How many have taken your W221 to the drag strip? I just did, and it was a barrel of fun. Despite many years of the occasional highly illegal street shootout, I'd never been to a drag strip before. Well, tonight was Test & Tune night at the strip closest to me. Unfortunately both of the nearby strips are 1/8 mile rather than 1/4 mile, but I found that was enough to do what needed to be done. Only in a couple of cases did I think the extra distance would have changed the outcome.

The biggest challenge, predictably, was traction. Dip a tire in the water box by accident (I wasn't doing burnouts on my Michelin AS3+ street tires)? Wheelspin. Disable ESP? Wheelspin. Too much gas when the yellow lights were sequencing? Wheelspin. I did make some improvement in my reaction time. I smoked a 5.7 Hemi Challenger (not a big surprise) and a few others. Got my *** handed to me by a few as well, again not a big surprise. There was no shortage of straight up RACE CARS there, but a dozen or so street cars on street tires too.

Yes, I got smoked by a woman driving a 4-wheeler ATV... the second time. The first time I beat her by half a second. I don't know if she bogged it the first time or if I just sucked the second time... I have 15 timeslips and didn't have a pen to make notes as I went along.

No failures, no misfires, nothing broke. Drove it to and from the track. No adjustments to tire pressure or anything. I didn't even take the spare out. And the last three runs were made with my son along (he's 31, together we added about 550# to the car's weight). We still managed to beat a Fox body Mustang race car, and nearly beat a ZL1 Camaro (I'm assuming he muffed the launch or something). All in all, a very fun night.

 

love the story! I've gone to the drag strip many times in my past...always enjoy it...haven't taken my w221 though...would consider it.

 

should have bought a tesla

 

Not even on my worst day would I own a Tesla. I don't care one bit how fast it is. I also don't care that it's electric. I'm just not owning something over which I have essentially no control. No parts availability, no access to diagnostic or maintenance tools, no control over software, no local dealer meaning if the thing ever breaks (and they do), it's a flatbed ride 175 miles to the nearest dealer. So, no. Not this guy. Screw that. YOU go buy a Tesla.

On another subject, I plugged my timeslips into a spreadsheet this morning. My reaction time was generally trending downward, but still needs to be improved (a lot). I just had trouble convincing myself to release the brake and go when that third yellow lit, but my reaction times tell me I need to do exactly that.

My 60' times are even more interesting. One thing became crystal clear last night when I tried it -- DON'T turn off traction control. Maybe if I were much more experienced and was not running street tires that would be different, but turning ESP off resulted in a lot of noise and some tire smoke, and crap runs. Absolutely my two worst of the night by a wide margin were when I turned off traction control.

The other lesson came only after some looking at the data. If you toss out the two bad runs with ESP off, my 60' times were actually trending worse throughout the night. Why? I think it's because I was revving the engine more when the yellow lights were sequencing, to get the boost up. Well, all that seemed to do was make the traction control work harder and more aggressively to control wheelspin, and it was hurting my times. There were a couple of runs where I know I'd have won* if I'd had better traction off the line. So, if (OK, when) I do this again, I think I'll try staying off the gas entirely until the last yellow, then release the brake and nail the throttle.

* It was a "Test & tune" night. We weren't actually racing for points or money or trophies or anything. But when you're sitting there staged, with another car next to you, and the Christmas tree lights up... you're racing.

 

that's the slow tesla, these days the big boy one is nearly twice as quick.... >1.99 0 to 60mph in the new plaid S
your point about reliability was also interesting - yes, trim build and fit is a bit ropey (like all American cars ever were), but seems speaking of the drive train taking that abuse, many are reaching 1 million miles with no maintenance at all. And a lot of places reuse second-hand tesla units to get classics back on the road.

And their software is the best out there.... yes if you climb in the rear seat and ask it to crash it even manages that ! Don't forget they are built in the Toyota factory your fake import protectionist rules made available.... not that a single Toyota was ever faulty. One policeman did his family and put on youtube, and another two grandads had left the floor mat almost under the brake pedal when checked during the fake recalls.. Its just like Audi in the 80s as they were taking over the USA, you guys invent the very same accidental acceleration lie that wasn't in any Audi or Toyota ever made.

Then as your bankrupt corporate incompetent car manufacture's have lost the battle, they invent the VAG emission scandal. Yes its "wrong". But at least their implementation was sensible. No one in the car run the cheat, someone driving make it safe !!! and drive nice. GM and Merc both fiddled the outside temp sensor so it could lie to the ECU and generally get muddled as to when to drive properly or not. And they run the exact same level of emission cheat as VAG did. We won't mention half the other software fake faults Merc programme to all their vehicle's to steal money from innocent customers.... I even worked out how BMW did it, your EPA couldn't think straight enough to work that one out

 

Quality time with your son. Nothing better.