A couple of months ago (yeah, yeah, I'm a bit belated in my posting) I took my car to Bandimere Speedway for a little good old fashioned drag racing. Drag racing in an Audi sedan, you ask? Really? Yeah! Why the hell not? The only goal I had for 2008 was to make some new memories and I thought this would be an entertaining one to add to the set. It was a total kick of an experience and if you live in the Denver area, it's definitely something you should try for making new memories of your own.
Wednesdays from April through October are "Take it to the Track" test nights hosted by the Colorado State Patrol. Don't worry if you don't have a hot rod or fast car of any sort. It doesn't matter. People show up in a little bit of everything – from '90s Honda Accord sedans to totally tricked out, purpose-built drag racers. Everyone's just out to enjoy the cars, chit chat, and have fun. As long as you don't mind a bit of waiting between runs, you're sure to have a great time.
Here's how it works: You pay $30 to get in and once you're through the entry gates, you immediately go through a very cursory tech inspection. (Note that you don't need to prep your car or yourself in any particular way. You literally just have to show up. You could maybe even have groceries in your trunk holding that night's dinner and I don't think they'd mind.) Once you've passed tech, you get in line to run. There were three pairs of lines the night I was there and unfortunately, they were moving quite slowly. (There were apparently an unusually large number of cars in attendance that night.) They run through all the cars in one pair of lines before they move to the next, then the next, and it just rotates on through like that all night. When you're in line the cool thing to do is to put your hood up (to help your engine cool) and turn your car off. You roll slowly forward (when your line's actually moving) until you're a few cars back from the starting line, then fire up your car and wait to go.
It's amazing how much adrenaline starts pumping as you close in on the start line. Sitting at a light and waiting to drive fast in a straight line for a few seconds seems like it would be a pretty big non-event after having driven on a road track, but I was shaking noticeably as I watched the few remaining cars ahead of me blast down the track. When you're the next car to go, you drive up to the bleach blocks to warm your tires (which I skipped, since it's hard to get my 4-wheel drive car to do a 4-wheel burn out), then proceed up to the starting line. There's a light tree in the middle of the track that indicates via a small set of lights when you've pulled your car up to the proper starting spot. Once you and whatever car's next to you (it's a totally arbitrary match up – you just end up racing against whatever happened to be in the line next to you at that moment) are set, you get three descending yellows and a green. …and then you GO LIKE HELL!
(Sadly, I have no pictures of me going like hell, but here's one of the guys in our group getting ready to go in a car that had a bit more GO…)
Fortunately, one of the folks who was there with our group that night is a big drag racing guy and gave some great tips for how to run. Per his instructions, I revved the car to 4000 rpm after I'd gotten set at the line, gracefully (as possible) let out the clutch on the green, then redlined it in every gear until I reached the end of the track. I got all excited and missed a shift on my first run, resulting in a high 16s quarter mile. On the second run I hit my rev limiter in 1st, but turned a 16.22 time. Neither time was anything to write home about (other folks in our group were running high 13s and low 14s), but it was a lot of fun and I'm glad to have given it a try. The neat thing is as you exit the track, they give you a little receipt that shows reaction, split, and finish times for you and the car (or for my second run, the motorcycle) that ran next to you. So not only do you get the memory of the experience, you also get a little paper token to take home with you too.
If you find yourself free one of the next few Wednesdays, take the family truckster out for a totally legal, fast as you can do it, quarter mile romp. You won't regret it.
