04/04/2026
So were back !
2026, a new race season and were back at Santa pod at the Festival of Power.
Our season started on Thursday with the Test and Tune day to dial the Mustang in with the new Hoosier Quick Time Pro tyres fitted on the rear.
So we started with a safe tyre pressure and a small burnout, just to gently cure and scrub the tyres in, with no expectation, and with Debbie trying to get back into the groove and the quicker 60 ft times expected from the smaller 26 inch high but wider tyre giving a better launch requiring a quicker gear change into 2nd gear, Debbie did a soft launch at 4000 rpm and started the year with a 13.04 run. With a beam on her face she returned down to the pairing lanes so we could slowly build more confidence in the grip of the new tyres and Debbie shaking down the car we tried a rolling burnout rather than a static to again slow the curing progress and just to see if this would give enough heat to make them sticky enough for the launch we tried again, alas this allowed the tyres to spin and wasted a test run.
Again Debbie brought the car back around and this time we tried a higher tyre pressure and a higher rpm launch again we tried a rolling burnout but we over powered the track and span the wheels in 1st and 2nd.
After a short break we lowered the launch rpm and went back to a stationary small burnout and ran 13.01 with this backing up our first run we decided this would be the set up we would use for this weekends racing
While all this was going on, Aaron was also using the Test day to get back in the groove. His first run with a reaction time of 0.206 may not of been the fastest gave him a run of 13.42 again he came around to follow up the run in the opposite lane and again had a reaction time of 0.205 but span the rear wheels up the track and aborted the run running a high 14. This continued throughout the day but knowing the car was still running in the 13.40's gave him the data ready for qualifying on Friday.
Friday started with a cold cloud covered track and a head wind of 40mph ! This continued throughout the day making it hard to decide what times to put on the rear of the cars. The track glue just doesn't work in cold and cloudy conditions and with a heavy headwind you can loose tenths of a second, getting it right is more than a challenge. To the extent most of the other competitors were all struggling to dial there E.T in all day, on average it seemed if was effecting around 3 tenths of a second and also effecting one side of the track more, with this in mind we estimated we would run a time of 13.25 in the mustang but to play safe we would dial in a 13.20. Aaron was also in a the same position of trying to figure out what time to put on his car as his car runs on treaded tyres which is effected differently than the slicks that Debbie runs on the mustang. So following on from what the safe dail in was for the mustang Aaron also decided that he would play safe and add 15 hundreds of a second on at dial in a 13.55.
Both staged well and had clean runs and ran 13.29 & 13 64 putting in 4th and 5th positions which is a great start to the season.
Round 2 of qualifying was always going to be very difficult as it was set to happen at 6.30 pm, due to issues throughout the day with other competitors it actually didn't happen till around 8pm. By then the sun was going down, the wind was still as strong but the temperature had gone up, if only a little. The right lane was now in shade and cooling rapidly, thankfully Debbie was in the left lane, after a small burnout she pulled up to the tree and ran a 13.06 while Aaron was in the right lane - which many found super slippery but managed to run 13.76
Saturday morning and it seemed the weather was a repeat of Friday's weather. The wind wasn't as strong and the cloud cover was slightly higher allowing the track to warm and the glue to activate. With this in mind and the fact Debbie had run a quick time the previous night all we could do was hope the car would run a similar time. So we posted up a time of 13.00 just to see how near we could run, after a fantastic launch and some quick gear changes Debbie ran 13.02. Next was Aaron's turn, alas I hoped Aaron would run close to his normal dial in of 13.40. Unfortunately it seemed the cold and windy conditions were effecting his bmw much more than it effected the mustang...... even with his twin turbos he only managed a 13.68.
So again the last qualifying round was set for around 7pm and again we could only go on previous data so Debbie posted a time of 13.02 and ran a 12.98 ! Way to go Debbie ! After 6 years the Mustang is finally back in the 12's, she may of broke out but hey we will take a 12 any day and put Debbie in 9th position out of 33 racers. Next was Aaron's turn, so he posted a time of 13.67 putting him in 8th position out of 33. The top 10 drivers were less than 2 hundreds away from the dial in making it one of the tightest starts to a season !
Eliminations start tomorrow - and its going to be a tight !
Thankyou to Eurodragster for the use of the photos
