My best time last year was:
R/T - .609
60' - 2.129
330' - 5.899
1/8 - 9.000
MPH - 79.52
1000 - 11.679
1/4 - 13.950
MPH - 99.29

Tonight I got to the track for the first time this year and ran a best of:
R/T - .645
60' - 2.094
330' - 5.814
1/8 - 8.870
MPH - 80.57
1000 - 11.519
1/4 - 13.765
MPH - 100.42

I've done absolutely nothing to my car since then. My 60' tonight was a little better than the 13.9 run, but that alone shouldn'ta given me 2 10ths...I woulda thought weather mighta played a part, but my old best was my last run of the night, on a pretty dry night, and it had dipped into the 60's...my best run tonight was the first run, and it was about 78 and pretty humid (49% humidity). And actually tonight I got worse with every run...my last one was 14.024@99.71..part of that was cuz I had just run 4 minutes before so everything was hot but still...

Anyway, really I was running in worse weather conditions tonight, dropped 2/10 of a second and gained over 1MPH...WTF? Not that I'm complaining...

 

Sometimes the weather conditions seem worse but they really aren't. You need a weather station to really track what's happening with the AA, humidity, barometer and temp.

On Sunday, I thought the weather had got worse as the day went on because it got hotter and seemed more humid... Looking at the weather station it actually got better.

Even so, some cars are just not consistent. I got a 14.99 out of my mustang once. Every time I took it back to the track after that I couldn't even get in the 15.teens. The 67 Camaro I race is a mess too. It's amazing I can go rounds with that car. On Saturday I ran a 14.43, 14.33 and a 14.41 on the brakes.

Hard to predict Josh.

 

Josh,

Some of your improvements might have come how deep you were staging. Rollout in the staging lights affect ET. The track might have changed the rollout on the staging beams, or you could have changed your staging procedure a little. If you stage very shallow, your ET will be a little faster, because you are getting a "headstart" on the lights with the big front tires staying in the beams longer. Super Stock guys do this on record run attempts to get all the ET they can. The Fuel guys deep stage sometimes because they aren't worried about ET, they just want to get the finish line light first (Watch John Force sometime). I don't know if the rollout issue is true for your situation, but staging at the same spot every time is critical for consistant times. Hope this helps.

Ex- Super Gas/Comp. Racer

Jason U>

 

LOL, I'd kill to see 49% down here now. As stated by others you could have deep staged which would account for some of the ET as does the slightly better 60'. Also do you know the difference in barometric pressure between the two runs? That's a biggie. Also fuel load in the car. When talking only .2 in overall ET these few thing WILL make the difference.
Steve...

 

I dunno the barometric pressure the first time...on the new best, it was 28.20. On the first run of the night, they had the temp, barometric pressure, and relative humidity all on the time slip...I thought that was pretty spiffy. Fuel load...actually my gas gauge was reading over 3/4 of a tank this last time (didn't have a chance to drive alot and use up some gas before going), and on my 13.9 run before I was runnin on fumes...I was actually carrying more fuel this time but maybe that helped traction too ...I dunno, even if it did help my 60', if anything it shoulda hurt my MPH, not improved it...

I'm gonna hafta buy one of those portable weather station thingamabobs one of these days but all the ones I looked at were a tad pricey for me at the moment

 

Looks like the track was prepped better so you had better traction. The 1/4 mile is all setup in the 60 ft. If you had a 1.8 60 ft you would have gone say 13.3X. Try a good set of sticky tires. I think you will be a happy guy. Once you have good traction you can turn to the weather for new bests. check out this link

http://wahiduddin.net/calc/calc_da.htm

Just put in the info and get the local D.A. . EXample ..If you have a -200 D.A. and you run 13.20 and the next weekend the D.A. is -2200 you will run a 13.0 Its like free HP . Plus when you get dialed in you can tell if the DA is bad you probly wont get a new best.

Hope that helps

JEremy

 

I had something similar happen to me. In the fall of 2001 I ran a best of 12.9 then the first run of spring I went a 12.8, later that month without changing anything on my car I went a 12.6. For me it was the track prep. The 60's I was cutting improved substantially.

 

Whether is the biggest factor in dermining ET's and MPH's--FACT!
Wheather affects:

Traction
Horsepower
Torque
Driver

I agree... buy a cheapo (to start) weather station. It will have Baro pressure, Temp. and Humidity gages on it. You might even get into jotting these numbers down after every pass. That way
you can compare numbers and see why your apple became an orange with nothing done to it. I am also assuming these numbers are from the same track?

 

how much is a cheap weather station and where can I get one? I did some limited searching and everything I saw was like $400+...I think that's a lil excessive for right now, really even $100 sounds kinda high...I can buy a thermometer for 2 bucks (yeah I know there's more to it than just temp.)

It was at the same track, same everything...actually I thought of 2 things that were different in my car since last time...1, the LS1 brake upgrade...if anything that made a slight weight difference, but sure as hell not enough to drop 2 10ths...and 2, different plugs...my old plugs got fuel fouled and I had to replace them, but before that they were less than a year old...hmm...but the reason they were fouled to begin with was the boot on the coil wire was burnt and the spark was shorting to ground...possibly at first it was shorting but nowhere near as bad, but bad enough to lose a lil power...

I dunno, I'm still just kinda surprised, there's no way I woulda thought my car had a 13.7 in it, at least not on street tires...

 

Just go to a K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Meijer, etc... and find one of these three gage systems for about $30.00. These are of the 'in home' variety and may be found in housewares or the garden shop areas. They are usually mounted in a wooden frame. These are not HUGELY accurate but WILL give you numbers to compare on different days! If you base numbers upon this weather station, without changing it, it should give you reasonable info.

HInk