SpeedLounge

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Honda Day 2007…….well……yeah…….

I don’t even know where to begin with this day but I should probably go back about two or three months ago. As soon as I encountered the heat here in Jersey I could think of one place that I’ve exeperienced some of the most brutal heat ever; Honda Day! Despite all of the problems and miscommunications that have occured over the past few that I’ve attended, the temperature is always the worst! So as I pondered what kind of temperatures we would see this year I noticed something, or should I say a lack of something; namely information ABOUT this year’s Honda Day. While the date was up on Englishtown’s website, no other information seemed to exist. I couldn’t find a flyer about it anywhere and despite the speculation found in various forums like ClubRSX or Honda-Tech (or ours), no one really seemed to know what was going on. “Is there going to be a Super Challenge this year? What are the rules for it? What’s the payout? What’s the payout for any of the events? How much would it cost to enter? How hot do you think it will be this year?” Alright, that last question was mine.

So up until Aug. 10th, the day before Honda Day, I was under the impression that there would be no Super Challenge this year. But then I got an IM from a friend who has been looking forward to this event saying that he heard from an authority figure (that will go nameless & who is also involved in Honda Day) that indeed there would be a Super Challenge. Still however, no mention was made about the rules this year and the only other bit of pertinent information was that the cash payout would be significantly less than past years and that there were no prizes.

Now before I continue, let me make you abreast of the problems involving rules at past Honda Days.

• 2005 - there was an issue with the tire rule which stated DOT tires only. while the rule was created with the INTENTION of everyone racing on street legal tires for the purpose of making the prospect of entering less intimidating to the kid who has probably never raced before but wants to see if he can beat his boys who have been talking alot of smack. It was also put in place so try and get the drag guys to try auto-x and vice versa. Of course the path to hell is laid with the best of intentions. Someone who had DOT approved Drag Radials entered with the intention of switching tires in between races and was told that he couldn’t race them. Fortunately he found a pair of DOT auto-x tires (non-slicks) and after winning the Super Challenge experienced some troubles due to a miscommunication about the tires he was running. All things were EVENTUALLY figured out though. (by the way I came in like….12th that year)
• 2006 - this time it was decided that since it is the “BF Goodrich Super Challenge”, the only way to win prize money would be if you were running BFG tires. This meant that, essentially, your options were limited to one type of tire in their catalog that would be best suited for both drag racing and auto-xing. However, these same tires turned out to be crappy for auto-xing in comparison to a few other brands (from what I’ve heard). So of course people were really uptight about this, ESPECIALLY considering that the tires were expensive AND if everybody but the 2nd through 5th place winners didn’t have BFG tires, then the 6th place person, who did, wouldn’t automatically get the 2nd place prize. So as you can imagine that played out horribly due to the fact that even though the first place winner had BFG’s, the next guy who had BFG’s was in 17th place (i’m proud to say i came in 7th that year if I’m not mistaken). So when the 2nd place winner suggested that the prize, that he wouldn’t receive, should go to the 17th place winner, he was met not only with total resistance but it was also decided that for 2007 only people with BFG’s would be allowed to enter the Super Challenge. Of course no one found out about that until……

Aug. 11th, 2007!

I decided at about 12:30am that I would be entering the challenge. I had a friend who was entering solo so I figured I’d give him some company, have some laughs, etc. etc. From this point out, I will refer to my friend as…..Juan.

Well after cleaning out my car, we rolled down to E-town around 8:30 fully aware that there would be the usual line but I figured that since I had seen zero advertisements about the day, it would be relatively light…..and it was in a way but I’ll get to that in another post. So there was the usual mix of young guidos and hispanics with hatchies and coupes and type-r’s -OH MY! And as we get up to the booth to pay I get my first shock: all of the prices have gone up by $5 or $10. I guess that expensive marketing budget has to be paid for from somewhere. Then as I watch Juan pay and go in, I let the gentlemen outside the booth know that I would like to take part in the Super Challenge. As he glances at my tires and points, I cut him off before he can finish breathing in and let him know that I do not care about the prizes or the money. At this, he goes to the booth and comes back to inform me,

“You can’t enter the challenge without BF Goodrich tires.”
“Even if I just want to enter for fun.”
“Yep! Sorry those are the rules.”
“So what am I supposed to do if I want to drag and auto-x?”
“You can do that! It’ll cost you $60.” (Mind you the price to enter the Super Challenge is $50 compared to the cost of $30 each for drag racing and $30 for auto-xing)
“But I won’t have time to do both. Fine just give me a tech card for auto-xing”
Now, I’m pissed off. I woke up at 7:30am on a Saturday for this shit! As we pull in Juan says,

“Isn’t that some bullshit!”
“Yeah I know, we can’t enter the Super Challenge!”
“What are you talking about? I got a Super Challenge card. I was talking about the price increase.”
“Yeah that sucks too. WTF! The guy told me we couldn’t race!”
“Just go back and speak to a different person.”

So as I drove back to the booth I decided to just leave my car behind and walk up with my card and money in hand. As I stood by a different booth I caught the attention of a kid who was taking money and told him,

“Hey, I got this auto-x tech card by accident but I want to do the Super Challenge. Here’s my card and my extra $20.”
“Oh, ok.” He walks to the booth and comes back with the new tech card. “Here you go!”

So now I’m thinking, it can’t possibly be this easy. I’m getting the feeling that I’m going to get F-d over big time. So I drive back and we get in the tech line. After sitting there for about 20 minutes or so, Juan pulls up to the Drag Racing Tech Inspector and I can see them have a very lively conversation….oh yeah, we are going to get F-d big time. The Tech Inspector points to the Auto-x Tech Inspection and tells me to follow him because he thinks we are screwed. As I pull up to the next Inspectors I can hear Mark pleading our case. After, 2 whole minutes of him saying, “Look, we don’t care about the money. We just want to race” the Inspectors tell us that it’s up to Raceway Park and if they are fine with it, then they will subsequently be fine with it. We go back to the Drag Inspector (yes that does sound funny) and he tells us pretty much the same thing. So since we have a conundrum here, he essentially marks our cards as inspected and moves us along. We go to auto-x and they move us along. At this point, we meet some guys that were not as lucky.

It appears that a few of the usual auto-xers tried to speak to a few people about why they couldn’t do the Super Challenge with their own tires (non-BFG) and had no luck. Thus, the only other person in the Super Challenge was the winner from last year who had BFG’s. Now I’m getting aggrevated.

So the rest of the day consisted of the three of us racing each other all day which was no contest considering 2 of us weren’t eligible for prizes anyway BUT at least I can say that I came in third in 2007! ……….what a sad and hollow victory that is considering it’s also last place. Honda Day’s Super Challenge this year was downright sad and pathetic! While it was cool to race my new car, I could have saved my money and stayed home and I would have been just as happy.

Oh and I forgot to mention that the organization this year was worse than in 2005. The announcements could barely be heard about the Super Challenge and we had to wait forever to drag race due to the fact that both Juan and I didn’t even know when we were supposed to drag race due to a lack of a schedule. We ended up running our 3 runs in the afternoon and immediately auto-xing right after for 3 runs. I was dehydrated and hungry by that time. What a waste of a day.

Oh and keep that theme of disorganization in mind because that will be the theme of the Honda Day 2007 Summary coming at you tomorrow.