Well April 19th is the start of the new Midnight Drags at Rocky Mountain Raceway here in Utah. Now that I have the 94 Z to take to it, I am stoked. Every time we went up last year, the place was packed with stock civics that their only mod was some sweet racing stripes and a 6" exhast tip. Anyways I am glad to finally be taking my car about 100 mph and not have to worry about the fuzz. Hope the rest of you are as well.

 

Awh, I saw Rockey Mountain Raceway and I thought you might live on Colorado, but you're on the other side of the mountains *sigh*

Anyway, have fun at the strip! Watch out for some of those civics, I saw one pull a 12.5 at altitude when I was at my local strip!

 

if you see a gutted civic with slicks and a turbo thats bigger than your head lol, look out, have fun!

 

Not a fan of midnight madness or related events. The track is never prepped worth a dang, you always have kids out there doing something retarded, and there are little to no inspections so you have cars that should not be on the track out there leaking or endangering other drives. I like sticking to test and tune sundays and real race days.

 

Wait...they have events where cars don't have to be inspected to make runs?! That seems really odd to me, probably because I race at an actual NHRA track so everything has to go by the NHRA rules.

 

Yes. There are lots of small 1/8 and 1/4 mile tracks that are very lose when it comes to rules and racing. Most tracks that have freaking Fridays, fast and furies nights, midnight madness, etc, etc are for young kids to come out and race. It ends up drawing out about every ricer and F&F knock off you can think of. Its cheap to run and because of that they try to push as many cars down the track as fast as they can. No safty inspections and no driver briefs result in young drivers making dangerous mistakes.

For example a guy is at the track for the first time with his little ford probe GT. He is excited because he just got his intake and exhaust put on as well as some decent tires for once. His car has a small front valve cover leak and he leaves his AC running as he attempts a burn out. The tires spin a bit but he tries to dump it again this time he is too far up and past the staging box. He is so far forward he is so far forward when he attempts his second burn out he is spinning in the same place RWD cars launch at. Ok so now he backs up because he went way past the line. As he does he drips small drops of water from the AC and oil from the valve cover leak on to the track. Keep in mind the track is not well prepped as it should be. Because of the volume of vehicles going down track and trying to get as many down and back around as fast as possible the track spend little or no time prepping the surface worth a damn. Ok now the Probe finally takes off and makes his new best time of 15.3.

Now we have the next driver coming up in a well bolted and nitrous feed TA running a good set of MT's on a high stall and gears. This is a real street killer. He does every thing right nice little burn out, stops wear he should, waits for the lights. But wait thanks the the nice little mess from the driver before the. The TA launches like a beast showing a little light under the front tires, BUT WAIT. The TA brakes traction only a few feet into the run, the car pulls hard to the right and the driver corrects the car goes side ways smashing the side way and spinning the car around on the track. Very mild damage this time and the driver is ok.... But it could have been a lot worse.

I will end this nice little rant now i hope every one enjoyed the story

 

Hmm, well I guess I'm glad we don't have that at my local strip! Every car has to pass an inspection for no leaking fluids, what tires, are you running nitrous etc. before they can make a pass. No inspections just seems way too dangerous for some of the cars that show up to these things.

 

At our local track, Redding Drag Strip, they're pretty strict about inspections. Your car can be as butt ugly and unpainted as you want, but it better not be leaking anything or have any visible signs of physical defects that could cause an accident. If it does, it doesn't get on the track-period!

 

wow, that is strict lol

 

That's how it is on the track I race at. Prevents accidents, I don't blame them...