First time going to the track..Need some advice!

[Grey Ghost]

WTF!!!!....so I finally ran my car last night for the first time and wow I must have the slowest mustang on the boards. I will say it was fun, but I'm really disappointed on my times. I need some insight into why they were so bad!

First off, let me set up the night. Temperature was about 85 degrees and the humidity level was about 74% and because there was so many damn cars there (Gateway Raceway in St. Louis), I only got 2 runs in out of 4 hrs. So here are the times:

1st Run

R/T... .848
60' ... 2.517
330 ... 6.715
1/8 ... 10.106
MPH ... 72.90
1/4 ... 15.297
MPH ... 96.16

Keep in mind this was my very first run EVER on a drag strip. I spun out and launched a pretty low probably at 2K RPMs and I had some really bad wheel hop according to my buddies watching. I don't even want to count this time, just pretend it didn't exist.

2nd Run
R/T ... .660
60' ... 2.353
330 ... 6.373
1/8 ... 9.656
MPH ... 74.71
1/4 ... 14.772
MPH ... 96.75

The 2nd run was a little better, but still terrible for a GT with my same mods. This run I still spun out a little and probably launched only a little higher at around 2500-3000 RPMs, but I didn't have as much wheel hop this time.

Now, I mean I'm wasn't expecting to pull low 13's or anything on my very first time, but at least it would have been nice to have low 14's to high 13's, which is on par to other stock mustangs. What the hell happened????

Here is all I can tell that may have had a part in my terrible times:

1) Driver Mod - My first time EVER drag racing
2) Terrible traction?
3) Bad Wheel hop?
4) Really Hot?
5) High Humidity?

What else can you guys tell from my time slips???? Not sure if this means anything or not, but it seemed like a lot of people were getting some bad times. A stock 2010 Camaro SS 6-speed only got in the mid 14's, which is a shocker to me as well.

Anyways, I think if I could have got one more run in I could have possibly got a lower time from my driving learning curve alone, but let me know if I just have a factory slug or not!!!!

 

[06silverbullet]

i can tell you that you need to feel where the car launches hard but doesnt spin and doesn't bog that'll take a good atleast .4-.5 off your sixty foot. next order is your 330 you need to work on slamming the gears quicker that'll get you 330's down into the 5.xx area. basically itsd mostly driver mod, and possibly track prep. but i was pretty bad conditions to be trying for good numbers.

a good semi cheap fix for wheel hops is new lower control arms for the rear, wheel hop = bad traction

1 yes
2 good rubber helps this
3 lower control arm upgrade will fix this
4 for n/a cars it sucks for forced induction it really hurts times.
5 humidity also doesn't help

the key to the temperatures is you want cold dry air.

 

[Agent Jones]

when its your first time...try just lauching from 0 rmps. just go when it turns green. get use to that, then start trying to dump or slip the clutch at different rpm levels. starting at 2k and up from there.