My original plan for this weekend was to attend the Modern Street Hemi Shootout at VMP on Saturday. However, the weather forecast on Friday was still showing 30+% chance of rain mid-day, so I opted to pass on driving 300 miles round trip to risk getting bamboozled by Mother Nature. Instead, I decided on Friday to go to MIR's first Midnight Madness event of the year on Friday night, then Mason-Dixon's first Street Cars event on Saturday.

Here's a recap of both events:

MIR
- Took 2 hours 20 minutes to drive about 80 miles in Friday afternoon traffic; I left home at 3:00 PM and wanted to get there before the gates opened at 6:00
- There had been a track rental that was wrapping up when the started letting the street cars in. A guy I know who owns an SRT Demon was there for both events had gone 1.38 in the 60 on his stock Nitto drag radials, so it looked good for track prep
- I'd left work early to get to the track at a decent time and didn't have time to swap from the OEM Nexen drag radials to my M/Ts; however, when I'd been to MIR early this year, the car hooked solidly on the Nexens 3 of 4 test passes I ran, so I figured I'd be OK
- DA was going to get close to zero; I think around 6 PM it was maybe 700, but would need to look at my notes
- Time runs were supposed to go from 6:00 to 9:00, and eliminations starting at 9:00
- Delays, delays, delays...
- Even though the DA was really good, I joked that my 1320 would probably run (another) 12.0x at 113
- First time run maybe 7:00-ish... 12.05 at 112.98... with a HORRIBLE RT... like a .2++
- Guy with Demon blew the tires off on his first time run
- Watched the Diesel truck class wreak havoc on the starting line during their time trials; the track crew did drag & spray the track, but it wasn't looking good
- Second time run maybe 8:30-ish... blew the tires off... RT something like .070
- Second time run by Demon... blew the tires off (again)
- First round of eliminations wasn't until after 11:00 PM... blew the tires off AND a sh!tty RT
- First round for Demon... blew the tires off and hurt the car; he was going to have to limp it back to his house about 40 miles away, IIRC

I packed up and got home about 1:00 AM.
1. Decided on the drive home I wasn't going to pay to go down the track on these Nexens again
2. I will likely not go back to MIR for Midnight Madness events; the whole evening just left a bad impression on me

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Mason-Dixon; track elevation 541'

Sadie The Wonder Dog (a.k.a. Sadie The Destroyer) woke me up early; just as well since it gave me more time to swap wheels to the Mickeys on all four corners before making the 60-mile drive to the track in about 1 hour 10 minutes.

Signed up for two classes to get more seat time, especially to get my Sportsman tree RTs back after having concentrated on running a .500 Pro tree the last two T&Ts at Capitol in anticipation of the MSHS race where everything, including brackets is Pro tree.
- Limited Street (or Sportsman): basic no-electronics footbrake class on Sportsman tree; slicks OK
- Drive-in Street: no trailered cars allowed; must be on DOT tires

Both classes were supposed to be 1/4 mile, although a number of the classes being run were 1/8th. However, very early during the first time trial / qualifying session one of the Quick 16 cars had a top-end incident; long story short, there was damage to the photocell light at the 1/4 finish line, so all classes were run as 1/8th.

Delays, delays, delays... each class was supposed to have two time runs before eliminations, but multiple on-track incidents resulted in that being cut back to one. At least I got two in (one per class).

Time Run 1 @ 1:50 PM
RT .022
60 - 1.743
1/8 - 7.631
MPH - 89.73
DA - 1849

Time Run 2 @ 2:09 PM
RT .094
60 - 1.791
1/8 - 7.699
MPH - 92.25
DA - 1900

LS Rd 1 @ 3:29 PM - Dial In 7.62
RT .031
60 - 1.777
1/8 - 7.702
MPH - 89.43
=> WON; better RT than other lane, although they ran closer to dial in

DS Rd 1 @ 3:48 PM - Dial In 7.68
RT .010
60 - 1.818 ==> SPUN; even the announcer mentioned how the launch killed a great light
1/8 - 7.843
MPH - 88.65
=> LOST; better RT than other lane, but they ran closer to dial in
*** Decided to do a Buy Back for DS

LS Rd 2 @ 4:24 PM - Dial In 7.68
RT .026
60 - 1.815 ==> didn't "feel" spin, but it was definitely "off"
1/8 - 7.749
MPH - 89.36
DA - 1865
=> WON; other lane had slower RT and they broke out

