Preparing to race a street car at the track

Hello, my name is Tom Romans. I have been drag racing as a hobby now for almost 20 years. I have driven many different types of cars, and helped many people out with their racing hobbies. I bring this up because it is approaching that time of the year where we start thinking about getting our cars back on the track to have some fun, and break some records here and there. I am writing this series of articles to help get you thinking about your hobby a little more seriously, and get every ounce of performance out of whatever you drive.

Preparing to race a street car is not something that you start the day you are heading to the track, instead it happens 4 or 5 days ahead of time. You begin by looking at the long range weather forecasts to see what conditions you can expect at the track. As the day gets closer you can make you decision on whether you want to even make the effort. For Naturally Aspirated cars, there are some general rules of thumb to take into account. I call it “HHP” or “heat, humidity, and pressure (barometric) My rules of engagement are simple…ambient temperature lower than 70 degrees, humidity in the 50% or lower, and barometric pressure greater than 30.00” You can race with success if all of the numbers are below these parameters. If one of the parameters us exceeded, then limited success can be achieved with skilled driving, and a little luck. If 2 or more parameters is exceeded, then that is a sign that you will not have a good night. For cars with power adders (N2O, Forced Induction) these parameters can be forgiven to a certain degree. If you car as an intercooler for example, the ambient temperature isn’t as much of a factor due to the cooling effect of the intake charge going through the intercooler. Cars with power adders won’t necessarily play by the same rules a Naturally Aspirated car plays by.

If you decide to race, monitor your fuel levels during the week as you drive the car. The goal here is to have as little fuel in the tank as humanly possible when you go racing. Fuel is heavy, around 8 lbs. per gallon. If your car has a 13 gallon tank, a full tank will weigh around 120 lbs. On the track, every 100 lbs. equals a .10 of a second. The ideal situation is to have 2 gallons of fuel or less come race day. Also, if you are going to run pump gas, make sure when you plan your fueling strategy, make sure you use the appropriate octane fuel for racing. Typically speaking, you will run the highest octane pump gas available. It really takes knowing your car well to plan your fuel load over the course of the week to get the desired result. However, most people that race their cars will know their cars like the back of their hand. If you run race gas of some variety, you will want to all but run the car out of gas prior to race day. You do this so as to not dilute the race gas with pump gas excessively when you pour it in. Less dilution means higher octane, which means less knock, and more horsepower.

Next, our discussion will take us to race day, how to prep your car effectively.