Last night I went back to the track with Jason, his family, and his 95 Impreza. After running 10.3 his first time out in the car on lower boost, we knew a 9 second pass was possible. Jason still needs to get the car aligned, we haven’t touched the suspension, etc., but we did swap wastegate springs and I retuned the car for more boost this week.
On his first pass my launch control settings from the old 7 psi wastegate spring were too aggressive with the new higher spring combo and the car hit boost cut as it left the line, causing a bog which ruined that pass. At this point it was already dark out and the track was cold. I believe this was a 10.6 at 138 mph.
On the second pass I dialed the launch back enough that I knew it would be safe. It was a bit too safe and he bogged from lack of power on the launch. This was a 10.5 at 138 if I remember correctly.
Next I brought the launch settings back to somewhere in the middle. This boost was still pretty low on the launch, but the car fried the tires through 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears. The datalog showed wheel speed of 80 mph in 1st gear due to how badly the tires ripped loose when he left the line. While he shifted to 2nd gear the tires grabbed and an actual ground speed of 20 mph was read. :stunned: This got him a 10.3-4 at 140 I believe.
Then a domestic pulled a wheel stand, came down, and went into the wall hard which shut the track down for around an hour. I made some further changes to the launch settings and his next pass was against Bill (Mindless on boards) in his turbo EG hatch which runs very consistent mid tens at 135ish MPH so I knew it would be a good race. This must have got Jason into race mode because he busted out a 10.0 at 142 MPH. 
Video of 10.0 at 142 pass:
http://vimeo.com/14883560
It was the end of the night so Jason went right back in line to run his final pass. The car headed for the wall in first gear, but Jason put it in 2nd and got it straightened out. By the time he shifted to third I knew he had his 9 second pass. Getting through the first couple gears somewhat cleanly was all that was holding him back.
Videos of 9.9 at 141 pass:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=jasv11#p/u/0/SHbIRWEHTEs
Time slips for 10.0 and 9.9 passes. He was car #88.
Great work Jason! It’s been a pleasure working with you.