22 August Lazzat Strip Challenge part III
So it was time for Lazzat’s third event of the year.
The expectations were high as usual, but never the less no one really feared the Wok anymore.
Since the car so far at the season hadn’t really got any really clean runs.
It seemed like I finally got rid of all the vacuum leakages and that the new
fuel pump could make the car to rev a lot more than on previous events.
The boost was still set to 1,2-1,3 bar and the modifications since last time
was only small adjustments.
The distance of the race was 201 meters (1/8 mile) which usually is quite
preferable when having a small light car with not too much power.
A big car like a Saab 9000 with with a weight of 1480 kilos and 400 bhp
(aprox 195 from factory) hasn’t got much of a chance at this distance.
Even if 1/8 mile was preferable for me, I really felt that it would have
been cool to test a full 1/4 mile run.
The only tricky thing was to not rev too much in the start to get some grip...
...As soon as the rpm-meeter had popped up to 7000 a couple of times it was
time to hit in second gear.
If this was done in the right way (fast and brutal) it resulted in a tremendous,
but still accelerating, wheel spin all second gear.
It didn’t stop spinning until the rpm was half way in to the red area and
after I punched in to third gear the wheel spin was replaced by a massive acceleration.
The only sad thing was that there was no reason for switching into third gear
until there was only about 30 meters left until the finnish line.
When I crossed the finnish line the acceleration was really at it’s top,
So it was really no fun to move the foot to the brakes, although it was essential to brake,
since the reline was pretty close to the finnish.
In my first run I ran 8,68 - 142 km/h
After that it only went slower and slower for each new try.
A good thing with theese races was that they were in the evening,
So the later it got, the colder it got and thereby the car started to go faster again.
8,68 was enough to put me in first place in the qualifyings.
Obviously the guys with almost brand new Volvo V40 Turbos with redicioulusly
much money spent on tuning went a bit mad...
They qualified with 8,9-9,2
As the qualifying was over and the eliminations started I just kept on winning.
The only question that was circulating in my head was
-Will this be enough to win the competition?
The answer was YES!
Since no one really knew (including me) if the car was going to keep on working all necessary runs,
or brake down the competition was really full of action.
I really did everything possible to keep focused on the task of getting the grip in the starts.
Unfortunately for my nervous competitor in the final he didn’t get any grip at all,
And I got an advance which was impossible to take.
The prices and congratulations were taken place at the start area in the
dark night when most of the non winning teams had already went back home.
Just as at the racemaniacs-meeting in Norrtälje I managed to get Elvis old car to the event.
Elvis and the new owner had built a new engine for the occation.
That in combination with lots of boost they had lots of problems with popping hoses and pipes.
To save time when building the new engine and to get it rolling as soon as possible,
they skipped the air filter. Instead they let the air flow meeter induct any air available...
...lots of air, and also some loose tape found its way thru the AFM and into the turbo.
That made the AFM to stay half open which resulted in a bit too rich mixture on idle.
Below is some other pictures from the event,
And as usual I thank Stoffe for documenting the event in pictures.
2002-08-22
