A Chic Flick. When a weekend starts off with a Chic Flick, it can only get better. Wife Lynne had told Chris , my son, and I that it was fine that we went to a Top Speed Event on Sat, but i had to go see Under The Tuscan Sun with her friday night. Movie is about a divorced woman trying to find life and love in Italy. Not a single car is blown up in the entire move, and the implied sex didn't make up for the lack of villians. Chris came up from Greenville in his Boxster, and we met afterwards at an Outback for steak.
Up early in the morning, took out the rear seats from the minivan, threw in the Hoosier slicks, and some drinks, and headed out across country to the ECTA (East Coast Timing Assoc) event up in NC, near Maxton. Chris drove the Great Stroker, some early morning mists in the wooded valleys, and about 3 hours later, arrived in the vicinity of the abandoned WWII airstrip, where ECTA was running. Even in the nearby town of Maxton, we stopped and asked abour four times where the airstrip was, and either they didn't know, or gave us conflicting directions. This part of NC seemed really poor, i think the more sandy the soil, the poorer the folk that live there are.
Finally, found the tiny entrance road, marked with a sign, and drove down a grassy lane thru the woods, fording a stream, and arrived. Earlier, had stopped at a gas station, and put in three dollars worth of air in the Hoosiers, at almost .50 cents a tire!! Signed in, and pulled over to the tech station.
Speed guys are a really different sort of auto enthusiast. Really different. There were about 60 participants, from as far away as Fla and Canada. About half bikes, the rest those sorts of cars that run at Bonneville, as indeed most of these folks do too. Streamliners, "hot rods" with superchargers, tiny cut down cars with hoods that are 15 feet long. We "pitted" on a hardstand, where probably the last thing to park there was a B-17 a half century ago. Speed drivers are a very small part of autodom. They are not like road course guys, or drag guys, or show guys, they only focus on one thing. Like the sign at check in says, "go fast, and go straight." I think it is like Playboy centerfold models, everybody knows they exist, but no one has ever actually met one. This is not a spectator sport, in fact, there was so much scrub and trees between the "pit" and the track, that you can hear the cars and bikes, but you can't see them.
Tech is really stringent. If you think you can show up in your shiny Viper or 'Vette and run, they will give you a rule book, and tell you to take it to your race fabricator, put in your roll cage, and do other stuff, and come back later. Fortunately, i have two Halon systems, but even then they wanted me to move my engine nozzles, and said they would let me run this time, but i have to have an additional brace on my car, i have a four point full width bar now. Even down to what kind of tire valve cap covers i had. But eventually, with many complements on my SPF, they signed me off, and then we went down to the end of the airstrip, and got in line. The airstrip is rutted, has some pot holes, lots of expansion cracks, some small stones, and looks pretty much what a long abandoned airstrip looks like, with all sorts of scrub brush and even trees right the sides, the middle lane is about one and a half lanes wide, you get off that, you get into some really bad concrete, so they have a white line painted down the middle.
About the time it came for us to run, it started to drizzle, so it was shut down, and chris and i went back and napped in the Van for about two hours, then it dried off, and we got to test drive the track, to help dry it out. Finally i was up. I had seen some bikes running in the 180's, and some bikes with NOS and turbos running about 220, and a tiny streamliner with a Honda motor running about 200. The way it works at Maxton, you accelerate, and at the end of a mile, you run thru two timing lasers, and get your "ticket". These guys are around really fast cars, so if your car can't go at least 125, they won't even give you your ticket. They would pat you on the back, and tell you to come back when you can run with the "big dogs."
They guy running just before me, was on one of those tiny 18inch tall motorbikes, those toy things, because there is a class for every kind of bike, these guys were right next to us in the pits, and between every run, they put in on a stand, and revved and leaned it out some more. Their two dogs were Toy Weinerdogs, so i guess if you race a midget bike, you have midget dogs.
Put on my arm straps, my full Nomex, the starter snugged my shoulder straps down so tight i could't breathe, and waved me off. I did a nice drag strip launch, and headed down the bumpy strip. Shifted at ridline, and got into fifth, (.68 Tremec), and just held my foot all the way to the floor. It is quite a different sensation to press the gas pedal to the floor, and hold it there, hold it there, hold it there, and hold it there. It seemed that the lane got narrower and narrower, and i naturally started looking further and further down the road, where in the distance it seemed the trees and scrub just closed in on the lane. The sensation of speed was actually scary, but the SPF never felt at all "light", and the bumps seemed to become smooth, and i blew thru the lasers at147.16944 and 147.42015 mph, showing i was still accelerating. I never took my eyes off the road, never checked the gages, and even though i had told chris to not abruptly chop the throttle and brake, and upset the car, I did exactly that myself, being nervous, but the faithful Wilwood brakes just immediatly pulled me down straight as an arrow, (there are about three turn-offs) and on the return road, met the rider of the micro-bike, with a stalled motor, so i had him grab my rollbar, and towed him back, wondering if this is how big fish feel when a Lampry or suckerfish gloms onto them.
Chris then donned the Nomex, and ran ever so slightly faster than, i, and later, on my third run, i was again at 147, accelerating at the mile, but this time, it seemed much more "natural" and i glanced down to see my speedo at 140 mph+, a place it has never been before. Since Chris had to be back in Greeville (two hours from home) for work at 3AM, we put the Goodyears back on, and headed home. The drive at dusk was beautiful, me in the Snake this time, and looking westward, the golden, firey glow of the sun behind the edges of the distant clouds was stunning. As darkeness fell, coming back thru the woods, we dropped speed to be more mindful of deer, and got home to Lynne cooking steaks, and after dinner, chris headed back on down to Greenville.
Since we ran at about 85 degrees in about 100% humidity, i am guessing we could run 150+ on a fall day, but then at the 150 mph class, we would have to re-tech with even more modifications for safety, i probably won't do it again. I am in BGT class.
So now my faithful SPF has run 70 quarter miles, has about 800 race course laps, and now run a top speed event. We are not waxers, we are drivers, my car turned over 56,000 miles on the way home, (it actually has about 65K miles on it), it doesn't leak, knock, or rattle, and runs the same compression it was built with. It is smooth, hunkered down, and brakes perfectly at the ton and a half. The only thing left is to rally the car.
the ECTA site is:
www.ecta-lsr.com
So there you have it.
147 mph: the rest of the story
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