Nitro Madness 1st test of the year

Hi gang,

Well we went, we ran, and we came home with everything in one piece!! The weather was just ok, mid 50's and started out sunny, and then turned cloudy after about 1 hour at the track. That seems familiar probably to most of us here.

This was the first weekend for the track, as they got rained out last weekend. They had it sprayed pretty good, but the track was cold, and no fresh rubber on it. I heard a bunch of aborted passes from anything that had any power.

We planned on 1-60 foot shot, then check everything over, and come back and do a 330, and if everything went as planned after everyone had ran on the track all day, and it got some daytime heat in it, we would try to make a complete 1/8 mile pass later in the day.

We went up, I tried a really low rpm burnout, and the track grabbed the new slicks. No real smoke, not long enough to really put any heat in the tires. We usually have a lot of data from our runs, I have a guy check track temp, cold slick temp, and slick temp just before I stage. That guy wasn't with us this weekend. I left, it spun, so I peddled it real quick, and it started shaking, so I just lifted and drove on down the track. With no burnout, no real data.

Since the track was so loose, we raised the wheelie bar, slowed the throttle controller down as slow as it would open, and added 1/2 lb to the rear tires.

It was a GREAT 1/2 track burnout, the rpms stayed down around 6300. The car with throttle controller rolled off the line, went into a power stand as the engine came on, and carried the front wheels out till I lifted just before the 330 foot cone. It was drifting over to the center, and I didn't think the track would like me taking out the cone on the first weekend.

So we lowered the wheelie bar about 1/2 of what we had raised it. I added 30lbs of weight to the nose. Which is kind surprising as we added 2-10lb fire bottles out there over the winter. We checked everything over again, it was working great, and not even coloring the plugs yet.

Last pass, in the rt lane this time, long burnout, lots of smoke, and all. The same kind of launch, off the tranny brake, the car rolls forward a little, then the throttle starts opening. The car leaves pretty good, pulls the front wheels aways, and is moving all over the track spinning the tires, still going pretty straight, but taking a lot of driving and using a bunch of track. I had to peddle it once or twice to make it to the finish line under power. It ran 4.83 @ 157 MPH.

We took it back to the trailer, pulled the plugs. They are just on the electrode, not coming around at all yet. We checked the sys 1 oil filter every round, it was perfect. Nothing major hurt, a tune-up so soft we aren't even coloring the plugs yet, and it still runs 157 after on and off the throttle. As you can imagine, we a bunch of happy guys with the new Hemi!! The BB Chevy would run this kind of speed on a flat out pass for us. The Hemi runs it on and off the throttle with a fat tune-up!!

Rapid