Messed up good run...what couldn it have been?
 

AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!! I can't drive. Someone please come to Orlando SPeedworld & run my car for me. I am sick to my stomach right now. Last Wed night, running in mid to upper 60's temps, running at same time my buddy & his modded 98 Grand Prix GTP(pulley, custom cold air) and I just plain screwed up. Friend runs a 14.22 w/2.08 60'. I am 2 cars back, i rev to 1700 & launch with mild bog, .644 r/t, 2.225 60', speed shift 1-2, then 2-3, running to about 5700RPMs, having my personal best run, when I decide to f-up the 3-4 shift! yup, hurst & all, too excited & pulled the shifter towards me & felt the grind of 2nd gear, so put immediately into neutral & coasted thru the traps at 14.43 at 86.32 mph. Get this! My previous best ET: 14.46! at over 98.5 MPH! I think I should have beat my buddy's time...but I need to hear what time I should have run from someone on here! HEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLP! I'll let you know when I learn how to drive...thank God FL tracks are open year-round! Later!

I'm still learning how to drive my T5 but I haven't missed 4th (yet, crosses fingers). I just have problems with the 2-3 shift. I think if you would have hit fourth, you could have beaten your friend. Especially in the cool air. In my old stang, I ran 4 mph better between 85* weather and 60* weather. Free Horsepower!!

get a steeda tri-ax shifter.......should help you out.....

When i was first learning how to drive stick, many moons ago, my father taught me a trick. If you flip your hand over for the third to fourth, you cannot screw it up. youpoint your thumb at the floor, and grab the front of the shifter. then just pull it down. it is guaranteed to get you from third to fourth quickly without missing the gear. try this out. you'll see that you can do it as fast as your heart desires, and you'll never screw it up. let us kjnow if it works.:D

oh, and for the guy who has trouble on the 2-3 shift... i learned a trick for that also. hehe. i am full of tricks, i feel like creskin. Anywho, use your palm, and using a straight line in your mind, when it is in second throw the shifter in an upwards and to the right direction. the geometry of the shifter and tranny should get it into third. this one is alot harder to explain, but if you play, you will see what i mean.

Use your 1/8th mile time for comparison. I think there is a quarter mile time calculator using your 1/8 mile time for reference. I personally don't know how accurate that is but I have heard other people on this board doing the same thing.

I just checked it out. Go to the Analyzer section and put in your 1/8th mile run and it should give you a pretty close estimation on what your 1/4 mile run would have been had you not missed that shift!

venumus93: come over to bradenton and i'll drive that thing for ya, we can even use my mcrearrys and maybe get that "snake" into the 13"s!! i had a hard time finding third when i first started to race my car but no trouble at all now, when i figured out what i was doing wrong and started to hit it my time would drop .2-.3 so your time would have been close to your friends. don't worry the cooler weather is just starting and there will be more chances.

2-3 with a PRO 5.0 is straight up.

I can't hit 4th with my hurst shifter either. The last time I went to the track to race (Aug 99), I had to coast through the traps 2 out of 3 runs. Those times ended up being 14.51@88.9 & 14.54@82.16. My only clean pass....well kind of clean pass, was a 13.93@99.3 with a 2.0 60ft. I was leaving the line at around 2000-2500rpm and spinning the tires all the way through 1st (thanks to a brand new starting line). It felt like I was trying to launch on a skating rink. My mods consisted of bolt-ons, 3.73 gear, 275/50/15 BFG DR, GT-40 intake, and stock heads & cam.

...thanks for all the advice, guys! lx mike: i'll prob come over to bradenton in the spring for the fast ford weeknd MM&FF puts on if they do it again next year....may also be over that way for a hockey game end of dec, will let you know & we'll thrash this car of mine! hope to have my own slicks by then, i have an extra set of 10-hole rims in my garage beggin for some slicks! hope santa i s good to me...hope to run gainesville raceway this fri night if they're still doing fri night drags...mean81gt: i'll try the thumb-over thing too for the 3-4 shift(but ******, i've never missed that shift b4!) thanks again! later!

venumus93, spring break is going to be in orlando this year, the nmra is going to be in bradenton so they switched to orlando.

Would have beaten me...uhmm..hmmm. Well not according to your 6-7 time slips and list of excuses. hehehe Look, I'm not here to get flamed on your board. I'm just a car man like everyone else. Your friend is right about the cooler weather, I probably would have ran a 14.03 like Doug when it was 50 degrees out. Not a bad time for me with a 3600 lbs car. Look, you need to drive the car and you need to get your time. I know you can do it but unfortunitly I'm not done modding so 13's will be next. Good Luck and LINE-UM-UP!

lx mike: cool beans on spring break in orlando..just a 40min or so drive for me! should be lots of fun.
noxcape98: no excuses here, just problems driving...
later!

Noxcape 98, I believe he said he thinks he should have beaten you....not that he definitely would have......

Ha ha 6T9, I think your right. LOL

6T9PONY: Hey man! Thanks for the backup, I really have no idea how good I would have run, it really sucks doing your personal best while coasting(aka: decelerating)thru the traps and wondering what I really should have run. Just wanted to let you know that noxcape98 is a good friend of mine & we've never had the chance to run heads-up at the track....now that we've run on the same night, we could finally compare times & he got me. no excuses here, i just plain messed up & lost. Until I can get a better time(if ever) than him, he's got braggin rights & needs to rib me a little so i try harder...d@mn i cant wait to get back to the track! later!

messed up
 

Too bad they don't make a vertical gate shifter for T5.

Hey venumus93 no problem.:D :D It sounded like you 2 are pretty good friends so I didn't make a big deal out of it or anything....Didn't want to start a flame like I just about did in Sky's post....whoopsadaisies.....