Thursday 11th May 2017

Dude I almost had you: PH Blog

Jeep versus Jeep in a quarter-mile battle royale

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Walking alongside Santa Pod as the jet-car dried the incredibly sticky surface, plenty of flags fly high down the quarter-mile. Even the flag of Malta - my native country - proudly flaps in the wind. A good omen?

They've had weirder stuff go down...

Malta has a good track record - pardon the pun - as far as drag racing goes too. Fellow Maltese Duncan Micallef, a pro racer of Top Fuel dragsters, set a track record at Santa Pod in September last year with a 1,000ft time of 3.89 seconds at 312mph . I wouldn't be going that fast, and the car lined up for me probably wouldn't be people's first choice to take to a drag strip: the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT. Yes, an SUV on a drag strip. It does have 467hp though... The idea for the day is to see whether is to see whether a bunch of entirely novice racers can beat UK drag racing champion Stuart Doignie across three timed runs. In identical cars...

Drag racing isn't as simple as it looks on YouTube, or in Fast & Furious, with many a seasoned racer breaking important oily bits on the sticky surface. Along with those worries, there are the complications of 'pre-staging' and 'staging', vitally important for securing those extra few inches that could mean a win or a loss when racing identical models. Thankfully, this concept isn't completely alien to me having been involved with our RS7 v. Panamera shoot at Santa Pod a few weeks earlier.

Guaranteed a close race at least...

Basically, before you get counted down on the drag lights, the car has to be 'pre-staged' and 'staged'. There are 20cm between the pre-stage beam and the stage beam, meaning to get those few extra centimetres over Stuart I had to position the SRT perfectly. Thankfully I had two practice runs to get my reaction time down to something respectable - having started at 0.81sec I finally had it down to 0.19sec, which I'd call progress!

With 467hp, 4WD and launch control the SRT is happier on the strip than you might imagine, evinced by two practice runs of 13.4 seconds. However, much like an Olympic sprinter, times drop when actually competing. That is where it was all going to count! I lined up in the left-hand lane, in my mind perfectly 'staged'. The little launch control button on the centre console pushed, left foot pushed hard down to the floor and right foot building the revs in anticipation... Foot off the brake as the third yellow light illuminates and we're away! The SRT surges forward at some pace, hitting 103mph and 13.2 seconds at the quarter-mile mark - win!

There's quick and then there's quick on the strip!

Second run and a win would ensure that Stuart couldn't claw it back on the final run. We both got off to a great launch, again aided with launch control - well, for me anyway, but he still beat me by 0.1 seconds. Thankfully when we got back, Stuart's first loss had clearly got to him and he had jumped the lights - second win to me too!

Being quite the sore winner, I thought in the third and final run I had to beat Stuart to rub salt into the wounds. But to my dismay, Stuart got it together, stormed off the line with lightning reactions and beat me. The Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT certainly left with its dignity intact though, and I was going too as well... right up until the dragster passenger ride that is, which scared me silly!

Nik

[Source: Jeep, Performance Racing]

[SturdyHSV]

So although it's harder than it looks, utter novices beat the UK champion after a few practice runs?

That didn't do the sport's reputation many favours then!