went green for both sides, the other car launched while Mechanical Stig launched a few tenths later and still got a great time.  Is Drag week just going for the best times rather than head to head?

the answer is "mostly yes"

the street machine eliminator guys have a "drag off" of the top 30cars on the last day... and cutting a light there can be a decider... since all 30 cars this year were between 10 and 11 sec (10sec being the class floor).  Also, there's a manual shifter competition the last day, and I think cutting lights there is important too.

otherwise, it's a "Drag Time Trial"... aside from "don't red light"

I'll see if I can link a queued ( cued? ) up link to the street machine eliminator winner portion of the live stream at some point. 

Yeah.  When the light goes green you can sit there for 20 seconds and still make your 10 second pass.  The time starts when your front tires break the beam, so unless you’re heads up racing it makes more sense to launch late than redlight and waste the run.  Normally I leave on the last yellow, giving me pretty consistent .5xx reaction times.  At an event where just ET matters and the guy next to me has zero bearing on my end result, like the Challenge for example, I’ll sit there long enough to take a good deep breath on green to relax myself from the adrenaline of the tree lighting up before going. 

Said another way...

If you leave the line early and get a red light the pass does not count.  If you wait long once it turns green, like Pat said, 20 seconds, that 20 seconds is not counted against you.  So, the smart way is to just not go early.  

The week long competition becomes an averaged time of your best passes at each track.  This is why if your car is ailing, you might just do one pass at each track.  That at least gets you a time.  If you make 2 runs and the second one is a really good one you might shut the car down for the day.  This means you can leave early.  This could either give you a casual drive to the next town or gain you some time to make repairs or do some shopping if things are needed.  

I went for the last day in Atlanta and took some photos:

http://knowhow.napaonline.com/hot-rod-drag-week-2018-race-drive-repeat/

Fyi drag week 2019 is in the Nelson’s and Pat Culkin’s backyard.  

In reply to Patrick :

Really?  

The Google machine returns this...

Only 4 different tracks with Wash DC as sort of the center point.  

John Welsh said:

In reply to Patrick :

Really?  

The Google machine returns this...

Only 4 different tracks with Wash DC as sort of the center point.  

if that's right... two of those transits are going to be horrendous, potentially... DC traffic, even taking the back roads is no joke

In reply to sleepyhead :

My thought too was that this would be less of a test of speed and more of a test of engine cooling while idling in traffic.  

Also funny is that if you were still in Reston you could do the event as "day trips" and sleep in your own bed every night.  

In reply to John Welsh :

we're still looking for renters.  although, my parents are still there (that's where the TL, and at the moment mazda5, is/are living), and my sister's in Burke.  So, that's still "possible"

I have a college friend who's family lives in Amelia Courthouse... so I'd probably call him/them up and see about using them as a "base" of sorts

though, there's two things that kind of hold me back from Drag Week... other than being in the land of kielbasa right now... and the we're already planning for the sleepywife's mom to come over and help with the kids while I do OneLap.

1) The difficulty of entry.  7minutes it sold out last year?

2) I'd want to bring a car that is 'odd ball', but fast-ish.  Maybe on the limit of needing a rollbar, @ 11.5s ?

I need to sit down and do some math... but I don't think I can easily build that car right now, and fit it into the "family car paradigm" of sleepywife having 1 forever car, needing 1 commuter car, the OneLap TL, and needing a car that fits the two kids (maybe a 75# dog) and all the christmas presents.

OTOH... I really dig DragWeek / PowerTour / OneLap as venues for post-challenge car life.

edit:  thinking about it, it seems like there's an element of "prove your ambition" with respect to doing DragWeek, since there's an element of "get on the wait list early, show up with a built car, and try to worm your way in" based on some of the comments Freiburger made, and some other DragWeek vlogs I've perused.

Another factor for sitting on the line for long periods is particularly in a turbo car you may be trying to get the turbo(s) to spool and build boost on the trans brake. In a normal race a driver would do this while prestaged, and then bump into stage, that way they are ready to go when the lights come down. In this case reaction time doesn't matter, so you can sit there fully staged and wait for the boost to build then let fly when the time is right.

Patrick said:

Fyi drag week 2019 is in the Nelson’s and Pat Culkin’s backyard.  

We keep going back and forth on whether we are going or not. The way they have the classes setup, you basically have to make 1000+ whp to compete at the top. A few exclusions are the hot rod class,  gasser class, and street machine eliminator. I would really like for at least one of us to compete for a win. 

