Most embarrassing track moment?

Mine is too embarrassing to 'fess up to. Let's just say brake failure due to a blown caliper and a single pot master. I have learned my lesson.

Cojohnso1 said:

I've had my share of bone head moments. My latest was 2 years ago. I worked my butt off to get my bracket 10 sec car to the line to get at least one qualifying run. I threw on my jacket but was still in shorts. I tried to sneak to the line, but car killed. I got it started just in time for the starter to open my door to see if I am ready to make an attempt. Needless to say? He was not happy seeing me in shorts. I had to turn around and missed my qualifying run. Thus had to guess a time for the bracket. I was eliminated first run. I guessed wrong!

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Same thing happened to me. 98 degrese out that day and the starting line guy opened my door and told me to back off the line. I did not bring pants that night but I cut off a drop cloth and made pants legs with duct tape holding it all together. I then went to tech and they passed my leg extensions and I said that if the starting line is that picky with driving clothes then lets all wear the safety jackets. Yes, some people were mad but more of them welcomed it.

glassman said:

Same thing happened to me. 98 degrese out that day and the starting line guy opened my door and told me to back off the line. I did not bring pants that night but I cut off a drop cloth and made pants legs with duct tape holding it all together. I then went to tech and they passed my leg extensions and I said that if the starting line is that picky with driving clothes then lets all wear the safety jackets. Yes, some people were mad but more of them welcomed it.

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As long as you're racing. Tech kicked me out once for not having enough of my fuel line of a metal material. All I could find near by was a hardware store. So I made a fuel line from natural gas piping. It added a small amount of additional weight. But I was racing. Sometimes you got to do what you gotta do?

^^^^ Now that's Hot Rodding ! My kinda guys.

I wouldn't say embarrassing, but I did have a trans cooler line blow at top end one time. Shut the track down for a half hour to clean. Luckily, I was off the gas, didn't get on my tires and stuff me in the wall.
It did however freek me out though. Even though only a 12/13 sec street car. It sprayed my K frame which directed it both directions and saturated my rotors, no brakes. Tried down shifting to help slow down of course no fluid pressure so that did nothing. Needless to say, took the turn off quite fast with tires squeezing around the turn. Meaning, anything can happen.....

Trailered 2.5 hrs to 131 Dragway and forgot the keys to the car. Locking steering column to boot. While I'm running around trying to find tools to dismantle the steering column my son pics the trunk lock. I asked him if he could do the column as well. 5 minutes later we were racing.
Doug

bobtile said:

I forgot to bring my car once.

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You win!

That can not be beat.

I drove my car to the track on a beautiful summer day. Went through tech and everything was good. They asked to roll up my drivers side window to put the numbers on. I went to roll it up and nothing happened. I forgot that I took the window and window track out the week before because of a broken regulator and never fixed it. Needless to say I sat and watched the races that day from the stands.

69sunfireGTX said:

I drove my car to the track on a beautiful summer day. Went through tech and everything was good. They asked to roll up my drivers side window to put the numbers on. I went to roll it up and nothing happened. I forgot that I took the window and window track out the week before because of a broken regulator and never fixed it. Needless to say I sat and watched the races that day from the stands.

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I see why the pros have an extensive check list. Even if some is frivolous. Just too easy to miss something.

I started this thread with a firm belief. If you are not screwing up? Then you are not trying hard enough!

I drove my 1st Street GTX to the track to see what it could do. The only trouble I was having was my Sun tachometer failed. So I would just ear it down the track. When I got to staging lanes. The car shut off. No power to anything. Like there was no battery. I replaced batt still nothing. No power to a 3 of the car's circuits. Including auxiliary. None of us including a couple big time team mechanics could figure it out. No lights. Nothing. I could jump the starter and it would fire. But it was poppin all over. With voltage spikes everywhere. Finally on Sunday I was volt metering under the dash. When I saw a very small puff of smoke from the back of that Sun tac. I smacked my head with my hand. Yes, that component does have wiring to all 3 circuits. I disconnected and car never had that problem again. I got one run in at 12.86. Because I had no qualifying time I was immediately eliminated. Expensive one run. But the car ran like a champ all the way home. So felt better about that. In fact. I don't ever remember having a "Flawless" weekend at the track? A very good day or two. But never the whole weekend. Something screws up. If not the car? Then the towing truck and/or trailer.

I was working with a Super Comp team and we wanted to play a prank on the driver. His dad bought a bright pink parachute for the car. We installed it when the driver wasn't around. When he made his first pass, we had the video running with the zoom all the way out. What a sight! The look on his face when he got back, priceless!

khryslerkid said:

I was working with a Super Comp team and we wanted to play a prank on the driver. His dad bought a bright pink parachute for the car. We installed it when the driver wasn't around. When he made his first pass, we had the video running with the zoom all the way out. What a sight! The look on his face when he got back, priceless!

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You know what they say about landings? Any landing you walk away from? Is a good one!

