Quarter Mile, first attempt

Last night, my brother and I decided to go for a cruise. We head down the highway, and planned to drive for an hour or two. However, about twenty minutes into the journey we came across some construction on the highway, which totally spoiled the driving sensation. So we ended up taking a nearby exit off the highway, and decided to take a detour home. On the way back, we came across a very long and flat road. It looked like it was around a 1/4 mile, so I call my brother and tell him that I wanted to test my 1/4 mile time.

Thankfully, I always drive with my Dashhawk now, so I was prepared for any performance tests. I settle down the road, no cars coming or going. I could only hear my engine idling while I was setting up the performance test. With the test set up, the Dashhawk displayed "Press a button when ready". I press the button, left foot on brake, right foot reving the engine. The Dashhawk beeps while flashing the colors: yellow, yellow, yellow, GREEN. I hammer the pedal into the ground, and the car goes flying.

I have never attempted a 1/4 mile before, so I didn't really know how long a 1/4 mile was, visually. I was getting scared, because I could see at 90 MPH, I was beginning to run out of road. If I had run out of the straight, I would have had to turn to avoid crashing into the wall, but at these speeds I felt that my car wouldn't have been able to handle the turn. My heart was pumping heavily, body full of adrenaline. I wasn't sure if I should've kept going, but I kept telling myself, "Just one more second".

Sure enough, just before I was about to give up, my Dashhawk beeps to alert me that I have reacted a 1/4 mile. I immediately let go of the pedal, and braked hard. I was still full of adrenaline, I could feel my pupils dialate, and my breathing was very fast. I pulled over to the side of the road, and my brother drove up behind me. I took pictures of my results, so here they are.

To start the 0-60 test and the 1/4 mile test, are totally two different things. The 0-60 test starts when your speed is greater than 0 MPH. However, in the 1/4 mile test, the Dashhawk counts down and you start when the light turns green. I suppose this is trying to simulate the 1/4 mile tests on the race track. On top of the Dashhawk display you see my reaction time. That is the time it took me to start accelerating after the light had turned green. The rest is pretty self explanatory: the speed and time it took me to get to the test distance. As you can clearly see, I got an ET of 14.22 seconds at 101.9 MPH for the 1/4 mile. I was a bit dissapointed because I was hoping I could go a bit faster, too optimistic I suppose. However, when I came home, I looked online and discovered that the rated time for the 2010 V6 Camaro 1/4 mile was 14.41 seconds at 98.3 MPH.

Remember I have not added any performance mods to my Camaro yet. This 1/4 mile test is completely bone stock, so I am pretty happy with the outcome. A tip for the young drivers though, do not attempt a 1/4 mile test unless you are sure you have more than a 1/4 mile to work with. I have learned my lesson, and even though I survived, I will never run a 1/4 mile test on that road again. You have no idea how close I was...