boosted hybrid

For what seemed like the first time ever I was prepared early for a race. The Integra was taken out the week before the event for some testing. I was able to get a few passes in, but ran into a few minor issues with a bad TPS sensor. I brought it back to the shop, fixed it, loaded it in the trailer and intended on testing everything on Friday during the test and tune at MIR. The car was ready to go at the beginning of the week.

On Thursday evening I got the truck hitched up to the trailer, drove it home, and couldn’t wait to head out to the race. On Friday morning we were up early, loaded the kids in the Pilot and we were on the road by just after 10am. I was driving the truck/trailer with my friend (also named Jeff) and my wife, Andrea, was driving with her mom and our kids in the Pilot. It was smooth sailing until we were on 476 about 10 miles north of 95 - probably about an hour or so into our 4.5 hour trip to MIR. We hit some traffic due to construction, so we decided to get off the highway, take back roads, and get on 95 a little further south. Andrea was ahead of us at this point (she’d be following us on the highway). As we went through town I was certain there was a problem with the transmission on the Avalanche (the tow vehicle). First and second gear didn’t sound good, but we couldn’t find a good place to pull over. We were coming from a stop light and started an going up a hill when we heard a pop. We were immediately convinced that the trailer had blown a tire. The road was super narrow and we knew we couldn’t keep driving, so we pulled over as much as possible, but the truck/trailer were still covering at least 3/4 of the lane. At that point, a guy pulls up next to us and says, “Your race car fell out of your trailer back there and hit another car.” I thought the guy was joking and got out to check the tire on the trailer. That’s when we went to the back of the trailer and realized the door on the trailer was open and the car was missing. With the truck still running, the trailer wide open, and being parked blocking most of the road we took off running to find the car. It was a mile down the road. As we approached the car, the driver of the car that got hit was screaming and had a few choice words for me (as if I couldn’t think of anything better I’d rather have happen to my car then this!). The icing on the cake? The passenger in the car that was hit...a bride, in her wedding gown on the way to her ceremony. No, I am not making this up... unfortunately.

In the middle of the run to find the car, we called Andrea told her to turn around and move the truck/trailer out of the middle of the road and that we were running down the road after the car that had just fallen out of the trailer. She managed to get it out of the way and into a parking lot while her mom walked behind her holding the trailer door up. The door hold-backs had actually ripped out of the back of the trailer and needed to be repaired. Needless to say, this whole debacle started around 12:30pm and we didn’t get back on the road to MIR until just after 3pm.

Essentially, here is what happened. The culprit:



We strapped the car down in the trailer using the factory tow hook as we had done every other time we towed the car anywhere. The tow hook came off the car causing the car to roll back and forth in the trailer. We later realized that this was the noise that we thought was the transmission on the truck. Amazingly, the damage to the inside of the trailer was minimal:



In addition, considering what actually happened the damage to the car wasn’t bad.



The rear bumper had been pushed out a little, but it was easily fixed. Thankfully, nobody was hurt during this entire incident, and to the best of our knowledge, the bride made it to her wedding.

We finally arrived at MIR at around 7pm on Friday night and were able to get the car through tech.

As many of you already know, the car was able to run one pass this weekend...it’s best pass. It was my 3rd full pass in the car and it ran an 8.98 @ 167mph. The car felt really calm and smooth going down the track. In fact, it didn’t really feel fast at all. I was only trying to go through the gears, make a clean pass, and make sure I made the field before turning the boost up or trying to run a number. I had the tune in the car that was in the car when Brian Ballard drove it at Englishtown at the shootout, running approx. 34-35lbs of boost (with a little less boost in 2nd gear). I expected the car to run a low to mid 9 second pass given that I was shifting slow and really not trying to kill it. I went through the traps, slowly lifted off the throttle, hit the chute, and the rear end of the car became loose. It was virtually uncontrollable. Thankfully, Will (the driver of the other car) reacted quickly, sped up and got around me before I hit the wall. Someone actually told me after I got out of the car that I ran a 9.8. I was pissed because I essentially totaled the car and barely made better than a 10-sec pass. It was until about 10 minutes later that Andrea came up, made sure I was ok, and said, “At least you ran an 8.” I actually didn’t believe her...you can hear my reaction to her in the video.

I’m slightly disappointed that this happened as I know that with a few more pounds of boost and adding boost in sooner it would have run another tenth or two faster. My goal with the car was to run consistent high 8 second passes with full weight in true street trim. This was done on a 67mm turbo, 24.5” slicks, and 150lbs over weight. Unfortunately, I’m certain that this chassis is unusable so we will be starting from scratch keeping the motor, turbo, transmission set up the same. As for a new chassis, we will be rebuilding a race car for 2012 but have not committed to anything in particular yet.

Here’s the time-slip:



Here’s the in car video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWzgpnlDkKQ

The video and an article has now been posted on Autoblog:

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/11/10/i...into-the-eigh/

A picture of the damage:

90blackcrx

Glad you made it out alive, that could of been a lot worse.

E-Town4229

****ing intense!! cant imagine a scary ride like that so im glad your ok jeff. hope you make it back out soon and props to will for avoiding the situation.
-Roger

k24aturbo

iTrader: (1)

Wow wow wow..Awesome..Congrats Evans

1992Si

Wow tough weekend. Glad your ok, you'll be back.

AllMtrRex

Wow. Pause at 1:17...That is F'in close....

Congrats on PB!
From the looks of the video(especially short track), looks like the setup would have went deep 8's.

locash

Glad you're ok, buddy. There can always be another car, the kids wouldn't take too kindly to another Jeff..

Time for a parachute thread, I'm sure that all of us are questioning our setups now..

I think the car was telling you something when it left the trailer..

SOHC_MShue

So sad to see this, but glad you are ok! That was an awesome ET.

Dynamic Performance Racing

Congrats Jeff on that 8 sec pass. Glad to hear you are ok.

The first and only true street car in the 8's! That is one record that will be hard to break!

SLIM NOTHING

wow how close where you and will? bet he was crapping his pants! New member to the 8 sec club with a record.

Bserious

Exactly.

Just....crazy.

Thanks for sharing your road into the 8's. A lot was learned this weekend.

eaddagwan

Glad you weren't hurt and congrats

vtekthis

what a wild ride! glad ur alright! deff looks like it started to lose it before the chute blossomed tho

m3tech95

Damn thats nuts.....glad he's okay. I like at the end how he gave his car the finger i would do the same thing...

b20-type-r

congrats, love this car...

1tuffbb6

iTrader: (1)

Glad you weren't hurt. It was def scary to watch.

Blueberry1320

Glad ur ok ..congrats on the new pb

jdm-94dc2

Wow that sucks at least you made it out ok.

Good luck next season.

jasonALYK

iTrader: (1)

Watched it happen and couldnt believe it, glad you are ok though.

jj07

Rough weekend for you. I ran in the pair before you in the right lane lost the head gasket at the traps saw some water spit out on my windsheild in the turn around pewhen I got to the scales I saw you against the wall. I didnt know what to do I was thinking I caused that. Wasnt for a while later I heard what happen. Really still sucks to see.

13173

I was down on the right side of the track just passed the 1/8th mile marker. I saw the time tower flash your time, I yelled "YEEEEAHHHHHH", looked away for a split second, and the next thing you know the car is knocking the retaining wall out of place.

Don't know you personally, but have talked to you years ago at Rockingham when Andrea was running the white car on drag radials. Also, watched some of your videos on youtube and probably sit there and talked to my monitor like I was talking with you. Awesome time you ran with the car, but sucks what took place. It is awesome that you are ok and able to walk away from that.

hatrickstu

looks like the car got loose before the chute came out... looks almost like when you took your right hand off it started left

InsaneBoost

Damn, not your weekend, congrats on the time, now back to more work. Glad you are okay, most important thing.

Silva Bullit DC4

Indeed it was.

You're ok, and that's the important thing. The car can be replaced, you can't. Good luck with the rebuild, hope you choose another DC chassis. Gives me inspiration to finish my heap.

D-Rob

I was actually sitting in my tuxedo, waiting for my friend's wedding when I read what happened Saturday.

Good to see you're OK, Jeff. That thing moved REAL well. Like Joe said previously, cars can be replaced, people can't.

Perhaps a white car next?