The car I am building would be most competitive in Street Machine Eliminator, but the problem with that class is you run later in the day, so you are basically garaunteed to get caught in rush hour traffic. 

The car my Dad is building would be most competitive in Gasser. They run earlier in the day, so I would have to jump into a faster class to be able to travel with him.

We'll figure it out. We may go. We may not. At the present time, I am more excited about the challenge.

I'm still working my way through the Day 5 livestream, which I wasn't able to watch live; and I've done some maths.

a) I was wrong about red lighting... during the week-ish.  i.e. they're not even concerned about red lighting outside of some of the final day "shoot out" events

b) if you've got a 16sec or slower car, it better be 'awesome' in some way in Freiburger's eyes.  13.5sec or better is 'not a waste of time', although generally not worthy of talking about.  11's is the beginning of caring.

which is not 'knocking' Freiburger.  I get it.  Just an observation.  If you're going to go slow-ish... you better sell it.

c) drag doesn't seem to be much of a factor at time slips above 10sec-ish.  just because you spend some much more time during the run under 60mph.

d) the power/weight ratio to get under 12sec 1/4mile pass, would make for a pretty respectible OneLap car.  Although, clearly the setups are different, and you'd probably end up with a less powerful OneLap car in the end.

edited thrice: now I guess it's time to go off and read the rules?
I found this document, and this safety outline... which google site search helped me to find these rules... because searching hotrod.com was useless, and in case anyone else wants to read up on them themselves between now and ~September 2020.

I think one of the logistical things for me to go out and learn, is about drag tires, and think through the logistics of carrying them on the transits.  You know, hypothetically, since I'm not actually doing this for reals.

also, I got a pretty good chuckle listening to the announcement in the livestream (timestamp) for people to sign up for the "Stick Shift Shootout"... it's seems appropriate that you have to 'manually' sign up for it, and that you're not automatically entered.

Here's episode 3 of the MCMTV2 / SkidFactory / Benny & Al (MechanicalStif & TurboYoda) DragWeek Adventure video thingy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTt3RyYJ7qI

haven't watched it yet... sleepkid#1 is home "sick"... and I haven't wrestled away control of the HTPC yet

so, 'finally' got around to watching it...

I'm kind of digging that at the end episode 3, they're only just arriving at Drag Week... and just finding out they're not on the 'wait list'

how many people would ship a car from AUS to the US without even knowing they were going to be able to do the thing they were shipping the car for!?

In reply to sleepyhead :

I haven't watched the 3rd episode yet, but in the previous ones Benny talked about all the preparations required and it sounded like he had things all taken care of.

Speaking of those guys, I've been watching the Skid Factory videos and enjoyed their build of that Bedford van.  I wonder what the next car will be.

In reply to stuart in mn :

I am enamoured with drag week. It may be responsible for my slow decent into drag racing over the last 2-3 years.

Also I think the skid factory is the best,if not the best certainly one of the best, build shows on the web right now. They do a great job of depicting real obstacles when building wild cars an how to over come them. Also their stuff isn’t overly or needlessly flashy which I appreciate.

Cresta Episode 4 is up:

https://youtu.be/UTOnGsreq-o

At the rate this is going, this is going to be a 12 or 15 episode series!?

I'm really enjoying it.  It's a bit interesting, seeing the progression of Benny and Al getting more comfortable with the camera over the years... that's definitely a skill, and one I reckon they were both a bit uncomfortable with when they first got on-camera with MCM.

Cresta Episode 5 is out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeIwabFQzMQ

Test / Tech Inspection and Test again

There's some interesting info about a couple other teams, how you spend you day... and how all the little things need to line up to make a good pass.  And there's a bit of dealing with the how the light setup used at DragWeek can catch you out a bit, maybe?

I'm a little surprised at how many episodes they're posting as well, but it's been fun to watch.

I’m really enjoying the Cresta vs Dragweek series. I like the Skid Factory guys and Benny. I love the fact that they brought a Japanese RHD Luxury Sedan with an Australia only Ford motor to an American event. 

I was thinking about how much it must have cost them to ship the car and spare parts to the US, all the expenses to go through all the Drag Week, and then ship it all home.  And that's not counting personal expenses for air fare, lodging, meals and so on.  It had to be a major undertaking.