I see you have 19" wheels. When you drag race do you leave the traction control on or turn it off?
I think the Tesla traction control was one of the biggest advantages, keeping wheel-spin to a minimum while hurting performance very little, so I left it on all night (I'd actually be scared to turn if off). Only a couple of cars beat me off the line with quicker reaction times, but I passed them by the midpoint (probably during their shifts). These are old-fashioned "street" drag eliminations where whoever gets to the finish line first wins, so there are no timing slips, and a lot more room for driver error than in a timed quarter-mile. If you're too slow coming off the line you're probably gonna get eliminated.
They use a Pro Tree starting light setup where all three yellow lights come on at once followed by the green light 0.4 seconds later, and I think that was actually helpful because it gives less time for another more experienced driver to anticipate the green during a sequential countdown of the yellow lights in a Full Tree.
The cars I beat in my class were a Cadillac CTS/V and Pontiac G8 (both with Corvette engines), and a Mustang GT. Earlier in the practice runs I beat a 2014 Corvette Z51, a Lil' Red Hemi truck, and an early 70's Duster w/ fat tires and I dunno what-kind-of engine. The cars in the practice runs were all in higher or different classes than me.
People were asking me questions all night long, and very few had ever seen a Tesla before, so that was a lot of fun. The track officials said they'd never had a Tesla compete, and it was the first time an electric car had ever won its class in these competitions. I have to think that it was very good for all these gear-head enthusiasts to see an all-electric 5,000 lb 4-door luxury sedan outrun pony cars and Corvettes.
There were only 10 cars in my Factory Street class on Friday because it looked like rain. Next week I might have more and stiffer competition. But I hadn't planned on winning my class in the first place, so whatever happens is cool.
I did see a couple of interesting error messages: During the practice runs, you have to drive onto the high-banked oval part of the track to get back into line, and I got a message saying "Stability Control Disabled, Contact Tesla Service" every time. I powered the car off and back on each time and it reset. The drivers of an Audi S4 and the Corvette Z51 said the same thing happened to them, so I guess the sensors don't like seeing the car tilted beyond a certain threshold. Another time the instrument panel rebooted while I was waiting in line and said "Charging Cable Connected, Disconnect Cable to Drive". I freaked out on that one, but it went away after I did a power off-on sequence as well. I dunno WTH caused that.
Oh, and it was my wife who took the picture, and she had fun just watching. I told her this was our new Friday Date Night activity. :smile: