First ever trophy win for an electric car at Atlanta MotorSpeedway Friday Night Drags

[everman]

Has it been a week yet? Did you get that 420hp mustang? I can't wait to see your second week winners pics!

 

[kirkp]

Has it been a week yet? Did you get that 420hp mustang? I can't wait to see your second week winners picks!

Actually I discovered during the second week that the Mustang GT I had beaten in the finals of the first week WAS the 420 HP version. That was a close race, he got off the line faster than me, but I caught him before the end.

During the second week, I beat a 1993 Corvette very easily, and then a 2014 Z51 Corvette w/ 460 HP and 465 lb-ft of torque weighing over 1,300 lb less than my car (the same one I had beaten the first week during his and my first practice run). The Z51 was a great race, we both got off the line at almost the exact same time (the Corvette driver is about my same age and skill level), and I managed to pull on him the entire race and beat him by maybe a half-length at the end.

Unfortunately I was so excited at beating the Corvette, I forgot I had one more race to win, and I totally took the last car for granted. I was *extremely* slow coming off the line in the finals against a 2002 Z28 Camaro, and he got what looked like a two-length jump on me at the very start. I was pulling hard on him once I got rolling, and almost caught him by the end, but he ended up with the win by a foot or so at the finish. I also had a lot of wheel-spin in my lane on that last run.

Shows that even a Tesla can be beat if it has a bad enough driver. :redface:

My reaction times thus far simply aren't as good as some of the other drivers who have more experience and quicker/younger reflexes than me.

Ah well, at least I now know where the loser's turn-off lane is on this track. :wink: I'm still happy with 8 out of 9 wins in my first two times in these elimination races.

I'll be back again this Friday to see if I can learn from my mistakes. The announcer and the fans seem to really enjoy seeing a battery-powered car running in these matches. My competitors, maybe not so much…

 

[everman]

Thanks for the update!

 

[kirkp]

I've now done eight weeks of 1/8-mile races at the Atlanta Motor Speedway Friday Night Drags, and after three first-place wins in the Factory Street Class for points, I've been bumped into the Domestic Class. That class allows bored & stroked motors, headers, intake mods, hotter cams, etc., and while the Tesla can beat maybe half of the cars in that class, it can't win against the fastest of those cars. So I don't think I'll be getting any more trophies this season. But I did win four, which is more than anyone else can win without also getting bumped into the next class. (The first two weeks didn't count for points, so my win in Week 1 didn't count against me.)

A total of four 1st-place finishes, two 2nd-place, one 3rd-place, and one no-place (when I lost to the Corvette in the first race in Week 3).

My only losses were to the 2014 C7 Corvette Z51, and a 2002 Camaro Z28 in Week 2 when I got a very slow start in the finals.

The cars that the Tesla beat included:
2014 Corvette (I beat him once, he beat me three times)
2014 Mustang 5.0
2013 Mustang GT
2005 Mustang GT
2009 Pontiac G8 GXP
2002 Camaro Z28 (two different ones)
2005 Pontiac GTO
2005 Cadillac CTS/V
2008 Mercedes CL63 AMG
2001 Corvette
1995 Corvette
plus some others

Sorry, they don't do time-slips or speeds at this event, so I can't tell you what times I ran.

A friend of mine made four very-nice videos of the nights the Tesla won at:

Tesla Model S P85 Drag Racing on Vimeo