DS Rd 2 @ 4:31 PM - Dial In 7.68 ==> Hot lap right after LS round
RT .171 ==> WTH???
60 - 1.798 ==> didn't "feel" spin
1/8 - 7.759
MPH - 91.74
=> WON; other lane had better RT, but they broke out

LS Rd 3 @ 5:06 PM - Dial In 7.75 ==> Changed cuz car was slowing down
RT (.008) ==> Sh!t
60 - 1.825 ==> didn't "feel" spin, but it was definitely "off"
1/8 - 7.874
MPH - 90.23
=> LOST; I both drew a red light and ran way off dial-in

DS Rd 3 @ 5:11 PM - Dial In 7.85 ==> Changed again; another hot lap after LS round
RT .076
60 - 1.810 ==> didn't "feel" spin
1/8 - 7.839
MPH - 88.93
=> LOST; other lane had slower RT, but I broke out by .017

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Scaled car at Mason-Dixon; with 1/8 fuel tank and the Race Star / Mickey Thompson front & rear tire & wheel combination, the car was just a few pounds under 4100 WITHOUT driver; I'm hitting right about 200 currently, so 4300 #s combined. I usually run w/ more gas in the car, but M-D is right down the road from a gas station, so I figured I'd get fuel before the drive home.

I'm looking at my previous T&T data trying to get a sense for how quick the car was running in the 1/4 based on other 1/8 times. Here's a sample of M-D passes from above vs "==>" T&T data:

60 - 1.743 ==> 1.730
1/8 - 7.631 ==> 7.698
MPH - 89.73 ==> 89.99
----------- ==> 12.068 @ 112.78

60 - 1.777 ==> 1.775
1/8 - 7.702 ==> 7.773
MPH - 89.43 ==> 89.78
----------- ==> 12.153 @ 112.55

FWIW, track conditions at 2:21 PM from AirDensityOnline:
73.1 F
31%
29.26" (uncorrected)
8.9 MPH wind (SW)
DA 1900'

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I was trying to run the M/T ET Street SS rear tires at 18.0 to 19.0 psi, but thinking they may need to go lower. I know of a guy who ran a Hellcat with the same tires and wheel size and he used 13 to 16 on his tracks... just seemed too low to me when I read that. The big difference between running the Nexens and the Mickeys is what happens when the track starts going away: Nexens either dead hook, or spin & hop; the M/Ts still grab enough to keep the car moving forward. Maybe the M/Ts need less pressure to stay hooked up... ?

My next track event will probably be May 1st back at Mason-Dixon for their Mopar Day.

Sadie, also referred to as my furry alarm clock

So Your R/T's are VASTLY improved. Day two was full tree only? Were you in deep?
Doug

Full tree both days with shallow staging.

I only tried bumping in when I was testing with a Pro tree, and still wasn't "deep" staging.

Nice to get racing again.
RT's getting better

It's too bad when other cars/drivers cause big delays.

I was prepared to buy back into both classes to keep going at least a couple of rounds, and had thought about putting a rubber ducky on my hood in the staging lanes for humor.

Still need to work on things, but I consider yesterday to have been a good day at the track.

Looks like you did pretty good. Glad you had fun!

Good to see you made it back to a race at the track. Sounds like you had a good time for sure. BTW nice pup!

Sadie is a 5 YO Weimaraner rescue we adopted 6 months ago. She's a total sweetie, despite her quirks.

Re tire pressure, found a pic from maybe 2017 of Ron Silva driving a Hellcat using the same type & size M/T rear tire on the same size wheels, only he said this was using 14 PSI. I'm sure mine don't look like this with 18 (or higher) PSI, so the next time I'll drop 'em down to 16 and see how the car responds. Still sounds really low to me for a heavy car w/ a short-sidewall radial, but he had lots of passes on his old Hellcat to figure things out. I don't know what he has now, maybe an SRT Demon or SRT Super Stock.

Ron bought a one seat Demon when they came out. Raced it a few years,sold it, and bought a new Superstock challenger. He raced that for a while,sold it and then found another one seat Demon,which he's currently racing.

Got back to Mason-Dixon for the T&T before their Mopar event tomorrow. Dropped the ET Street S/S down to 16 and it seemed to hook pretty consistently on all four passes I got in. Took me until the last pass to get an RT worth a crap, though.

Good Job and thank you for posting the chart. I have one very similar that I use for my dart.

This is my full spreadsheet layout; I hid some columns for the previous post.