OK, after a long wait for the drags to come around, on April 27th the HKS Drag Meeting came to Okinawa. First of all, conditions were perfect for it: very few clouds and the sun high in the sky, temps in the mid to high 20s and just a slight breeze to take the edge of the heat. Everyone was hoping for heat as a hotter surface might give slightly better traction on what is otherwise something more akin to an ice rink. You may recall I said before that the Nago Circuit only has a 150m track and then about an 80m slowdown area before before you go into the side of a mountain, as someone found out...
Got there pretty early so I wasn't rushing and set my car up and watched others arrive. There were some beastly cars coming in, not least one from the mainland (maybe Yamaguchi plates?) with a parachute on the back! My class (6.5-7.0s) was the biggest class, with 15 cars in it. Would show you the car list but I forgot to bring it in to scan this morning - will upload it somewhere on Wednesday. Even in my class there were some mean cars: 4 cars with T88 turbos and one of my friends there with his 500WHP Skyline. Further down the pitlane was another American (only 4 foreigners entered) in his 900HP Skyline. He was thankfully in another class though. There were 50 cars in total competing in the event - a huge number compared to the last drags.
After drivers meeting we had 10-15mins of practice runs. I jumped straight in as I wanted as much practice as I could get. Managed to get 2 runs in before the tournament actually started. Nerves got the better of me the 1st run and I just couldn't find 2nd gear! For the 2nd practice run I remembered to go through 1st, 2nd, 3rd and back a couple of times at the start to get all the syncros ready. 2nd run went better despite it bogging a little this time (didn't launch at WOT - about 75% instead to try stop some wheelspin), but there was a lot of room for improvement.
The tournament first stage has each driver doing 3 runs. Reaction time would be measured and the top 4 in my class would go through to the final knockout stages. Got in for the first practice run and was focusing on the lights to get a good start. Had the throttle floored at 5,500rpm and dropped the clutch with around 0.7bar of boost already in the engine. The I had all 4 wheels spinning through 1st and only really gripped in 2nd. The time was slow, but my reaction time of 0.049s was pretty nice. Pulled in and reported my run to my tuning/racing mentor, who told me to launch with a little less boost. The laptop came out and we lifted the launch control to 5,200rpm to make sure it wouldn't bog at all. All the drivers did their 1st run and then we started the 2nd run of the day as things warmed up (quite literally).
So as I approached the 2nd run I knew that I had to make sure I wasn't in boost (so it didn't spin) or in vacuum (so it didn't bog) at the launch. So I got up to the lights and waited for the car next to me to finish his burnout. I thought he was gonna do a dry hop (a launch to warm the tyres) but he went straight into staging. I wanted to stage at the lights first to give me those extra few fractions of a second to get my throttle to the right position and everything else ready. But because I was looking at the boost gauge, I missed the jump on the lights and had a poor reaction time of 0.224 seconds. Still spun a bit but it was better than before. My time had gone down but I was still under the 7.0s mark which is what I was wanting to break. Pulled in and reported back to my friend. We decided to raise the launch control to 5,400rpm. Now you may think that would cause it to spin more, but I then intended to launch just a little bit into vacuum and hope it didn't bog. Fortunately, there was the chance of 2 practice runs over lunch before the 3rd and final qualifying run.
Typically, my first practice run over lunch felt like the best of the day. I think because I was able to go up to the start line with nothing beside me, and launch when I wanted. There wasn't the pressure of watching the lights, glancing to see what car was pulling up next to me (although i got better at not doing that through the day) etc. The tyres gripped pretty quickly, the engine didn't bog and my gear changes were pretty slick. But of course, it didn't count! So I turned around and went for another run. This time I had a guy I know line up against me (another of the foreigners there). We've raced on one occasion before and that time I was pulling on him really well in 1st until 2nd and then 3rd started misfiring all over the place and not making me any power. Well, the curse of his car worked again and my car misfired all the way through 2nd. It did it a little in 3rd but finally went picked up again and I managed to finish the run strongly. Wasn't pleased at the misfiring and was just praying it didn't do it on my final run. I needed to be as good as I could be on this last one. On the plus side, I seemed to have got my launch down so it wasn't spinning much or bogging down.
And so after taking on some more fluids the 3rd round of qualifying came. I scraped off some of the stones and crap that had been picked up on my tyres from the crappy surface and got myself ready. Went to line up on the track and found myself next to a GTR. Annoyingly again, he burned out but no dry hop and so I was 2nd into staging. The 3rd amber light came on and I dropped the clutch, flooring the throttle at the same time. I got a tiny jump on him as I gained traction and when I shifted into 2nd I had a slight lead. The shift was smooth and I just had a tiny single misfire in 2nd but it pulled pretty hard. The misfire was probably enough for the GTR to pass me and get about half a car in front. I then pulled back on him at the top of 2nd and into 3rd. We crossed the line (I think) within a hair of each other, with neither car pulling on the other at the end. But I was just 2nd. I came back to my pit space pretty satisfied that I couldn't have done much better than that last run. No spinning, no bogging, no missing any gears, and a damn quick car. The question was: would I be in the top 4 times in my class and qualify?
I sincerely doubted it and so went to watch the other races. Once all the races were run a poster was put up with every car's time and they started announcing who would be in the finals of the different racing classes. Went to see my times and I found the last time was just under the 7s mark, plus a reaction time of 0.055s. My name wasn't announced in the finalists but looking at the grid I'm pretty sure I was 5th in my class. And I am also pretty sure that 4th place was the GTR, who's last run was 0.006s faster than me and he beat me with that time too.
So that was me out for the day, but a very fun and educational day it was. November is the next drags for me up here, and I'll be in better shape, with methanol injection, maybe some drag radials and possibly a couple of other goodies too. The other highlights of the day were: the Acura with the parachute getting stomped on almost every time it went out (not sure if the driver has been to Nago Circuit before, and maybe didn't know about its infamous surface), and the winner of the fastest class ended up in the mountain! He got a bad launch in the final but ragged on it all the way through the finish line. Then realised he had to brake. Brakes locked up hard and he was lucky to be able to turn and go sideways into it. Looked like his front left suspension was knackered but other than that it seemed ok.
So that's my report. Hope it was fun reading for you. Many thanks must go to Jade Performance for all their help and support in preparing the car and getting me ready for my first ever drag tournament.
Here is the info from my timing slips for the 3 qualifying runs:
1st run
Reaction time: 0"049
18.28m/60ft: 2"444
100m/330ft: 6"073
150m: 7"688 110.52km/h
RT+ET: 7"737
100m-150m: 1"615
2nd run
Reaction time: 0"224
18.28m/60ft: 2"015
100m/330ft: 5"504
150m: 7"021 125.28km/h
RT+ET: 7"245
100m-150m: 1"517
3rd run
Reaction time: 0"055
18.28m/60ft: 2"033
100m/330ft: 5"462
150m: 6"977 124.92km/h
RT+ET: 7"032
100m-150m: 1"515
Finally, I will leave you with a movie made of my runs by a good friend.
