Jap Drag Series Round 2 Results and I extended my lead!

Events Past events
#1

Well for those of you that thought you might pop along to JDS Round 2 but didn’t, all I can say is you missed a good show.

Points standings after round one are as follows

Po. Driver Car Team R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 B Total
Street
André Gysler Mitsubishi GTO Tier 1 Networks 330
John Hanton Nissan Skyline R35 GTR Severn Valley Motorsport 220
Liam Concannon Mazda RX7 Hayward Rotary 140
David Greenhalgh Nissan Skyline GTR34 Blue Streak 100
John Stocker Nissan 200sx (S14) www.800bhp.com 70
Jeff Ludgate Nissan Skyline R33 GTR Trackstuff Racing 60
Mark Salem Mazda RX7 FD3S Oldone Rotorsports 0
Wayne Armsden R32 Nissan GTR Skyline MGT Racing 0
Rob Blackshaw Mazda RX7 GarageReg / Oldones Racing 0
Mark Newman Toyota Supra 0

Qualifying was a bit of a mixed bag really with intermittent showers throughout the afternoon, but we still got our three runs in on Saturday and our final qualifier in on Sunday morning.

Despite trying my hardest I just couldn’t break into the 12s having a 13.1, 13.0, 13.0. It didn’t seem like it was going to happen for me this weekend. I played with the tyre pressures to try to figure out what would work on the track as my stock clutch won’t hold when slipped, it has to be dumped which means I need to have just a tiny amount of wheel spin. Too much = lost time, too little/none= bog. I tried 25/17.5 and bogged 30/30 with clutch slip, 30/30 dumped clutch and lit up 30/28 dumped clutch and lit the fronts up like Guy Fawkes! Nothing seemed to help with 60’ times in the 1.9-2.0 zone

Second-place man John Hanton in the R35 snapped a rear halfshaft in the first qualification run; his guys replaced that in time for the second qualification run only for him to crack the bell housing on his gearbox. That was the end of his racing this weekend and whilst its not nice to see, certainly wasn’t going to hurt my lead in the points standings.

Liam, who was lying in 3rd seemed pretty consistent running 11.2 11.3 and 11.6 in qualification. The orange. RX7 seemed to be coming together.

Fourth-place man Dave Greenhalgh showed what his car could do and ran a 10.3 in the second qualifier. However in the fourth and final qualifier Dave managed to break a chunk of his transfer case and had no spare.

John Stocker, who broke his 200 SX last time out was in his spare car which was a red Evo. He didn’t set any high qualification times. I suspect he’s used to launching a rear wheel drive and not a four-wheel-drive car, they are very very different

Jeff Ludgate who broke his R33 last time out could not get it fixed in time so was in his spare car which is a mere 600 hp R35! However computer game type technology I.D.too many electrical controls, and run flat tires seem to hamper jets times. He managed to run 11.5 at 1:25 for his best timing qualifiers.

Rob Blackshaw, who missed the first round, had his silver RX7 there in fine form. He ran a series of 9.3 second runs for his qualifiers!

So after qualification the standings were as follows. Rob Blackshaw first, Dave Greenhalgh second, Liam third, Jeff fourth, many fifth, John Stocker sixth, John Hanton disqualified as he said no time.

The quarter-finals saw Rob paired against John Stocker, Dave paired against me, Liam paired against Jeff, and the 2 byes obviously carried through a bye to the semifinals. Rob ran a storming 8.89 @ 155 to defeat John with a 1.37 60’! I had a bye as Dave couldn’t run and Liam took the win against Jeff with an 11.5 @ 129

Rob had a bye in the semis whilst I went head to head with Liam who was in a much faster car than my lowly, stoch GTO running full weight and slightly raised boost at 0.9 bar. I had decided to drop the front tyres another 3psi to reduce wheelspin so was now on 30 rear 25 front. My only hope was a little racecraft, skulduggery and a lot of mind games! I drove up and lit the pre-stage lights but didn’t stage, waited for Liam to do his burn out, pre-stage, stage, raise his revs to his launch control limiter with the clutch at biting point. I just sat there and sat there and waited for him to come off the gas, now with a VERY hot clutch. As soon as I heard him come off the gas, I promptly staged and knew that race control would immediately light the tree, so no sooner I had staged I planted my right foot and as soon as I saw 6,000 rpm, side stepped the clutch! The result was a blinding reaction time of 0.05 seconds whilst I had messed Liam’s head up; he had an awful 0.99 second reaction time. To cut to the chase I ran a personal best of 12.5 at 107 mph on 352 BHP whilst Liam could only manage a 12.4. My hole shot saw me through to the finals against Rob which unfortunately never took place due to the heavens opening.

