And, the winner of the Import Face Off Bracket Race is.......................

[ATaylorRacing]

ME!
Sunday I entered my Matchbox (84 Plymouth Horizon with nearly 300,000 miles) in the Import Face Off drag race at National Trail near Columbus, OH...and won! The results have not been printed yet. It has been a LONG time since I had to win 7 rounds to win a race. The bracket class was all run and these import/domestic compact guys have gotten their stuff together, I was treed on half the runs and got the bye into the final when I had the better RT in the semis. I knew that the starting line would be junk since a vast majority of the cars were fwd, me too, so instead of running my tiny 20.5x7x13 slicks I left the 24 inch tall M/T Street Strip III on the car...their overall diameter along with being a whopping 55 lbs heavier than the baby slicks would allow me to drag in the rain and not spin! I was never the faster car and the 13.8 Honda I ran in the final was the slowest car I met. Three supercharged Mercedes Benz went home with their tails between their legs...2 were AMG versions with V8s and one was the 320 V6 version. Both AMGs dialed 11.50 since they did not have roll bars, both broke out, but one only ran under by .012 to my under .009...and he treed me! The 320 V6 dialed 12.6 and broke out too...in fact, all but one broke out to me while I only broke out in that one pass.
http://www.importfaceoff.net/

[bakes]

way to go !!!!!!

[BIGBRUDDA]

Thats kind of a big deal!

[Khajjathefang]

Sweet!

[ATaylorRacing]

Up until June I used to have a row of decals on my hood for each championship I had...but not enough room for at least one, so I had a big decal made that said 38 NHRA/IHRA Championships....then I got another, used a piece of electrical tape to cross out the 38 and used a cheap set of decals from hobby Lobby to put the number 39 on it, now I can peel that off and put on 40! I know guys that raced longer than me, made quite a bit of money drag racing and yet, no championships! I feel GREAT about what I have done. As far as ponts races I am a lowly 9th at Indy right now with one race left, but in the United Manual Transmission Racers series I am a better 4th in pts with one race left. I can't fall to 5th and do have a chance to get 3rd (he's 3 rounds ahead of me)...in the ONLY car that is driven to and from (hopefully) to every event. I am pleased that I can hold my own against full blown race cars with back halfs, lencos, air shifters (but leaving on a foot actuated clutch), even full chassised cars. I use a N2MB box to be able to launch right at 3700 rpm every time...and use regular street tires with 41 psi of pressure in them! The UMTR series actually caught a few guys cheating last year....they were using a button hooked up to a delay box to launch! All it took in a stick car was a heck of a electrical operated magnet that would hold the clutch pedal down and then the delay box would release it! Who would have thought!

The Cheap Skate
http://hyperperformance.smugmug.com/...6983&k=BZKhfX5

[fishcleaner]

Congrats and holy crap thats a lot of wins, how old are you? 105?

[cordes]

Congrats Angelo.

[Reeves]

Wow Awesome!

FWIW.....I got 3rd in FWD.

[roachjuice]

Congrats!! On that 2 step, was it easy to hook up?

[BadAssPerformance]

Congrats Angelo and Reeves!

[ATaylorRacing]

Congrats and holy crap thats a lot of wins, how old are you? 105?

Think of this...I did not even start until I was 32....back in 1983! I am ONLY 61...last year my wife asked me when was I going to retire from drag racing, I told her to ask me again in 40 years. Here is what is kind of scarry....my son is 6, I'll be 71 when he gets a drivers liscence! We might take tests together!

[ATaylorRacing]

Congrats!! On that 2 step, was it easy to hook up?

I did not hook it up, my wrench did. He did it in only a little amount of time. My car is a 95 and the N2MB box is designed for a OBD II car, so the ONLY problem is that I have to set the launch rpms on ther box double of what I want my car to leave at....for a 3700 rpm launch it is set at 7400 rpm. Once it is hooked up there is only a simple button and blue led light to look at that is used to set it. You hold down the button and count how many times the light flashes and when you reach the nukmber of blinks that matches the rpm you want you lift up your finger...there is a small pause, and then the light will blink on its own and should blink as many times as you held the button down and let up. It is hooked up to the TPS and clutch switch....on the 95 Neon the clutch switch, the one that lets you start the car when you have it flat to the floor to start it is used....on the newer models there is a clutch switch that I think is activated as soon as it is moved passed a certain point.

[168glhs1986]

Matchbox FTW! Congrats to you both and also to Reeves for the Bronze metal.

[fishcleaner]

Think of this...I did not even start until I was 32....back in 1983! I am ONLY 61...last year my wife asked me when was I going to retire from drag racing, I told her to ask me again in 40 years. Here is what is kind of scarry....my son is 6, I'll be 71 when he gets a drivers liscence! We might take tests together!

the age comment was never meant to be derogatory, hopefully I'll get a chance to see you run, congrats again

[Shadow24]

Congrats! I raced with a few of the Ohio competitors back in 2010. One of the SLK's I raced back when he had a Z3 auto (Not sure if it was the v6 or one of the v8's, its black with a bunch of stickers on the doors now. Might have run W676 as a car # as that's what he runs on weds nights), and the 2nd place civic I have beaten more than once . If there was a black civic hatch auto running in the 17's, he's pretty good too.

EDIT: any one get any vids by any chance?

[Reeves]

EDIT: any one get any vids by any chance?

None of our video camera's had enough memory to get the entire 1/4mile.

[Rrider]

Well can we at least see the launch?? Nice work!

[Reeves]

Well can we at least see the launch?? Nice work!

Here is the launch:

http://youtu.be/d-nQTv9G_tw?t=30s

[Rrider]

Thank you!

[ATaylorRacing]

the age comment was never meant to be derogatory, hopefully I'll get a chance to see you run, congrats again

I never thought it was....the bad part about not being face to face with a person is to see him/her smile when they are talking/joking to each other.