Getting on the throttle too much (RPMs) on my Harley-Davidson V-Rod at the launch and doing a 180° turn within about 2 bike lengths from rear tire spin...
Almost laid it down but didn't. It's a lot of weight to hold up, but I didn't want to scratch my baby.
2nd most embarrassing was after about 7 test and tune runs with my Mitsubishi Chrysler 89 Conquest TSi either falling on its face from letting the clutch out too fast or not having the RPMs up enough at the launch (5 speed manual) I decided to scream the motor and dump the clutch.
POW! U-Joint said "I'm outta here!" Had to push it back off the starting line.

Becoming frustrated is a quick path to broken parts!

this happened in 1975 at motor city dragway we were running bracket races. 2 black guys had a 66 chevy 2 small block 4speed car we were in the staging lanes waiting. the driver of the chevy 2 had this big afro, he was checking something under the hood, his buddy was putting gas in the car. the tech guy came and said lets go so the guy putting gas in put the gas can in the back seat. the driver with the afro closed the hood and he was smoking, the tech guy told him no smoking. as he got into the car so he just threw the cig into the back seat.he got up to the line, staged took off just about to pull second gear and booooom the rear quarter windows just came blowing out .he pulls over to the side ,turns the car off comes jumping out of the car, his afro is just smoking he's patting this head it was so funny we were rolling on the ground. after that when ever they came back to motor city everybody called them heckle & jeckle

Mopar Atlantic Nationals Englishtown, N.J. going rounds. I had just installed a new turbo action shifter reverse manual valve body.My car comes over the line at 6,400 so I would normally just bump her into neutral to knock the reverse down with the stock pattern valve body and coast to the turn around and put her back into gear
I won the round and was so elated that instinct made me try and run the shifter up to neutral well the 727 went into 1st gear and locked the rear wheels up at 120 + MPH the car begins to slide, skid into the other lane I counter steer and pull it back I see the guy I just beat go flying by now the car is heading for the wall in my lane I counter steer and shes heading back towards the other lanes wall but now shes trying to roll on me, the 14 x 32 Good Years are trying to dig in and the rear of the car is hopping I counter steer I'am heading back into my lane heading for the wall I counter steer again but now there's no where to go and I put the car front fender first then the rest of the car up against the wall, the door glass shatters into a million tinny green cubes and the car comes to a halt about another 30 feet down track.
well the motors still running I shut her down and get out of the car and the safety safari and ambulance are rolling up the radiator lower hose got a cut and the radiator was dumping its contents. shut down racing for about 1/2 hour.
They where gracious enough to tow me back to my trailer.
I walk over to the side door where I found my girl friend propped up with her feet on a cooler reading a novel she says to me who did the run go my reply have you notice that there's hasn't been any racing going on for a while? she looks at me and says why is your neck bleeding? "think a chunk of glass got me" I said come out side a minute she almost feel on the floor.
So fellers its not like in the movies, when I got out of the car my girl was not running down the track in slow motion to see if I was ok and chariots of fire was not playing in the back ground. LOL.
So to sum this up I was lucky that day that I didn't get seriously hurt, injure someone else. total my beast, The Mopar Gods where looking down on me .
being at a major Mopar event with swap meet and vendors I found a used door a new quarter panel, and front fiberglass fender I took home with me from the track.
The nose was tweaked over a few inches my body guy straightened it out, hung the door, fender, quarter... $5,000 grand later she was good as new never did that again.

MOPOWER871 said:

Mopar Atlantic Nationals Englishtown, N.J. MAKING A PASS. I had just installed a new turbo action shifter reverse manual valve body my car comes over the line at 6,400 so I would normally just bump her into neutral to knock the reverse down with the stock pattern valve body.
I won the round and was so elated that instinct made me try and run the shifter up to neutral well the tranny went into 1st gear and locked the rear wheels up at 120 + MPH the car begins to slide into the other lane I counter steer and pull it back I see the guy I just beat go flying by vnow the car is heading for the wall ,

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Ouch. Hope it just felt more violent than the parts took?

More than a few times after round 1, I’ve felt like I would have been better off forgetting the car, Bob. I forgot my helmet once. Had to go through tech with my buddies helmet, then have my daughter hustle the trek to the track with mine...... she let me have it that day!

I was bored one Wednesday night and decided to take my daily driver Ram pickup to Raceway park and get a couple passes in. So I loaded up the family (wife and 3 kids) and drove an hour to the track. At some point while in the staging lanes, I had this great idea that in order to "Make the truck lighter" I decided to take out my daughters car seat....Yea the truck weighs 6000 pounds. So I took out the car seat and left it on a picnic table by the concession stand for awhile. Problem is when I went back to get it, it was gone, someone had stolen my daughters car seat. What made it bad was not only was this car seat somewhat sentimental (as in all 3 of my kids used it) but I had to tell my wife our daughter didn't have a car seat for the ride home. The worse part was having to explain why I took it out. Women just don't understand...