| Powercruise Taupo 2012 - Off Street Drags | ||
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Powercruise Taupo 2012 was Powercruise 39 and this was the fourth year that the Powercruise event has come to New Zealand from Australia. The weather was terrible on Saturday (so no racing practice) but it was fine enough on Sunday to run the Off Street Racing Finals between the showers. 
Off Street Racing:The V8 guys still find my number plate "V8 KILR" amusing which is not surprising I guess. Having won the Powercruise Off Street Drags in 2009 though gives my car alot more respect from the V8 guys these days. My Supra car is still street driven every weekend and it was driven down to Taupo and then back home to Auckland after the racing was done. It is full interior, air conditioning, stereo, etc and even has a tow bar. The off street racing was on the Sunday afternoon and it was not pure drag racing as you were not allowed to warm your tires up (by doing a burnout) and there was no sticky "track bite" on the track to give you more traction off the line. This was just like the illegal street racing where you just turn up and when the starter drops his hands you go for it. Most cars have a WOF and Rego, so this was true street racing at its best over a distance of around 200m.  Round 1 of the off street racing against a White Toyota Starlet. I won that race by about 50m despite having to get on and off the gas several times during the race. The red Camaro (TUF 67) behind the car I was racing was the car that I beat in the Powercruise Off Street Drags finals in 2009. He lost in the second round this year to the same white Supercharged V8 that I end up beating in round 3. Here is the video of round 1  Round 2 of the off street racing. This was the first Supercharged V8 (Dark Green Camaro "AWESUM") that I raced. I won that race by about 20m. Here is the video of round 2  Round 3 of the off street racing. This was the second Supercharged V8 (White Holden Statesman Wagon "78 TANK") that I raced. I won that race by about 80m as he smoked a tire (who needs a LSD?) on the start line.Here is the video of round 3  Round 4 of the off street racing was against a Silver Nissan Silvia "DVOURU". I got beaten off the mark by this car as I'm still having issues with launching it quickly. I caught up pretty quickly but I had to get off and then back on the gas twice in this race as the track was very slippery and that made for a very close race. I won that race by around 10m.Here is the video of round 4  Round 5 of the off street racing. This was a bye for me as we were down to 5 cars left and they were all Imports except for the V8 drag bucket. The drag bucket "RDMRKR" (road marker) has false plates on according to www.carjam.co.nz as they used to be on a V8 Holden but were removed 5 years ago (to put on the bucket no doubt) and are not valid for any vehicle, so it is not street legal. The drag bucket lost his race to a 4WD Skyline and that left just 3 imports in the semi-finals. A shower came through just after my bye run so we waited for half an hour for the track to dry enough to run the semis and finals.  Round 6 of the off street racing was the semi-finals against a 4WD Nissan Skyline. I stuffed up the launch by spinning the tires before the start, so I then backed off just as the starter dropped his hand to start the race. At least I didn't lose to a V8. :) As I've only competed at two Powercruise Off Street Drag events and have come 1st in one and 3rd in the other, I'm pretty rapt with that. Here is the video of the semi-finals race  Round 7 of the off street racing was a 4WD Nissan Skyline vs a 4WD Mitsibushi Evo. I think the slippery track conditions favoured the 4WD cars this year. The Nissan Skyline won by around 4+ car lengths as the Evo's clutch was slipping. Here is the video of the finals race Unfortunately there was no dyno competition this year. As my Supra currently has 500rwkw (670rwhp) at 24psi, I think I would have had a good chance at winning the 6 cylinder class. | ||
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Last modified on Sunday, November 18th, 2012