This weekend meant that I scored a further 240 points extending my lead with a total of 570 points, John Hanton scored none, Rob scored 330 creating a tie for 2nd place and Liam scored 160 points to secure him in 4th. I also have another ace up my sleeve over Rob in that there is a bonus 50 points at the end of the season if you attend all 5 rounds; he can’t do that as he missed the 1st round!

There was an awful lot of talk around the pits about how I had shown the importance of reliability and how important it was to have a solid spare car available.

For those interested, my time slip was

RT 0.0550
60’ 1.8189
330’ 5.1961
1/8 ET 8.0671
1/8 MPH 85.01
1000’ ET 10.5128
1000’ MPH 98.30
1/4 ET 12.5720
1/4 MPH 107.38

André

#2

So after this is your white car now going to be the spare !!! ??..lol

Well done and as i said mind games work wonders !!!

#3

■■■■■■ well done Andre

#4

Thanks chaps

André

#5

Good results Andre and best of all you still have the beast in the background to unleash :twisted:

Craig :slight_smile:

#6

That’s the plan Craig.

I will probably take both to each event as the way the rules are written is so long as the car you want to take into the elimination rounds has passed scrutineering and has set a valid qualification time, I can swap vehicles.

I’m almost thinking that I should always set a time with the red car as well as the white car, either that or always miss the final round of qualifying to ensure the car doesn’t break leaving insufficient time to fix it. That rookie mistake cost me 50 points last year.

André

#7

That is good a good time, good luck with the rest of the events and keep us updated. Really like reading about this :slight_smile:

Neil.

#8

Well done Andre, looking forward to Japshow finale and watching you down the strip

#9

Here’s a link to the results page

http://www.japdragseries.co.uk/2013points.php

André

#10

Excellent. So it looks like you will also be leading after the next round as well - assuming you get at least a few points.

When you launch you hit 6K and dump the clutch. What happens next? I am interested in how you assess the shift to second? Are bouncing on the limiter for anytime? I know it happens all very quickly but just wonder if you have some secret recipe for that?

Cheers

James

#11

James

Good question.

Ideally I would want to let the clutch up quickly and smoothly, however a standard clutch doesn’t like that with 352 BHP and will just slip to 6.5k RPM until everything catches up.

So, what is better? Clutch slipping or wheelspin? I know what is less damaging and what I would rather :wink:

So, with that in mind, I tried various RPM clutch dumps until I found what would break traction cleanly, not bog and confirmed that it was just the fronts spinning.

The aim was to run the highest pressure I could in the rear to encourage wheelspin, which I never achieved, and starting at the same pressures in the fronts; incrementally dropping the front pressures with the aim of a very small amount of front spin before gripping.

I had a bit of a clue from what we learnt last year. I started at 25 rears 17.5 fronts with a quickish clutch release at 5k…only because I ran out of time and that is where we got to inflating them, then I tried 30 all round dumped at 5-5.5k and clutch slipped at 4.5k, then 30 rear 28 front with a 6k clutch dump (which apparently really smoked the fronts :lol: ) and after hearing that but feeling the launch previously, ran 30 rear 25 front with a 6k clutch dump.

As you said it is all very quick, especially in the eliminations with a 0.05 RT and playing mind games with ones opponent :twisted: but from memory I don’t recall hearing the tyres spin up and certainly didn’t see the revs fly up with a slipping clutch on that last run.

It’s worth noting that I didn’t sit at biting point blipping or holding the revs, I held the clutch at biting, quickly raised the revs and dumped the clutch as soon as the needle hit the RPM I wanted, thus not overheating the clutch.

Admittedly this is not the best way to launch and won’t net you the best 60’ times; this was a case of doing the best with a clutch that is close to its rating torque-wise.

I hope this makes sense

André

#12

Here’s an update

Round 3 Jap Show in June

I managed a 12.6 @ 107 but also did a new pb terminal of 109.91. Not too shabby for a mere 352 BHP measured on Ben’s ‘generous’ dyno. I also managed to get the 60’ down to 1.74. This was enough to qualify me in 4th, Dave with his 8.57 in 1st, Rob with his 9.3 in 2nd, Jeff with a 10.2 I think in 3rd.

