A bunch of us wacko aerospace engineers meet once a year for the Honeywell Quarter Mile Club outing at Firebird Raceway in Chandler, AZ. Tonight was the night. My first time - what a hoot!

Son o'Gutz is a 1992 245 with M47 and a VX cam. Some suspension and wheel mods, but the only other nods to horsepower are an IPD Turbo exhaust and basic airbox mods (removal of the silencer 'trumpet' and closing off the warm air inlet). The car has 185K on it.

The track is at about 1400' MSL elevation, and temperature/barometer conditons gave a corrected altitude of 2100' for tonight. Important to us tecchie types; it just means the car would be slightly faster at sea level.

My first run had a dreadful reaction time (watched a Mustang's taillights from the start!), but actually the best ET and speed of the night, 18.47 sec @ 74.5 mph. After the first run, we ran brackets, and I dialed in an ET of 18.45. I was eliminated in the 3rd from last run and came in 4th of 40 in our QMC "Trophy Dash" - not bad for a rookie! You have no idea how gratifying it is to be paired off against a '04 Mustang and an SCCA Solo-prepped Scirocco and see the "win " light light up in MY lane!!!

I typically launched the car at 4000 rpm and got a teensy bit of wheelspin. Shifts were at a ticj under 6000 rpm to avoid hitting the rev limiter.

Anyway, for the boy racers out there, the averages were 18.57 @ 74.5.