First post, and before I do anything else I need to thank you guys for maintaining a great web site. It has helped quite a bit with my GT, with respect to questions and problems I have had. Special thanks to Centerpunch for the fordgtprices.com site, which was instrumental in helping me get my GT at below MSRP.
For the last two years Hot Rod Magazine has sponsored a contest called "Drag Week", where racers can bring their cars to compete at five different tracks in five days. The key requirement is that the cars must be driven from track to track, no trailers, so all out race cars are not able to compete. The tracks are separated by about 300 miles, so there is 1500 miles of driving through a variety of road and weather conditions, in addition to the drag racing. I'm an old Mustang guy, and last year I took my 69 Mach 1 to Drag Week, and won my class with an average ET of 10.63.
I had decided to change to a faster class with the Mach 1 this year, so I spent the summer thrashing wildly on the car to get it ready. Alas, it was not to be, and when it became clear that I'd never be ready in time about a week before the event, I bailed on the Mach 1 and decided to take the GT instead.
One of the classes at Drag Week is called "Daily Driver 12.0". In this class, you take your time slips for each day of the event, and average them together to try to get as close as possible to 12.000 seconds for the average ET. Your average can't be less than this, and you have to hand in a slip to the Hot Rod staff each day, so there's no mixing and matching time slips on the last day of the event. Last year at Drag Week 2005, Daily Driver 12.0 proved to be the most popular class, with about 25 cars running in it, and the winner ran an average ET of 12.01 over the five tracks. I decided to enter the GT in this class for Drag Week 2006. The car is all stock, and I figured it would be in the hunt at the 12.0 ET requirement.
At this year's event, the tracks we ran at were supposed to be Cordova Drag Park in Illinois on Monday (9/11), Indianapolis Raceway Park on Tuesday, National Trail Raceway in Columbus OH on Wednesday, US 131 Raceway in Martin Michigan on Thursday, and back to Cordova for the last race on Friday. Unfortunately, the inclement weather rained us out on Monday and Tuesday, and caused a change in venue on Wednesday from National Trail back to Cordova. We had to drive to the first two tracks anyway, though; the attached photo shows my GT on the starting line at Indy. Didn't get to race there, but it was still fun to make it to the starting line of this historic track.
There turned out to be over 50 cars in the Daily Driver 12.0 class this year, so there was plenty of competition. At Cordova on Wednesday I was still learning to launch the car at the track, and handed in a 12.091 slip that day. On Thursday at US131 I decided to hand in an 11.97 slip. The GT was running anwhere in the 11.70 to 12.30 range, depending on how much I slipped the clutch on the starting line, and the 11.97 kept me close to the 12.0 average. I found at the tracks that if I just dumped the clutch at the line, the car would either spin or bog depending on the RPM, and the ET would suffer, so I was forced to slip the clutch to get a decent leave out of the car. I smelled clutch smoke all week at the track, and worried that it would eventually give up, but I kept going.
On Friday back at Cordova for the last day, I calculated that I needed to run an 11.939 to make exactly a 12.00000 average. After about 12 passes I had an 11.929, an 11.930, an 11.934, and an 11.965. All but the last ET would make my average too fast, and were essentially worthless, despite being within a hundredth of a second of where I needed to be. I kept trying, though, and the stars finally lined up for me; I ran the perfect 11.939 with 10 minutes left in the event!
So, I won the Daily Driver 12.0 class with my perfect 12. :cheers Second place went to a guy in a Mercury Marquis with two turbos and a Ford truck V-10; his average was 12.00067. Really close racing; the top ten finishers in the class were all within a hundredth of a second of 12.00000.
There will be pictures of my car in the January or February issue of Hot Rod Magazine, whichever one covers this year's Drag Week event. Felt pretty good to uphold the honor of the GT over the multitudes of Corvettes, Camaros, and Novas participating this year. The only downside is the clutch, which gave all it had at the event, and now needs to be replaced as it is showing signs of slippage when I accelerate in sixth gear. While I'm at it, I think I'll have the two breakage-prone halfshaft bolts on each side replaced too. I put 2500 miles on my GT driving to the event, competing, and driving home, and it was just a gas. I bought my car last December, but in Minnesota you can forget winter driving, and I only had about 500 miles on it when I left for Drag Week. It was a great opportunity to get to know the car, and I came to appreciate it even more as the trip wore on. Viva la GT!
For the last two years Hot Rod Magazine has sponsored a contest called "Drag Week", where racers can bring their cars to compete at five different tracks in five days. The key requirement is that the cars must be driven from track to track, no trailers, so all out race cars are not able to compete. The tracks are separated by about 300 miles, so there is 1500 miles of driving through a variety of road and weather conditions, in addition to the drag racing. I'm an old Mustang guy, and last year I took my 69 Mach 1 to Drag Week, and won my class with an average ET of 10.63.
I had decided to change to a faster class with the Mach 1 this year, so I spent the summer thrashing wildly on the car to get it ready. Alas, it was not to be, and when it became clear that I'd never be ready in time about a week before the event, I bailed on the Mach 1 and decided to take the GT instead.
One of the classes at Drag Week is called "Daily Driver 12.0". In this class, you take your time slips for each day of the event, and average them together to try to get as close as possible to 12.000 seconds for the average ET. Your average can't be less than this, and you have to hand in a slip to the Hot Rod staff each day, so there's no mixing and matching time slips on the last day of the event. Last year at Drag Week 2005, Daily Driver 12.0 proved to be the most popular class, with about 25 cars running in it, and the winner ran an average ET of 12.01 over the five tracks. I decided to enter the GT in this class for Drag Week 2006. The car is all stock, and I figured it would be in the hunt at the 12.0 ET requirement.
At this year's event, the tracks we ran at were supposed to be Cordova Drag Park in Illinois on Monday (9/11), Indianapolis Raceway Park on Tuesday, National Trail Raceway in Columbus OH on Wednesday, US 131 Raceway in Martin Michigan on Thursday, and back to Cordova for the last race on Friday. Unfortunately, the inclement weather rained us out on Monday and Tuesday, and caused a change in venue on Wednesday from National Trail back to Cordova. We had to drive to the first two tracks anyway, though; the attached photo shows my GT on the starting line at Indy. Didn't get to race there, but it was still fun to make it to the starting line of this historic track.
There turned out to be over 50 cars in the Daily Driver 12.0 class this year, so there was plenty of competition. At Cordova on Wednesday I was still learning to launch the car at the track, and handed in a 12.091 slip that day. On Thursday at US131 I decided to hand in an 11.97 slip. The GT was running anwhere in the 11.70 to 12.30 range, depending on how much I slipped the clutch on the starting line, and the 11.97 kept me close to the 12.0 average. I found at the tracks that if I just dumped the clutch at the line, the car would either spin or bog depending on the RPM, and the ET would suffer, so I was forced to slip the clutch to get a decent leave out of the car. I smelled clutch smoke all week at the track, and worried that it would eventually give up, but I kept going.
On Friday back at Cordova for the last day, I calculated that I needed to run an 11.939 to make exactly a 12.00000 average. After about 12 passes I had an 11.929, an 11.930, an 11.934, and an 11.965. All but the last ET would make my average too fast, and were essentially worthless, despite being within a hundredth of a second of where I needed to be. I kept trying, though, and the stars finally lined up for me; I ran the perfect 11.939 with 10 minutes left in the event!
So, I won the Daily Driver 12.0 class with my perfect 12. :cheers Second place went to a guy in a Mercury Marquis with two turbos and a Ford truck V-10; his average was 12.00067. Really close racing; the top ten finishers in the class were all within a hundredth of a second of 12.00000.
There will be pictures of my car in the January or February issue of Hot Rod Magazine, whichever one covers this year's Drag Week event. Felt pretty good to uphold the honor of the GT over the multitudes of Corvettes, Camaros, and Novas participating this year. The only downside is the clutch, which gave all it had at the event, and now needs to be replaced as it is showing signs of slippage when I accelerate in sixth gear. While I'm at it, I think I'll have the two breakage-prone halfshaft bolts on each side replaced too. I put 2500 miles on my GT driving to the event, competing, and driving home, and it was just a gas. I bought my car last December, but in Minnesota you can forget winter driving, and I only had about 500 miles on it when I left for Drag Week. It was a great opportunity to get to know the car, and I came to appreciate it even more as the trip wore on. Viva la GT!
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