Lapeer May '05

New 5/15/05

Had a great time again at Lapeer this weekend. Ron and Ryan were once again wonderful hosts. I was able to put faces to some names I hadn't met before and generally just have a good time.

Two cars that were REALLY fun to drive were Porters LGT and John Hrinsin's stroked 95 MTX. Both cars are just a blast to drive with endless amounts of torque. With all respect to the V8 (as I own/enjoy one), the 3.4 V6 in John's car is what Ford should have built for the Gen 3!! All I can say is wow. I ran the car 4 times and all my runs were 14.2x @ 100+ MPH. Funny thing is, I was launching the car the way I would any other V6 MTX with an open differential. I found out AFTER the fact that the car has a quaife! Had I known that, I would have launched a lot harder and would have very likely been able to dip into the 13's with this car. Well done John! Awesome engineering!

Porters LGT is a totally different animal from any SHO. With the turbo alone, you have an engine/car that behaves completely different from a N/A SHO. Couple that with the AWD and you can throw out anything you learned running an open diff SHO (or any non-AWD car for that matter). I was only able to run the car twice, but I managed a 14.002 at 98-99 mph!! You bring the RPM's to about 4k, watch for the second to last yellow and then let out the clutch. At this point you really want to hang on because the torque this thing has is unbelievable!! This is another car that, with a little more time I could have gotten into the 13's very easily!

FWIW, I was able to get the 91 to run 14.8x's after modifying my launch a bit. With worn out front struts/springs, it was a BEAR to launch!!

Those who didn't come missed a great time! The weather was perfect (a little warm for best ET's, but a helluva lot better than the rain they've been having at these events!) and there was a good mix of cars to watch/drive. Below is a link to some pics from Saturday..

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=7346931&uid=3570701

Dave Garber
Pittsburgh, PA
99 White, 82k
91 Red, 153k

nice pics , thanks for posting. yeah its great to put faces with names

-Chris Farmer

Dave, Glad that you enjoyed yourself. Was great to see you again and wonderful to meet your fiancée. She's one hell of a sport, making the 4 hour drive with you, sitting for a night talking about cars, then spending the entire next afternoon in the sun watching a bunch of loud cars go in a straight line...you'll notice my girlfriend stayed home. Was great to see everyone again in fact. Larry's car is no longer the slowest POS ever. Your assessment of John's Gen2 SHO is spot on, an amazing piece of work. Fun to see a NA Taurus turning 101mph traps. Ron's car was impressive as well, with a few 14.0x and at least one (I believe a few) 13.9x's. While you had to head home before dinner, we even had a good time there. Scott K happened to be driving through town after picking up parts and joined us. Was great to see him again too. To top off a good weekend, we finally got the truck to fire last night ~10:00. Video tonight. 383s are loud with open headers.

Ryan

Looks like a good time.

Larry looks like he is off to go wood cutting.. :o)

Clare

Thanks for the report, I was really hoping to make it this time, but family birthdays trump drag racing most of the time. Maybe in the fall.

As it turns out I have to drive to Detroit this Thursday for another reason, but won't have any time to visit or sight see.

Don Mallinson

Dave, Ryan,

Yep, a great time!! As usual, Dave Garber brought the good weather, and Ryan set up our dinner at the Wooden Eagle, which worked out great!!

Thanks for posting some pics, Dave! (for those on the cross-posted lists, Dave’s picture link is down n this thread).

I only took a few pics, and they are posted here: http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=7360040&uid=168194

We also can’t forget Tony Fullone’s Lightning!! My favorite run of Tony’s was my first race against him. He wasn’t coming up on me, so a look in the rearview mirror showed him pointing sideways in a cloud of tire smoke!! Tony and/or his son Chris eventually got it into the 13.80s IIRC, and the truck just needs some real race tires.

For me, after the first three runs as I learned the launch (14.4, 14.5, and a horrible 14.9), I got no timeslips due to duplicate car numbers (hey….this is Lapeer International Dragway, after all!!), my final five runs were:

13.981

14.191
14.352
13.928
13.904

The last two runs finally got me sub-2-second 60’ times. I have posted all of the details here on the Legacy GT forum, for anyone interested:

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?p=186716#post186716

One last thing on John Semchena’s Maxima. His was the only car in the caravan to CA to not have any mechanical problems (well, except the broken drivers mirror!). As Dave mentioned, it started cutting out when he tried a run, then the car would not idle upon the attempted restart. We all suspect a dying fuel pump. It is an ’02 6-speed Maxima, and this is his first mechanical issue in 80K miles.

Ron Porter

Lapeer sounds like a blast. Thanks for posting the pics. I vaguely remembered Ryan and Porter's faces since I met them several years back for a beer. I will definitely have to make it out to Lapeer for the fall run.

Later, Seth

Another point from Saturday is that on two of the runs when Dave drove Hrinsin's car, he ran against me in my car (Subaru LGT).

They were two excellent races!! First run, I pulled the holeshot, Dave pulled up to about my rear fender by the 1/8th, then we hung that way until I did my 3-4 shift. He was pulling up more, but I got him by about a fender through the lights.

Second run, I hosed the launch and Dave got the holeshot. Much the same scenario, except this time I was hanging on Dave's rear fender, then he pulled away for good when I did the 3-4 shift, winning by not quite a car length.

John's car pulls an extra 2-3 mph in trap speed over my car, and it seems to be right at the big end when the SHO is near redline in 3rd gear. My LGT has to have the extra shift to go through the traps in 4th gear.

Ron Porter

Contact Information