Mother Nature won the Western Fuel Altered (www.wfaseries.com) race in Albuquerque this weekend. On Friday night, a prolonged light drizzle kept any of the cars from making runs. On Sat., we tried to make a 1st session. We were the first pair out and got a nice burnout done. But just as we pulled up to stage it started raining and we had to shut off. As we towed back to the trailer it started raining hard and poor Rachel Greenberg got soaked in the altered's open cockpit. Several hours later we got to try Round 1 again. The humidity was a crazy (for Albuq) 90% and the track was cold. The RODS group went out first and found the dewy track tough to run on. When the altereds ran, the instructions we were given were to do a big smokey burnout & then run only as hard as we felt comfortable. After doing a half track burnout, I really drove the car with finesse, only getting to full throttle at about 1000'. It was a little dicey but fun and we ran Low ET & Top Speed of the event with a 7.06 second run @ 202 mph. Race coordinator Hal Sanguinetti called the run "stunning for the conditions". Since virtually nobody else was able to make a full run on the slick track, I also was subject to some interesting comments that mentioned sanity and/or anatomy. The next quickest run was a 7.33. The remainder of the event was cancelled due to the weather. We always need the rain in Albuquerque, so we'll just have to wait for another day to play with our toy. There is one race left in the WFA season at Phoenix Oct 16 & 17. We are still leading the season points, so we'll be there with our game face on.
Here is the on-board video of the run. The humidity was a staggering 90% and the track had lots of dew on it. All the other cars struggled with getting down the track. I was convinced that the tuneup I had in the car was too aggressive, so I came up with a driving plan that I hoped would work. Hit it hard on the launch and then finesse it through the middle part of the track that is historically tricky even with no dew. Watch the video and pay particular attention to the throttle arm on the right side of the injector hat. When it sits horizontal the throttle is completely closed and when it is vertical the throttle is wide open. Normally you drive these cars with brute force ... slam the throttle open and man-handle the steering wheel to get it down the track. Since I didn’t feel the track would handle that, I managed to substitute finesse for brute force on this one and was rewarded with by far the best run of the event!
Click below and enjoy ...
On-board video of the Low ET/Top Speed run
