New 1/4 mile track opened up. Got to race my Mustang!

wyldpny

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Jun 1, 2007
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I was finally able to race my Mustang GT at a track.
Last Monday night they opened up a new 1/4 mile track in Arecibo here in Puerto Rico. It was an old small airport that a group of car lovers/racers got together and obtained and since last fall they have been converting it into a 1/4 mile track and the grand opening night was last Monday night. Sadly there was a long delay as they couldn't get the starter lights or clock to work after all of that, go figure, so after an hour delay they ended up saying screw it and just running cars with an official waving his hands down like they do on Pinks which I thought was pretty lame. But oh well, what are ya gonna do I guess.
In a few weeks I want to go back again and see if they have gotten the lights and clock working and then run the Mustang again. Maybe tonight. It would be great to get an actual print out of my time and speed.
I do have some video of my Mustang that my wife Alayne shot of me racing down the track from the stands that I will post if I can figure out how to post it. It isn't that good of a picture though as it was late in the evening and dark so the lighting for the camera wasn't very good. It gets pretty blurry and out of focus at times plus my wife says she was uncomfortable working the camera. She wanted to watch me race and kept forgetting to look down to make sure the camcorder was aimed where I was.

My Mustang GT convertible did much better than I anticipated. I raced four times and only lost my first time as I didn't spin my tires before my first attempt. I didn't think I really needed to heat them up since they get such good traction but I quickly discovered how important heating up your tires can be as I couldn't get any traction on my first attempt at a good launch and once I finally got going and got my V8 pumping I didn't have enough time or track left to play catch up with the other car.
But on my next three races I buried the brake and spun the tires just enough to heat them up without burning off much if any tread and this made a world of difference. By my fourth race I noticed that as we would line up to get ready for our next run, I saw drivers trying to avoid lining up against me and my Mustang. One guy that also owned a Mustang who spoke some English stated that apparently they had seen me beat the other cars in my second and third race and at least one of them was known to be very fast.

We also found out that night that there is another 1/4 mile track in Manatee, though it's said to be not as nice, but they are running on Thursday nights so we may try and go one of these Thursday nights and check that one out too. We were going to go last Thursday but we had a nice rain storm slowly roll through from Wed through into Friday which canceled Thursday nights festivities for racing :(

I will try and keep you posted...

Steve
 
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What are your mods? Auto or manual? Just curious.

As for doing a burnout....if you are on street tires, you really only want to give thema few revolutions to knock the junk off of them. Most street tires actually glaze over if they are heated up too much causing traction to be worse.
 
What are your mods? Auto or manual? Just curious.

It is pretty much bone stock mechanically and currently has an auto transmission.
At some point I plan on getting a 5 or 6 speed swap, lambo style door hinges added and a supercharger installed, probably in that order.

As for doing a burnout....if you are on street tires, you really only want to give thema few revolutions to knock the junk off of them. Most street tires actually glaze over if they are heated up too much causing traction to be worse.

Thats what I thought as well which is one reason why I didn't think I wanted to spin my tires. I have launched hard at traffic lights before with little to no squeal and got excellent traction. But at the track on my first race I didn't spin my tires before the race and couldn't get squat for traction at first until it was way to late.