Well I'm back, last 4 days (Thursday-Monday) I slept only 12h in total but I didn't felt tired because all this trip was AWESOME.
Left Friday morning in 2 mini-vans, got there in the evening after 10h and we got the some of the cars down from trailers. Organizers have invited all on a city parade escorted by police. Trailers loaded with all Opel models (Opel was the main sponsor), me and another 2-3 buddies with their race cars and followed by all trailers loaded with the other race cars which benefit of free trailers from their city. It was awesome to drive slowly around the downtown top down with the music at max and revving the engine, that was a hell of a publicity of the event. The king was a 3.2L turboed BMW which was making a great deep sound when revving but I wasn't too much away with my huge backfires because of ignition cut from WOT Box, many thought again I blew my engine when I was doing those explosions.
Friday night was a great one, we met many other racers from different cities and had dinner and some drinks together. Great time.
Saturday was the qualification day, there we many other attractions like drift shows, rally shows, a jet engine dragster from Germany and many other. The track was actually an operational airfield and because of that they couldn't apply any treatments of the concrete, as temperatures (reached 90F) was rising the traction was less. I decided not to push because I couldn't beat my personal best and decided to apply a known strategy not to give everything in the qualification and to spot weak opponents which can be easily defeated in the finals even if they have better cars.
The launch control was almost useless in these conditions, even if I had launched earlier than 3000rpm (under boost) keeping the gas pedal above 80% was full spoon and decided to drop it after some tests. I did some pretty good runs and tried to stay constant in preparation of the finals of the next day, I was focusing on reaction times as we are racing Pro Tree and not a Sport Tree. With the Pro Tree the three ambers (yellow lights) illuminate at the same instant with the green illuminating .4 seconds later and is harder to get low reaction times. At noon I was on 2nd place of qualification with 13.79s, all cars in top 8 were upgraded turbos except 2 (mine and a friend of mine qualified on 7th place) and all in a range of 13.6 up to 14.0s. Decided to stop racing and wait the noon for cooler weather and to observe the other cars how they perform and what are their weak points (if they get screwed if the wait the opponent to stage long or short time).
At the end of the day a faster car qualified on 1st spot with 13.3s and all the other raced to improve their times and they gained only 0.1-0.3s, was not an issue for me that I dropped to 5th position because the times of 7 cars were between 13.5 - 13.9 and I knew finals are based on the driver and I was confined that I will reach my goal to be top 4 cars based on my racing experience. In the same time Opel Cup qualifications took place but there was not a fight, my buddy with Opel Speedster was doing a 12.2s, I was in second place with 13.8s and the 3rd car was 14.5s (NA Speedster). If I wouldn't inform my buddy with the Turbo Speedster how to run for Opel Cup he wouldn't knew but I want nice and fair-play races and helped him to get into the Opel Cup too.
Sunday, the finals' day. In the morning I offered my friend with the Speedster to drive him early at the track for another round of qualifications (9-10am) and he refused and said he will come at 10am for the Opel finals. I left the hotel at 7am to have time to wash my car and to be at the track when everything starts. The qualifications dropped up to 9:30 only and I thought they were allowing another 30 minutes for Opel Cup qualifications up to 10 am when the finals were announced to start. A buddy called the Opel Speedster owner to tell him to hurry up but he was sleeping and actually the finals started at 9:30am and he dropped the Opel Cup because he was racing in Central - East Drag Championship which is more important. I won 1st place against an easy run versus the NA Speedster.
Because at that time was cooler I ran some qualification times and dropped my time down to 13.6 which got me in the 4th place of Street category. The 60ft were a pain for everybody, for example in my previous race on a different track but same tehnical equipment (sensors, clocks, etc) I was doing 1.95s on 60ft, here I couldn't get lower than 2.2s, in the morning I succeed a 2.0s and I was pretty confided because all the other 7 cars from finals were FWD, I had to focus on shifting more than on launching.
When the Street category Finals started 3 cars were out from my group:
- 1st place broke his tranny
- 2nd place was disqualified for using non street legal tires (he had 2.2s on 60ft same as me, heh what he expect he will get away with it?)
- 7th place broke his fuel pump sensor
So I would race 5th place (VW Golf 5 GTI) which would be the hardest race and than I was supposed to race the winner between 1st place and 8th place to get in the big final.
I raced the 5th place (13.7s qualification time) and won pretty strong and 8th place won against vs 1st place on a BYE (1st place didn't showed at the starting line with 2 minutes) race.
All I had to do is to win vs 8th place (14.0s qualification time) and get into the final for the first 2 places, I was pretty confined that I will win, I prestaged and when I staged the prestage and stage lights started to flicker, I saw ambler lights and launched but with the amber lights got on I saw red light in the same time going on. My car didn't moved between stage and amber lights, I raced on those sensors for more than 150 races since I have my car and never got a red light, the announcer said something like a plastic bag was flying on the starting line which triggered this but when I went to the officials they said they can't do anything only if my opponent will agree to re-race which of course he didn't because he knew I will win, in those moments I was thinking only to the line lock mod if I had this I would make the situation more clear for me. The timeslip confirmed that something strange happen because the Reaction Time was -0.4s, so I couldn't move my car so soon because 0.4s is the time between stage and amber lights.
6th place from qualification won against 3rd place so the big final was 6th place vs 8th place of qualification. I could won this but shit happens.
I'm glad I could face all those cars which have upgraded turbos (GT28-GT30) and I was close to win which proves me if I upgrade my turbo I will rule that group in future. For the moment I won 3rd place.
My buddy with Opel Speedster turbo won his CEDC group and was very happy, in the end I received an extra trophy on Opel Cup but I think that was wrong, I checked the papers with the officials and there was my number on a different Opel Cup group and they hand me over a 3rd trophy. Right after I received the "wrong" trophy went straight to my friend with the Turbo Speedster and hand it to him because he was the real winner of the Opel Cup.
This is what I got:
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The event was great except 3-4 technical issues and can't be compared with any race from central and east of the country, there were about 200 cars and over 10 000 spectators in 2 days. They used technical system from Hungary which is very reliable.
On this event organizers invited the fastest car from our brothers from Moldavia (different country because they went under Russian empire after WW2 but the people are romanians too) and cars from Hungary, Slovakia and other neighbor countries. Igor, the moldavian racer, is a buddy of my group, we has 3 different drag cars but he came with the best one, a 700hp Nissan GTR32, he ruled the race category, he raced 2 times in qualifications with 10.7s and 10.2s. In the finals and in the Best times finals he raced another 6 times and got ONLY 10s times and won everything, that was an impressive car, on a better surface track he would have 9s easy because he was doing 10.1s easy.
Sorry I didn't took pictures/videos because I was racing as soon pictures/videos will start to be published on internet I will upload here.
