'05 on the Dragstrip

[Ol Goat]

My wife couldn't stand it anymore. "Everytime I get on an entrance ramp to the freeway some slow poke is in front of me and I can't stomp on it". We went to the local 1/8 mile dragstrip on Saturday. Got there early because she didn't want a bunch of people watching her. A few quick words with the staging guy got her three solo runs. She had a blast! This was her first experience ever on the drag strip. On her very first run the starting line guy asked me if she would wimp-out. I told him that I doubted it. She was here because she wanted to take off like a rocket. And boy - did she! She left the T/C on and left it in "D". The lights go and she blasted away from the line. This car sounds great! Tires on the edge of letting go, nice growl from the exhaust. For a very first run ever she had a .902 reaction time - I was proud of her. 2.25 60ft time. The eighth was at 9.39 @ 74.7mph. She came down the return road and all I could see was the big smile on her face. I believe she is hooked now. The first thing she said was "I can do better than that... I left off on the gas before passing the second cone" (the timing light for recording the mph). Then she went again. And again. Then she said those two magic words ... "Your turn". So I had a go at it. My male ego thought I could blow her away. Turn off the T/C. Manually step it through the gears. Tire spin off the line, the backend breaks loose going into 2nd and fishtails. Of course my wife is video recording her car going up the track and I hear the PA announcer saying "whoooooa" as the backend slides to the right. I make two more passes trying different things. Best results was with T/C off but letting it shift itself, .042 reaction, 2.22 60 ft, 9.30 @ 78.5mph. Much slower than I thought this car would be and not the blowout I expected, but maybe these are typical 1/8 mile numbers for this car. Can't wait to get it to the 1/4 mile. She says she doesn't want to drive it there but I'm thinking that after I make a couple of passes she will hop in and that's the last I will get to do it.