Fun at Import Face Off Ohio 2009
After an unsuccessful trip to last year’s Import Face Off in Columbus, OH with our drag car (canceled due to rain), Hal decided to take his freshly tuned 350Z up for the race. Having only changed wheels and added race gas, Hal unloaded his daily driver 350Z for a beautiful day of racing, watching, and having fun. Despite bringing the motor home and stacker trailer, Hal maintained a low-key effort, focusing on enjoying the races with friends. This was his first full event for testing the car on the drag strip, so there was much to be learned in testing the car.
The first pass resulted in a respectable 10.8 at 145 mph quarter mile. After qualifying for first in his current class of about 30 competitors, Hal bumped up to the Forced Induction Pro class, where he would eventually also qualify first. His second pass overall showed a noticeable improvement at 10.1 with a similar trap speed. In between passes, the guys had a chance to get up on top of the motor home for a few pictures of the turnout on a cool and comfortable afternoon.
On just the third pass, showing how experience behind the wheel of a relatively new setup can drastically help, Hal fired off a 9.891 at just about 149 mph. This is almost exactly one second off the time from our own drag car at the same event last year. Needless to say, Hal is extremely happy with the results of his Injected Performance Stage 1+ short block and mildly modified head. The properly sized single turbo and piping setup makes for an amazing powerband that can still put the power down through the stock six-speed. As mentioned before, we like pushing the limits on our cars so that your builds don’t have to!
Sadly, in Hal’s first competition run, he got a bit “drift-happy” and let out after nearly reaching a 45 degree angle with his car at two separate points down the track. It wasn’t until the slowest qualifier, his competition for the first round, passed him until he remembered he was in an elimination round. We can forgive him though; I think we’d all be a little overwhelmed if we just found out our daily driver was capable of running 9 second times! Despite losing in the first round of the competition itself, it was a fun day for Injected Performance, and Hal joined the ranks of the fastest 350Z’s in the country. Although he has no plans to convert his car into a full drag build, we are still proud for him and his new best time.