Hmmm, well that was six hours of my life gone that I wish I could have back.
Let's just say that I've chalked off one of those "I wonder what it'd be like" ideas, and I definitely won't be trying it again.
First of all, I arrived late at 6:50pm. The price you pay for working until 5:30pm and then having to drive from Port Kembla to Eastern Creek. Such is life. But that's only 50 minutes late - surely it won't make much difference? My first time at the drag strip, so after queuing to get through the front gate, queuing to enter my paperwork, queuing to enter my paperwork AGAIN with my helmet this time (that wasn't mentioned in the "instructions sheet"), queuing to pass scrutineering, queuing to pass scrutineering AGAIN after realising I was in the wrong queue, queuing to have my first run, getting to the front of the queue only to realise that the one guy in front of me already had his THIRD run of the night so I had to wait for everyone else to have another run. I finally got my first run at 8:44pm, when everyone else was starting their fourth run. I was in the first pair of my starting lane, and I had no idea where exactly the staging light markers were so I just stumbled my way through. The launch went OK except I forgot to disable the DSC:
R/T 0.633s
60' 2.425s
330' 6.176s
1/8 9.248s @ 129.42km/hr
1/4 14.014 @ 166.98km/hr
Based on the times posted in this thread, I felt that this wasn't too bad for a first ever attempt. Surely I'd get better on my next run. Joined the queue again, and was in the first pair again for my second run at 9:36pm. This time I remembered to disable the DSC and run in DTC mode (not fully off). But I moved too far into the staging lights so the first one turned off. What does that mean? Too late now, the tree is dropping ... sh!t ... focus on the launch:
R/T 0.669s
60' 2.487s
330' 6.276s
1/8 9.358 @ 128.61km/hr
1/4 14.141 @ 166.54km/hr
It was an aweful run, too much wheelspin in 1st, and I hit the limiter on at least two gear changes. With a 45-50 minute wait between runs and a 10pm closing time, there was no chance for a third run so I left in disgust. Got home at 11:30pm and was asleep by midnight.
I didn't even get to talk with anyone on the night. I saw one mate briefly but there was no way I could join the queue with him (that's considered queue-jumping and you get kicked out for it), and we had to stay with our cars in the queue. So I just sat there twiddling my thumbs for hour upon hour. Christ it was boring.
Some people were saying that $20 was too much to pay for spectating. That was a bargain. At least you'd have gotten to watch lots of action. I paid $50 for less than 30 seconds of entertainment. I won't be doing that again.