And I am still leading…by the skin of my teeth!

That’s the good bit out of the way.

The bummer was I didn’t get any points in the quarter final due to being disqualified! It was a complete ■■■■ up tbh, Dave Greenhaulgh’s blue skyline had been towed to the start line for the only qualifier it ran (8.57 @ 161) which is expressly against the rules and the wording under tow vehicles is ‘forbidden’ so couldn’t be clearer. They pulled him to one side to have a word when we were in the fire up lane for the 1/4s and called us forward after a while. I was up against Jeff Ludgate but there was a problem with his car where we had been waiting for Dave Greenhaulgh, so I was sat under the gantry waiting for Jeff for a good 5-10 minutes!

Eventually he pulled up to the burn out box and so I proceeded to pre-stage, but it seemed forever for him to do his burn out and come to the line, I am talking minutes here again. Later I learnt that there was a leak from his car and they were checking underneath it, but they let him run. He staged whilst I was fiddling with stuff in the car, looked up saw he staged and so started to creep into stage with a couple of clicks on the handbrake but before my staged lights came on, my red light did.

I ran anyway after Jeff left the line, but was advised later that I had taken too long to stage! Apparently over 10 seconds ! After all the messing around I had sat through? And when I questioned it I was told it was the race director’s discretion. And to add insult to injury, it turned out Jeff had a cracked block and should have run whilst losing fluid. So what might have been a 100 point 1/4 win for me turned into a 0 point elimination!

The real pain is that although Dave had blatantly BROKEN a rule, his only qualifier was allowed to stand and he got byes all the way to the final which he won.

There is also the added issue of Dave was awarded 1st round elimination loser’s points (50) at the last event but I have complained about this as he broke in the 4th qualifier and had already left before the 1/4 finals were held. A precedent was set on this scenario last year when I broke in the final round of qualifiers and didn’t get the 50 points because I couldn’t break the beams in the 1/4 finals.

Anyway, the current points standings I believe are

Po. Driver
Street
1st André Gysler 590
2nd Rob Blackshaw 570
3rd David Greenhalgh 560
4th Liam Concannon 350
5th Jeff Ludgate 300
6th John Hanton 220
7th John Stocker 140
0 Mark Salem 0
0 Wayne Armsden 0
0 Mark Newman 0
0 Rob Shadwell 0

I can’t pretend I’m too happy with the way things went or were handled, but that is racing and those are the results. I can’t change that now and have to look forward and put it all behind me.

Round 4 God of the Pod

All was looking OK after the 2nd round of qualification, I was lying in 4th with a 12.9 run, behind Liam in the orange rx7 who had run 12.3 but had problems. Then in the 3rd round Jeff Ludgate put in a 12.4 which meant I had to race Rob Blackshaw in the silver RX7 who had run 9.5 @ 157 instead of Liam.

Liam had problems in the 1/4 final and Jeff took the win that so easily could have been mine :evil: Meanwhile I got the hole shot on Rob leaving him on the line and he subsequently bogged, but with his power he caught and passed me to take the win. He didn’t catch me until the 1/8th though, that’s how much I pulled on home with another 12.9 run! The winner of our 1/4 had a bye to the final, bummer!

Anyway, perhaps I should have taken you up on your offer Mark? :roll:

The final was won by Dave Greenhalghe who ran 9.2 letting off well before the end and crossing the line at 112 mph rather than his usual 159 ish!

Points as I understand it will now be

1st David Greenhalghe 970
2nd Rob Blackshaw 810
3rd André Gysler 660
4th Liam Concannon 440
5th Jeff Ludgate 430
6th John Hanton 220
7th John Stocker 140
0 Mark Salem 0
0 Wayne Armsden 0
0 Mark Newman 0
0 Rob Shadwell 0

What this means is unless Dave breaks, even with the white car I can’t catch him. I will get a bonus 50 points next round for having done all 5 rounds which Rob won’t get as he missed the 1st round. This in turn means to tie on points with him I need to beat him by 100 points in the next round, I.e. secure 1 more elimination round win. In the event of tied points they first count back the number of elimination round win points. CurrentlyI have 5 x 100 and Rob has 4 x 100, so if I can tie, I will be runner up for the 2013 season.

André