1996 Cobra VS 2001 GT

[milktasd2000]

My first race

I had just gotten off of work at Walgreen’s. I went to a gas station right by my work. This was the week I had gotten my Cobra with 3.73, K&N air charger system, underdrives and subframes. I hadn’t raced at all. I was wondering how I would do when I look over at the other side of the gas station and see a White 2001 GT with the hood scoop. For you nonFord guys; the wheels on the 2000 and the 2001 GT are different. The driver and the passenger were looking at my car, kind of smiling. I didn’t make anything of it. Figured they just wanted to look. As I was finishing filling up my car and the receipt was printing they leave the gas station with the tires squealing. I was like “Hey cool” I was still getting use to the fact that people liked to look at my car. Around here there are only 5 Cobras that I know of. 3 –1996 Cobras, 1 - 1998 Cobra, 1 – 2001 Cobra.
I get in my car and leave the gas station. I see the GT at the light ahead, in the middle of traffic in the lane for going straight. I get in the left lane to merge into the perpendicular road. As I pass them I rev my engine. Thinking “HEH HEH, little GT.” I didn’t know any better. What I was thinking was Cobra means hell of a lot faster than any GT. I was ignorant. I am at the light that turns onto another road and the GT pulls into the second turn lane with the passenger window down. The passenger says “Where do you wanna go?”
“What?” First race, remember, I didn’t know about asking to race. I thought you should just rev at somebody. So I say “Wherever”. They say follow me. So I do, we go down past a few streets and get onto Frontage Road N. I see the driver wave his hand out the window at the corner of Frontage, so I jump into the left lane with GT staying in the right. I was in second and just floored it. I fly past ‘em. “My car is that fast?” I thought to myself. Can’t be. Then I thought about it, maybe he wanted to do it from a stop. Oh well. They pull up again a light down. “Let’s do it on S.” OK, we turn onto Frontage S. We couldn’t stop, so we were sitting there looking at each other at 20 MPH. And the passenger says “Damn can’t stop” I say “OK” and floor it in second. I jump ahead one car length. The GT drops down into first and barks his tires. He cuts the distance between us to where he is one my back bumper. By the time I hit third, I was ½ a car length ahead and the GT was starting to fall back. During my racing I have to look at the Tach because I didn’t, at the time, know with only the sound of my car when to shift. So I keep looking from the road to the tach and then the Speedo. About to go into fourth, I see I am about 100 MPH needing to shift, getting to 6500, close to the red. So I do the logical think, go to fourth. I don’t find it. I hear gears grinding and yell “SHHHIIIITTTT” It scared the shit out of me. I look up for some reason and see car pull onto the road going real slow. So I put it back into third and let the engine help slow me down. I could have spit on the car in front of me it was so close. The guys in the GT drive by say “Don’t fuck up your car, man.” So I decided to learn how to race. I paid close attention to all the car videos I have downloaded off the net. I have close to 700 files, damn near 3 GB. So after two days of watching and practicing I learned how not to miss gears and how to race. And I am still getting better. I plan on learning how to power launch right before I get some new tires. The first time I tried, I couldn’t see a damn thing out the rear window because of all the white smoke. So I think I have come along a little since that first race.

[Booyah]

Okay, you are kidding right? You watched videos off the web in order to learn how to race. What could a video off the web teach you? What not to do in order to keep from wrecking your car.

[milktasd2000]

Learning how to drive from the web is probably a bit of an overstatement. I simply watched to see how they started. Like launching or starting in 2nd or not doing alot until 2nd.

[Booyah]

Best teacher is experience. You won't learn much by watching other people. I'm sure you have your own habits and quirks and so does your car. So just practice, practice, practice. That's the only way to learn how to use your Cobra to it's fullest potential. Learn the car.........be one with the car.