1/8th mile in San Antonio

Discussion in 'Pit Buzz' started by bryanbrown, Mar 25, 2007.

  1. bryanbrown

    bryanbrown Member

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    I was in town, but since my Aggies didn't make the elite 8, I figured I'd go to the race Saturday, and apparently, Friday night, they ground out about the last 700' of the right lane and repaved it before Saturday morning. There was a little sign at the ticket window that said "1/8th mile race today", and the announcers kept saying "We appreciate your understanding with the track situation we had yesterday", but they never said what the deal was. What could possibly happen after a completed round of qualifying (1/4 mile) that would make them tear out and lay new paving, which as we all know, is mostly oil, on over half of one lane, overnight? I REALLY would like to know what the deal was. Also, shouldn't half track=half price? Not that I wouldn't go anyway, but I wouldn't doubt if they lost some people that didn't want to spend $35 plus food, beer, etc. on sunday to see an 1/8th mile race. On a positive, the times were extremely close, though a top sportsman car crashed after getting loose on the fresh asphalt. fortunalty the car in the other lane was faster, or it would've looked just like the Allen/Koretsky wreck.

    side note, I was listening when they called the classes and every class was "the knoll gas, torco race fuels pro-stock, pro-mod, etc.". I listened to see who the new afc sponsor was, but all they said was "here comes the alcohol funny cars"

    bryan
     
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  2. F/C Girl

    F/C Girl New Member

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    They just resurfaced the track about 2 weeks ago or so, and during Friday night's T/F Session, one blew up pretty bad about 900 ft in the right lane, from what we understand, when they started cleaning it, it was lifting chunks out of the relatively new surface so they had to re asphalt it. The Nitro Funnies all ran singles in the left lane on Friday as they finished the show. The crews worked all night for the show to continue, and really, all in all, did a great job to at least get the event pulled off.
     
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  3. bryanbrown

    bryanbrown Member

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    thanks,
    I wish they would've just explained it. It'd be alot easier for the spectators to be understanding of something if they know the reasoning behind it.
     
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  4. Kenneth S

    Kenneth S Member

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    San Antonio Raceway is my home track (I'm there soo much I should own part of it by now, plus I know the track owners Todd and Judy Zampeze well) the IHRA's track surface specialist came in a couple of month's ago and ground the track to remove some small bumps, there were some races run after the grinding process and there was no problems, during last weekends divisional races the low 6 second top sportsman cars and top dragsters had no problems. Friday night the fuel cars started pulling up the thin parts of the asphalt, at 10;30pm friday night the 12' wide x 650' long section of the track was ground down prepped and the new asphalt was being laid by 8:00am saturday morning, and during the afternoon and evening pro qualification sesions some of the pro cars weren't shutting off untill 1000' or more and they anounced several times to the pros to let off at the 1/8th mile but the few cars that ran well past the 1/8th mile didn't tear up the new asphalt and the cars stayed stuck to the track till they let off, so the fresh asphalt held up, my nephew who was driving his 8 second dragster said he couldn't feel any difference from where the concrete ended and where the new asphalt was laid. The company that did the work on the new asphalt are very very good at it. I wasn't to optimistic about how the race would come out being run only 1/8th of a mile but it turned out to be a good show, the grand stands on the pit side of the track end at about the 1/8th mile mark so everyone could see the whole race to the end of the run, it kinda had the feeling of a indoor arena race. It was the best thing to do instead of postponing the race for another date saving racers and fans who traveled any distance fuel costs from having to come back at a later date, it was a bold decision but good decision I think.
     
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