[Shotimes] RE: Lapeer

Mon, 9 May 2005 12:29:19 -0400

Dave, Ryan,

Yep, a great time!! As usual, Dave Garber brought the good weather, and Ryan
set up our dinner at the Wooden Eagle, which worked out great!! 

Thanks for posting some pics, Dave! (for those on the cross-posted lists,
Dave's picture link is down n this thread). 

I only took a few pics, and they are posted here:
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999
<http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=7360040&uid=168194>
&gid=7360040&uid=168194

We also can't forget Tony Fullone's Lightning!! My favorite run of Tony's
was my first race against him. He wasn't coming up on me, so a look in the
rearview mirror showed him pointing sideways in a cloud of tire smoke!! Tony
and/or his son Chris eventually got it into the 13.80s IIRC, and the truck
just needs some real race tires.

For me, after the first three runs as I learned the launch (14.4, 14.5, and
a horrible 14.9), I got no timeslips due to duplicate car numbers (hey..this
is Lapeer International Dragway, after all!!), my final five runs were:

13.981 

14.191
14.352 
13.928
13.904

The last two runs finally got me sub-2-second 60' times. I have posted all
of the details here on the Legacy GT forum, for anyone interested:

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?p=186716#post186716

One last thing on John Semchena's Maxima. His was the only car in the
caravan to CA to not have any mechanical problems (well, except the broken
drivers mirror!). As Dave mentioned, it started cutting out when he tried a
run, then the car would not idle upon the attempted restart. We all suspect
a dying fuel pump. It is an '02 6-speed Maxima, and this is his first
mechanical issue in 80K miles.

Ron Porter

  _____  

From: Ryan Dudek [mailto:rmdudek@gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 10:36 AM
To: Dave Garber
Cc: v8sho@v8sho.com
Subject: Re: Lapeer

Dave, 

Glad that you enjoyed yourself.  Was great to see you again and wonderful to
meet your fiancee.  She's one hell of a sport, making the 4 hour drive with
you, sitting for a night talking about cars, then spending the entire next
afternoon in the sun watching a bunch of loud cars go in a straight
line...you'll notice my girlfriend stayed home. 

Was great to see everyone again in fact.  Larry's car is no longer the
slowest POS ever.  Your assessment of John's Gen2 SHO is spot on, an amazing
piece of work.  Fun to see a NA Taurus turning 101mph traps.  Ron's car was
impressive as well, with a few 14.0x and at least one (I belive a few)
13.9x's.

While you had to head home before dinner, we even had a good time there.
Scott K happened to be driving through town after picking up parts and
joined us.  Was great to see him again too.

To top off a good weekend, we finally got the truck to fire last night
~10:00.  Video tonight.  383s are loud with open headers.

Ryan

On 5/9/05, Dave Garber <dave.garber@comcast.net> wrote: 

Had a great time again at Lapeer this weekend. Ron and Ryan were once again
wonderful hosts. I was able to put faces to some names I hadn't met before
and generally just have a good time. 

Two cars that were REALLY fun to drive were Porters LGT and John Hrinsin's
stroked 95 MTX. Both cars are just a blast to drive with endless amounts of
torque. With all respect to the V8 (as I own/enjoy one), the 3.4 V6 in
John's car is what Ford should have built for the Gen 3!! All I can say is
wow. I ran the car 4 times and all my runs were 14.2x @ 100+ MPH. Funny
thing is, I was launching the car the way I would any other V6 MTX with an
open differential. I found out AFTER the fact that the car has a quaife! Had
I known that, I would have launched a lot harder and would have very likely
been able to dip into the 13's with this car. Well done John! Awesome
engineering! 

Porters LGT is a totally different animal from any SHO. With the turbo
alone, you have an engine/car that behaves completely different from a N/A
SHO. Couple that with the AWD and you can throw out anything you learned
running an open diff SHO (or any non-AWD car for that matter). I was only
able to run the car twice, but I managed a 14.002 at 98-99 mph!! You bring
the RPM's to about 4k, watch for the second to last yellow and then let out
the clutch. At this point you really want to hang on because the torque this
thing has is unbelieveable!! This is another car that, with a little more
time I could have gotten into the 13's very easily! 

FWIW, I was able to get the 91 to run 14.8x's after modifying my launch a
bit. With worn out front struts/springs, it was a BEAR to launch!!

Those who didn't come missed a great time! The weather was perfect (a little
warm for best ET's, but a helluva lot better than the rain they've been
having at these events!) and there was a good mix of cars to watch/drive.
Below is a link to some pics from Saturday.. 

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999
<http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=7346931&uid=3570701>
&gid=7346931&uid=3570701 

Dave Garber

Pittsburgh, PA

99 White, 82k

91 Red, 153k