Wednesday Night Drags

Infineon Raceway has weekly bracket racing events on Wednesday nights. The weather in California has been rainy for the past two weeks, so there were quite a few people who took advantage of the nice weather. Temperatures were up to 80 degrees, which didn’t help the DA, but made for a enjoyable evening. Unfortunately there was a 10mph head wind most of the night. I know I didn’t setup my car for drag racing, but I have been curious to see what it can do in the 1/4-Mile.

I headed to the track alone, but met-up with another G8 owner and a couple of his buddies. Having never raced at Infineon I was a little out of my element (I’m normally behind a camera at the racetrack). I figured things out fairly quickly and staged-up for my first pass.

This was the first time to the track after the extensive modifications had been performed. Specifically the supercharger and the rear end/suspension bits. Unfortunately, tires (drag radials) were not on my upgrade list… So, with the low-end torque from the Maggie, the 3.45 gears, and the stock tires, I knew traction was going to be a big concern.

For the first run I decided to just let the car do its thing (didn’t even air down the tires). I left the transmission in ‘Drive’ and left the Traction Control enabled. I launched at idle and the car pulled-out the best run of the night… A 12.98 @ 108.09 mph.

In the subsequent runs I tried launching from 1st without Traction Control, launching in 2nd at idle, and finally launching in 2nd at 1100rpms. I was able to get 60′ times in the 2.0x second range, but there was quite a bit of wheel spin whenever I jumped into the throttle off the line.

It seems all the rear-end bits did their job… As despite having traction issues, I never once developed any wheel-hop (which was killing me before).

While the times weren’t what I was hoping for, I was really happy to test out the car and try a couple of launching ideas I’ve been thinking about. I think any future trips down the strip are going to require a different set of tires!