Well, the weather sure looked like it wasn't going to cooperate on Saturday afternoon but it ended up turning out fantastic! Events were supposed to begin at 4pm and didn't get rolling until 5pm due to winds and a small amount of rain. Leroy Bonnell and Rebecca Sullivan arrived shortly afterward to spur us on. It was pretty amazing though....when Gary McGlasson arrived at just around 5pm, the sun suddenly came out and the clouds parted! Wonder who Gary has connections with?
Gary's son Nolan has a gorgeous 1964 Pontiac GTO that he brought to the races and it sure looked good!!
To say I was excited about racing is a huge understatement. I was chomping at the bit to get the Pantera on the track. Passengers were allowed in cars that ran 14 seconds and up and I wasn't really sure what the Pantera would do so I told my son, Joshua, that he should get in the Pantera right off the bat or he might not get to run with me at all.
Our first pass was a tire smoking 14.247 second run. I had no traction whatsoever all the way through first gear. I kept feathering the throttle to back the power off (what a problem to have to deal with, huh?). Joshua was filming from the passengers seat at the time and you can see the video on YouTube by clicking the following link (Turn up the volume!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA9Ye98_ZxM
Well, Joshua only ended up getting to stay in the passengers seat one more run because the second pass clocked me at 13.697 seconds at 108.548 mph. Once again wheelspin was the word of the day.
Gary gave me some suggestions as to how to try and get the tires to bite and they seemed to help somewhat but the first 60 feet of track felt a lot like ice to me the entire time.
Track workers also suggested letting air out of the rear tires for more traction but I wanted to run the car exactly like I do on the street so I left them with the proper air.
The rest of the runs got progressively better as I tried NOT to push on the accelerator as hard at the launch. It was always really amazing to shift into second and be far enough down the track to get some traction and feel the car slam my back into the seat!
The first few runs were done with me turning 6000rpm in third gear through the timing trap.
The third run went well and it seemed like I was gaining a bit on the traction situation and I turned a 13.265 second 1/4 mile. I didn't know what the mph was because if you ended up in the left lane the portion that told you how fast you were going was broken. From then on, I tried to get into the right lane so I could get time and speed.
The fourth run was my revenge run
) I ended up racing the same guy I did on my first pass (he whipped me first time) and I dropped into the 12's with a 12.985 second run at 110.695 mph to his run of 13.668 seconds at about 95 mph (he matched his first run pretty closely so I knew how fast he was going at the end of this run).My next five runs were as follows:
12.897 seconds at 111.037 mph
12.951 seconds at 110.820 mph
12.878 seconds at 111.055 mph
13.038 seconds at 110.340 mph
My last run ended up the fastest at 12.800 seconds at 111.421 mph. I wanted to run more but ran out of ideas to increase my traction to decrease my times! It was just as well since shortly thereafter they began bracket racing so I bowed out.
With a bit more traction I feel like I could have reached into the lower 12's. The dragstrip is located at 5300 feet elevation and Gary stated that, with my times as they were, they would have had me running into the high 11's at about 120 mph if we had been at sea level. I was a happy camper!
The Pantera absolutely ran like a Swiss watch (well, more like a MEAN Swiss watch) and I could not have asked more of it. I am really looking forward to doing it again soon!
By the way, I was told that KOB-TV channel 4 aired video of the races at their 10pm Saturday night new broadcast but I missed it. The Pantera was prominently featured, so I hear!
As Joshua and I were leaving and after we had said our goodbye's someone walked past our car and said that we had won a trophy! I could not figure out what for so we drove the car over to the stand and when I looked up we were being presented with a trophy for "Best of Show"! I was floored! The organizers said that our Pantera embodied the type of car that they wanted to have attend the event. Cars that normally sat in the garages....are you all listening out there?
) How cool would it have been to have seen a dozen Panteras at the track!!!??They also handed us two $25 gift certificates....like icing on the cake!
The track photographer took tons of photos of the cars and you can see all the images on his website at:
http://www.wjrphotography.com/...1843909458&k=5jK72P9
This drag racing stuff is addicting so you will be hearing from me again to see about getting a larger group of us out there....you are guaranteed to have fun!
I will be uploading more video's to YouTube and will let you know when they are there!
Best regards,
Jim Demick
Panteras of New Mexico