Hey guys I need some opinions on how I'd do against a stock 1996 camaro Z28 w/ 285HP. A guy I work with has one and he and I have been butting heads over this for a couple of weeks now. He wants to go out to lunch and do a couple of friendly runs sometime in the next couple of days.
Do I stand a chance or should I just swallow my pride

 

Quarter mile times are pretty close. It's a driver's race really.

 

He should be a bit slower (if he's stock), but very consistent, especially with the automatic.

If you can't consistently get good launches in your s2k you should expect to lose a couple of races with him from a stop. In that case, you might consider racing him from a roll only. It should be no problem.

 

nice, race him already damnit. and after tell him you know a guy that drives a homo car that would love to show him wht a four banger can do. LOL.

 

I may be biased twoard american cars but i think he'll beat you, automatics always shift faster, no time disconected from the engine (torque converter not clutch) if you mess up shifting youre done, you may be any way. good luck though.

 

Well we came, we ran, we both left with our dignity.

We did two runs, one roll, one stop.
The roll we started at around 20 or so... which was good for me cause I was reading 6200RPM. He gave the signal and we went at it. Through first I had about 1/2 car on him (guess he either didn't react right away or it took a second for his automatic car to wake up). Into second he began to creep to but not pass me. Up into third I began to creep a little back on him (but still we neither of us were pulling to the point where we could say "I won" or "My Car's Faster")

From the stop I had to do a launch and I'm not very good at launching. I remembered another co-worker (big S2000 fan) told me to get it to move off the line, you have to drive it like you hate it. So I did just that, he gave the count, I revved up to 6500 -7000RPM, and popped the clutch. Got a bit of tirespin and then they gripped. From the start I looked to the side and back to see that I had about 1 car length on him. Through third I was able to hold that car length lead. After we shut down (top of 3rd gear), he told me that although I jumped the gun on that start (which I know I did), but after all was said and done he said that I was ever so slowly creeping away from him.

Anyways, he was cool about it. He said he's going to give his car a tune up and then he wants to run again. All in all we both agreed that it was a pretty even race up through 3rd gear.

 

????????
Whatever.

 

You are only correct in higher HP cars. For cars that are in the 200-300 range manuals put more power down and are faster. When you go for more power, an auto is often faster as the automatic shifting makes up for the power loss to the wheels. But we are talking striclty drag racing here. Any road race/F1/CART/NASCAR/Rally car has a manual transmission or a sequential.

 

Good races!
Was it a manual or auto?


Edit: Nevermind. You would think that clicking on something would imply you read it, huh?

 

it was an auto Z28