1/8 mile tracks - worth it?

[Geese1]

Went to my first "drag racing" event today (only as a spectator), and it looks like fun so I was thinking about trying it.

However, this is held on an airport runway (not a true drag strip), and the course length is only 1/8th of a mile.

Another thing, there are no slips to let you know how you're doing, and there's no sort of light tree to let you know when to go. From what I can tell, there's a person at the start line who tells the drivers when to launch.

Being that this is the case, I wasn't sure how using the two-step would work, as I wouldn't want to be sitting at the starting line with the revs bouncing off the limiter for an extended period of time. So assuming you couldn't get a great launch, how competitive would the Evo be?

Anyway, here's a link to the website: Flashlight Drags

Let me know what you think. It's only $25 for as many times as you want to run, so it's not a lot of money, but I'm not sure if I would get enough out of it to be putting the clutch through this kind of abuse (I haven't ever launched the car yet, so I'm sure there'd be a pretty big learning curve).

Thanks in advance!

[Warrtalon]

$25 for something like that? That's a rip-off. It only costs $20-30 to do 5-6 hours of test'n'tune on a fully-sanctioned track with lights, timers, and timeslips. I don't think you'd gain anything from that other than the satisfaction of smokin a few fools. It would definitely be a problem with launching, because you have to know right when the race starts in order to launch on time. We can't launch from low rpm, so we have to be up at 6000rpm and ready, so waiting around indefinitely isn't good. You also don't want to sit on the 2-step for too long.

I would just recommend hitting up a real 1/4-mile dragstrip so that you can see your 60's, ET, and MPH. Then, after you're comfortable with the car, go out and smoke those fools. In the 1/8th, the Evo is a dominator if you know how to launch.

[Geese1]

Thanks for the input.

Yeah, my biggest fear would be burning out the clutch by trying to anticipate when the race would start, and that's the main thing that was holding me back. I figured that if you could nail the launch, the Evo would be pretty tough to beat in the 1/8th without something with really big horsepower (or another AWD turbo car).

I didn't realize that time at a standard track costs about the same - I'm definitely going to look around to see what I can find. The only real problem is that I live out in the middle of nowhere, so it's probably some distance to any sanctioned track, unfortunately.

[awdlancer]

i been wanting to do it my self here in san diego !!

[Geese1]

Actually found a place that's only about an hour from me:

Lucky Drag City

Looking at the schedule of events, they have a test & tune each Saturday, and admission is only $5 to run all day long.

I'm going to call them today to get all the details, and may head up this weekend if everything works out.

[Warrtalon]

Much better! Haha @ $5!

[Geese1]

Called and spoke to the people at the track and everything sounds good to go. So assuming the weather is nice, I'm planning on being up there this coming Saturday.

Time to start doing some searches on what I should do to prepare.