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The STL BMW club was represented at the weekly Gateway drags last night by Alex April in his 325is, Connie Curran in his 320ti, Trey Scott in his father's Olsmobile, Bud Scott as PB, and John Palumbo as head cheerleader in the stands.

We arrived around 5:45 and proceeded to registration and tech inspection. Tech was rather interesting, "All your parts on son? Go have some fun now." Trey entered in the high school eliminator class with Alex and Connie running test/tune sessions. All the guys seemed a bit nervous but understandable since we were a little out of our environment.

I set tire pressures on the Olds pace car and was immediately mocked for being a bit too serious by my fellow club members and my own son. I proceeded to increase the rear pressures to 45 for minimum resistance. Trey and I talked a bit about launch techniques and decided to wait on a front pressure change till after a few runs. We went to grab a bite to eat and watch a few runs before getting in line.

Connie, Alex, and Trey jumped into staging. Trey and Alex managed to be on track at the same time for their first runs. Alex made a good start and ran a 15.9 right off the bat. Trey used all the Quad 4 GM power we had available and ran a 17.2. Connie reeled off a 14.7 first run. Good starts for the Bimmer group!

I focused on getting Trey off the start line and we talked about launching, the tree, and getting the car through the first 100 feet. All this paid off as his reaction times kept dropping and 100 foot times and trap speeds kept going in the right direction. Trey made three more passes with his times at 17.2, 17.0 and 17.1. This consistency would work in our favor once eliminations began.

On to high school eliminations. There were 16 cars entered in the HS class with a time spread from a 12 second Olds station wagon to an 18 second Jeep SUV. In round one Trey was matched up with last year's HS champ running his street car. Both were dialed in at 17.1 and 17.4 respectively so it was going to be a close race. Trey was getting the hang of starting and put a holeshot on the guy taking the first round win! Trey ran a 17.2 so we were right on the money for our dial in. Round 2 saw Trey matched up with a very well prepared Mustang driven by a veteran young lady who had Junior dragster experience. Her dial in was 13.5 and I explained to Trey he would start first. Trey once again put a hole shot on her with a reaction time of .004!!!!!! For those of you that follow drag racing any this is up there with the pros!!!! She got impatient and redlighted watching the POS Olds drive away. Trey put down a 16.8 run too. WOO-HOO! Trey is now in the HS eliminator semifinals. His third run was matched up with a really fast Camaro driven by another young lady in the 13.1 range. (Is my boy a babe magnet or what!) I tried to explain to him what breakout bracket racing was and how important the dial in time is to this. I failed to get that across properly as driver coach this time. Once again Trey laid down a hole shot with a reaction time of .090. The Camaro put down a good start and was making up the distance. The track announcers were commenting that the Olds had the advantage but probably needed to brake at the end to keep from breaking out on dial in. Trey was watching his mirrors and lost sight of the finish line and his braking point. Trey reached the finish line first but his hole shot this time resulted in a 16.6 run, 4 tenths faster than our dial in. The win went to the Camaro who ran a 13.1 to a 13.1 dial in time. Trey ended up with a third place trophy his first time at the drags.

All told we had a great time meeting a new group of car crazies. Just like us only in a straight line! Lots of well prepped machinery and some not so well prepped. Alex ended up running 15.1 and Connie got down to a 14.2 or 14.1. Lots of smiles and fun for sure! The high school group was especially supportive of Trey and many were coming up to congratulate him and asking if it was really his first time out. Now that kid is figuring out how to get the POS Olds pace car down the strip faster!

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SLUF

Good to see you expanding your motorsports horizons and having fun while doing it!

 

And congrats to Trey on his trophy. 

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