Tony Palo goes 8.97

[MrSmith]

Driving home to Buff on Sunday i made a detour and stopped at e town to watch the inagural $10,000 fwd shootout. I saw the first round and got to see the cars of all the heavy hitters up close cft eg nrgtech eg clutchmasters integra tony palo’s integra ballard’s cobalt etc. Unfortunately i had to leave around 1pm :banghead: and i missed Palo’s historic run.
Little backround this was a $1000 buy in with the winner taking home 10 grand true street car challenge basically sfwd rules with 26s allowed:

Rules:
FWD 4 Cylinder Cars
2500 lbs Min Weight
72 mm Turbo Max (maximum compressor housing inducer diameter is 72.78mm)

• 100 lbs for Nitrous
  26” X 10” max tire
  Transmission (auto and Manual) must be from same manufacturer as engine
  Air-to-water Intercooler allowed
  Fuel: E85, VP Import, Q16, any other gasoline. Methanol is not allowed
  External oil pumps are prohibited
  Adjustable “Pro Stock” style clutches are prohibited
  Trans Brake prohibited
  Wheelie Bars Prohibited
  Staging Brake allowed
  Fuel Cell allowed - 2.5 gallon minimum
  Lexan Windows / 1 piece front end / spindle mounts Prohibited
  JoJo/CFT front end allowed
  One headlight may be removed for installation of an aftermarket intake system
  Must have working headlight(s) and taillights
  Wipers are optional
  Engine fluid containment device required (catch pan) – I promised the track we would have them
  Complete interior, including: dashboard, door panels, headliner, carpeting, etc mandatory from the front seat(s) forward. Interior panels behind the front seats are optional (as long as you meet weight, who cares)
  Only 1 seat required, must be upholstered
  Courtesy staging in Effect. 7 Second autostart NHRA safety rules will be enforced by track: NHRA License for 135 MPH + or 9.99 seconds or quicker, 3.2A/5 Suit, Gloves, SN2000 or newer helmet, Neck Collar, Window Net, 5 Point Harness, Certified 10 point cage for 9.99/135MPH or quicker.

Vid:

http://www.grs-motorsports.com/noticias/foro/vids/716.wmv

@tony1

What a weekend! This event was amazing. Tons of spectators and tons of racers, a very good showing for the sport compact racing community. E Town did a hell of a job keeping the track in good racing condition and Roger did a great job keeping things running smooth. Brian, thanks again for putting this race together, everybody i talked to was MORE than happy with everything, including the sponsors.
We started out with a grim looking weekend. To start off on a bad foot, Chuck’s truck broke 5th gear in TN and they had to drive from there to NJ in 4th, at 60mph tops. The 24 hour trip turned into a 30+ hour trip.
Finally get to the track and get settled and take the car up for the first run. Burnout went smooth. Launched the car and it hooked pretty good and when i shifted to 2nd there was nothing there. Tried all the gears, nothing. Broke both axles on the 1-2 shift. Brought it back to the pits and started tearing it apart, had to change the spool to a normal spline b16 spool and put my old 5.9’s back in it. HUGE thanks to Kevin from Cisco’s Performance for letting me borrow a spool from a junk trans he brought for parts. We missed 2nd round as the qualifying rounds were only a bit over an hour apart. Got it all buttoned up for third round. At this point we’re not qualified. That pass was nice and smooth and it went a 9.13, from #18 to #1 qualifier at the last minute. Made dinner a little more pleasant than it would have been that night. lol
We had a bye for the first elim since Darren Barrone broke a motor on Sat. Took it easy on the bye run, didn’t want to risk driveline parts. Second round we had Rick Everly. I spent some time on Sat. night going over logs and making some changes and went a 9.13 again, but lifted the throttle on the shifts. When we put the spool in it didn’t have a speedo gear on it, so the motec didn’t know gear, so i didn’t want to chance it on the strain gage as it needs gear recognition to know how long to cut. I am so used to not lifting the throttle and not hitting the clutch that it was hard for me to get used to using the clutch again w/o lifting the throttle. lol Boost fell off a lot between gears on the 2nd 9.13.
Third round we had Miller. I turned it up a bit more down low and did a better job of keeping the throttle open on the shifts, 8.99 @ 167.8 i think it was. The car felt good, but I didn’t think it was that fast! Fourth round, pulled a little boost out of part of 2nd and went at it again. They prepped the track right before we ran and it seemed to make a difference. The car felt awesome on that pass. This is the story of that one…
R/T - .139
60’ - 1.524
330’ - 4.065
660’ - 5.986 @ 131.20
1000’ - 7.619
1320’ - 8.975 @ 166.81
Thanks again to everyone who made this possible and for the great event to race at. Chuck, Mike, and Nellie, thanks for getting the car there and making sure it was ready to go every round. Kevin and Jack from Cisco’s, spool and axles, you guys are awesome! Gary Eng, nice to meet you and thanks for the axle!
Thanks to all the fans that were out all weekend, i’ve never seen so much crowd interest or been around so many great fans in all my years of racing! You guys keep coming out and supporting us and it keeps us going and pushing further to give you a show!

I remember when people said a fwd car will never go 10s. And here we have an 8 sec fwd street car. Makes me want to do another fwd Honda :tspry:

[Willybeen]

back to snapped axles… oh boy!

[Choda]

i crush that 60’ hahahaha

[BREETIME]

thats fast

[Adictd2b00st]

impressive :tup:

[mindless]

@Choda

i crush that 60’ hahahaha

But he crushes ur mph… it matters LOL

[Toda_Party]

lol i saw pics of tony building this car and I figured he’d pwn face

the mani/downpipe on this car is scikkkkk sauce

Smith - I remember when turbo LS eg’s on 12lbs were fast :lol: