It takes absolutely zero seconds from the moment someone asks me, “Do you wanna hit the dragstrip later?” to the point where my brain yells out, “Hell yes!” loud enough to be heard from my mouth. I had stopped by KingSpeed Race and Repair to check up on a project of theirs I’m following, and the offer was thrown down. What would I get out of it? Nothing, really. We know that our Chrysler is pretty much a 13.5 bracket killer at this point, so other than running it in full trim with everything inside the car…because there is no way I was going to strip it down with such little warning…I could check out other racers and work on my reaction times. Apparently, I need to work on them some…
First item of business: text the wife. “Hey, wanna go to Beech Bend tonight?” “Sure.” Easy enough. I did leave out one notable thing…since I was driving, I’d need someone to wield the camera. Luckily, she’s good at it, and bless her soul, understands that some days, I just need to blow off steam by blowing off the rear tires. So, that’s how we found ourselves at the track just before sunset. It was a small crowd for a test and tune, but all that meant was that there wasn’t much of a wait for a lap time.
If you don’t check out your local test and tunes, you are missing out on a unique experience. There were a couple of heavy hitters, including a Super Comp dragster that was getting sorted and a couple of well-sorted back-halved Camaros, but overall this was street car territory. Like the barely-aged Ford Focus RS that ripped a 12.7, or the guy in the rusted out GM pickup that was having an absolute ball as he hot-lapped that sucker over and over and over again. I’d like to say that I had fun and hustled a couple of people, but the announcer put the kibosh on that quick by announcing, and I quote, “The World Famous Angry Grandpa Chrysler!” Well, so much for the ruse.
I only meant to make a couple of passes and watch the KingSpeed guys lap their rigs. I ended up staying for the whole deal. Angry Grandpa’s best lap of the night was a [email protected], and the best RT that wasn’t a red light was a .012. I had fun, just like everyone else. Including my wife…who is glad that she didn’t have to process the photos! You can see her handiwork by clicking on a photo below to check out the gallery:
