Brainstorming for better racing fun Options

[awd4kicks]

Ok everybody knows of the age old run what ya brung drag racing for street credit and a bad a$$ reputation for your car. That has always produced 3 things.
1) A local 'Top Dog' (Most money invested)
2) A small number of people spending money gunning for the top seat
3) A bunch of ex-enthusiasts that used to enjoy their cars at original performance levels only to be burned out by not being competative with the extremists and well-to-do.

So I've been wondering for a while now... Is this strictly a personal decision where you have to set-up a budget for your car and live with the performance you can afford. Or do any of you think there is something we can set-up localy to make multi-levels of racing performance for the most fun possible out of our individual cars?

At the same time I have the taste of Too-much-structure-nausea when I talk about multi-levels and graduations in a group of performance cars. Maybe this is is not the right direction, but I know the dilema still stands.

For the longest time this has all just been part of the 'Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat!' moto. I think we can retain more enthusiasts and have more collective fun if we can make varying levels of performance or dollars spent, viable goals to strive for together.

On a side note I HATE bracket racing. And this only pertains to drag racing, But maybe more scheduled events with catagorys grouped by dollars spent or HP levels could be run heads up. We already have other forms of racing that anyone can choose, it just seems that drag racing makes for good bench mark on any cars ability to accelerate. I'm sure I am a bit bias though.

To wrap this up I'll throw part of a well known story out there... There is a Talon I know of that was incredibly fun and touted as fast even in it's premature stock form. In reality this car was never close to being as fast as any 'Top Dogs', but the owner didn't have first hand experience with these things and didn't mind. So fun was where ever the Talon got driven. Eventually the Talon was built to be pretty quick and was even more of a blast to drive! The performance took it's toll on the drive train and the owners wallet, bringing the car to it's Knees for what could have been a short time. In the down time a stock motor and turbo could easily have been afforded and run, but the distaste for not being competative and the money to do otherwise kept the Talon from running all together. Now almost 3 years later a big engine and turbo combination MAY be coming together for some crazy fast fun. But how much fun was lost in the mean time by waiting to afford the big parts?

Throw out some ideas...I'd like to see what you guys think we could do together.

Marcus

[black92_tsi_awd]

I think brackets have some benefits. If you have a slower car, you can be the fastest car in that bracket and get a sence of accomplishment quicker. It can be sort of depressing to have a 14 sec car and be so far away from being a 12 sec car.

Of course you still have that drive to reach the 13 sec milestone once you run a 14.1! Speed is additive.

For me, like others have said, my main motivation is to learn as I go and try to find out what will make the car go faster with what I have available. I spent a lot of money on my truck (what I had available at the time) to drop 1.5 sec on my timeslip-best was a 15.2. But I learned alot about engines, trans and gearing so the money was worth it. For about the same money modifying the truck, I bought my Talon, slightly modified it and it should be a 13.9 car, once I learn to launch it. But alot of what I learned on the truck has transfered to the Talon.