What hath a pair of expensive variable resistance controllers, a variable DC power supply, and a series of very challenging to install power taps wrought at Drag City? Any one of these improvements could have made a significant different in the racing experience, but this weekend I finally got to experience all 3 of them together with a truncated “make-up” tournament. Following the full 64-pack “Let’s Go Brandon” tournament of late last month, the 32 cars that were eliminated in Heat 1 got their second shot at glory for the 32-pack Muscle Car Rematch!
The voltage was set at 21.5 for this tournament, a figure that was arrived at after testing and time trials showed it to be the “sweet spot” for maximum allowable performance without overdoing it. The combination of all the different improvements made for the best tournament I’ve yet raced on this track, and the pre-set settings on the controllers kept things fair by letting each driver dial-in his preferred setting without anyone having an advantage another driver couldn’t duplicate if he chose to do so. Most racers chose to use the 120 ohm setting on the controller, but a few shifted up to 90 and a small handful of brave souls took their chances with only 60! The 45 ohm resistor of the Parma controllers, though available, was not used.
The action was fast N’ loud as a muscle car race should be; the crowd was particularly pleased by the “‘Cuda faceoff” in the 2nd heat, when “Bad Intentions II”, the purple ’70 Hemi ‘Cuda of Sullivan “Snake” Skeates, lined up beside “The Pink Panzer,” the 340-powered ’70 Cuda driven by Lila “Little Lady” Luciano. Ms. Luciano went on to nearly take the tournament trophy, advancing all the way to The Final Battle where she was forced to take 2nd place to “The Slider”, Jeremy “Lucky” Logan’s steel blue ’67 Chevy Nova SS. The victory was just over 1/10th of a second, Logan’s 36.409 to Luciano’s 36.515.
Interestingly, this is the 2nd time that “Lucky” Logan has taken home a trophy from a make-up, or “Redemption” tournament. Equally surprising was the less than steller performance of Carl Calhoun’s brutal red ’67 GTO “Scarlett Fever,” which seems to be in need of a overhaul. Even so, Team ’67 Heaven was represented into the final elimination by Todd “T-Bone” Taggart’s bright orange GTO “Skull Crusher,” who’s performance was thrilling and who took 3rd place.
One has to wonder if this win will be enough to finally admin “Lucky” Logan and “The Slider” to the club; it sure seems like it should!
