Unfinished Business

[Bobby DiDomenico]

Originally Posted by bubski

I hope this "business" is finished after this mockery of drag racing

Did they show that this "Unfinished Business" will be running at other tracks this season?

[Nmbr1GMfan]

Originally Posted by MR DERBY CITY

I did see photos of a packed Gainesville raceway. Very refreshing to see that. The stands being full for the UB finals wouldn’t have anything to do with the final rounds of PRO qualifying running right after them, would it ?? ....

It was insanely packed but you could, like all events, tell when the nitro cars were running. Now I figure I'm slightly different than most on this board in that I'm a drag racing fan before I'm a drag racing participant, therefore most of the weekend I could be found at the fence. You can always spot a casual fan, and they were abundant with many "first timers" at the fence with me, they all seemed to play into the Toyota race and the hype associated. The one indicators that I saw that would at least say people loved seeing the "legends", was the 150'-175' line at the Toyota booth for their autographs. One of the "legends" during an interview mentioned they would like more of the same "but with faster cars". I'm not a fan of the Toyota's but I did find myself in a friendly back and fourth with my wife concerning the race and the hype involved... we enjoyed it.

[ssracer3821]

I really loved the idea of the legends of our sport having a race - but Toyotas? Really? And what is with running the sportsmen final on Saturday night. Talk about a slap in the face.

[GTS340]

I enjoyed watching. Specially Warren and how he squeezed out everything The car had. I think it was "Ace's car that was smoking on every run. Big Daddy is still in great shape and working hard. His car was a Dud though.

[jmcarter]

Originally Posted by ssracer3821

...And what is with running the sportsmen final on Saturday night. Talk about a slap in the face.

Don’t think the majority of those still in competition saw it as anything but an attempt to beat a lousy weather forecast and avoid having them sitting around most of Sunday and possibly today.

[djm670]

Originally Posted by gmonde

so heres an idea,,instead of Toyota daily drivers ,use cars that relate to the drag racer ,, not the factory show down cars but equally prepped cars ,, like colbalts/focuses/neons with factory v8 spec motors, pick a brand ! big inch crate motors set up with efi that the computers are interchange it through out the fleet of cars ,it would be cool to see one of the 4(Toyota,ford,chevy,dodge) step up with a motor/trans package with a chassis builder to build 8 cars the same (yeah here we go with the template issue ,but might be something ) ,, kinda of the iroc series of the past ,automatic cars that are impounded and assigned to drivers at the time of the race with a name change and seat adjustment
say a 11.00 car ,, just thinking out loud ,,thoughts? positive only !

Rear wheel drive Camaros, Mustangs or Challengers, with moderate stall converters so they can leave in a timely manner off the brakes! Have one of the name shops prepare 9 or 10 carsd (one or two alternates), and dial them in within a couple of hundredths of each other.. It would make for a much more compelling show. If they have to do this.

[ALMACK]

Originally Posted by GTS340

I enjoyed watching. Specially Warren and how he squeezed out everything The car had. I think it was "Ace's car that was smoking on every run. Big Daddy is still in great shape and working hard. His car was a Dud though.

I noticed that smoke on Ace's car.

What puzzles me is the e.t. difference from all of those "identical" 4 door family cars.

I could understand a 5 to 8 tenths spread due to production variances and also whether or not the driver power braked the convertor all the way at the line.

But there was over a 2 second spread in e.t. between those cars.
More telling is the mph spread.

If I was one of the drivers and power braked the heck out of it at the line and the best it could run was 17's and others were running mid 14's, I would be ticked.

JMO

[Myron Piatek]

Did the cars have tachs? I wonder if some just left it in drive and/or some tried shifting manually by "feel" or trying different shift points. You'd think that they would at least give them a test session in the cars before "qualifying" just to get acclimated.

[Jim Caughlin]

Well, if I was a 'legend' and I was going to be paid to be on national television and didn't want to look like I didn't know what I was doing, I would have done several things:
1. Rented a duplicate car weeks ahead of time and ran the wheels off it in testing.
2. Hired one of numerous sportsman driving school instructors to help me.
3. Deep staged the crap out of it.
4. Matted the throttle trying to get it to react quicker.
5. Shifted it manually to see if I could pick up any ET.

Better yet, I would have hired any one of numerous sportsman racer (who are much older than anyone in this group and still seem to be racing competitively) to stand in for me as a ringer. Pete Kost among others comes to mind.

[CMcAllister]

Before it's all over, they'll be finishing the sportsmen on Saturday so they can get the Pros, Alcohol, monster trucks, jets, motorcycle daredevils, Benny the Bomb and the TV show done on Sunday. Butts in the seats is job one.