These results obtained April 14, 2010 with a 2007 Chevrolet Trailblazer SS 6.0 liter LS2 all wheel drive (AWD) midsize suv. 100% bone stock, half a tank of 91 octane premium California shit gas. Full interior and spare tire intact.

Temp: 65 degrees F
Relative humidity: 47
Absolute Barometer: 29.74

1500 rpm left lane-engine bogs. Bad reaction time because of the bog. Bad ET too: 14.61@94mph. Weak sauce! Will try a little less gas next run.

1000 rpm left lane: no bog, but the truck isn’t shooting out of the hole hard enough. 2.201 60 ft time, 14.351@96 mph. Next I’ll use more juice: 1200.

1200 rpm right lane: hard launch with a 2.201 60 foot time but slower elapsed time at 14.484. Looks like 1100 will be the launch point for eliminations tonight.

Round 1 vs Dodge 6.1 liter hemi powered Challenger (dial in: 13.24).

Win! .198 reaction time (sucks) vs the other guy’s .068. Lucky me-I think he missed a shift since he ran a 14.446. I hit a measly 14.389@81.69. Yeah I got on the brakes hard so I wouldn’t break out and loose. 1100 rpm launch seems to be the sweet spot for tonight. My new dial in:

Hope this guy isn’t next with his dark red 12 second mustang with slicks on! They’re probably street slicks aka drag radials since this is just the street class.

Round 2: Lose! Even though I pulled one of my best reaction times ever of .062, I was way off my dial in with a 14.38 on 14.24 dial in. The other guy had a slightly worse but still highly respectable RT of .089 of a second. The margin of victory was only .0014, that’s 1.4 thousandth of a second. What happened? I was concentrating so hard on cutting a good light that I launched at the wrong rpm. I revved it up to about 1300 or so which resulted in worse 60 foot times as well as slower ET. Competition in the street category is pretty intense since most of these racers have had plenty of practice.

It’s ok, I’ll be back another Wednesday.

The 2006-2009 Chevy Trailblazer SS is no slug with 400 lb / ft of torque and almost an equal amount of horsepower. It comes with a horrible 4 speed automatic transmission that doesn’t stand up to much abuse but it is able to produce some decent 60 foot times.

While 400 pound feet of torque with 395 hp combined with 4.10 gears is usually enough to cause major traction issues in a car, the TBSS gets off the line just fine. Here’s a list of features that allow the Blazer SS to hit 2 second sixty foot times:

1. The TBSS is a heavy weight. This Chevy truck weighs in at 4600 pounds (AWD)
2. Good sized rubber grips the pavement. The OEM tires are 255/50/R20 Goodyear Eagle RS-A. These tires are listed as high performance all season meaning they can even be driven in snow, but they are good enough to use at the drag strip for a stock TBSS.
3. All Wheel Drive delivers killer traction. Two Wheel Drive Trailblazer SS owners can also hit similar (sometimes even quicker) 60 foot times in stock form so AWD is definitely not the biggest factor in hooking up.
4. is so very heavy ringing in at almost 4600 pounds in the All Wheel Drive trim

Back to the launch. Simply rolling up to the line, waiting for the light to drop and stoping the gas pedal off idle was definitely not the best way to get a decent ET (elapsed time) with this SUV. Faster quarter mile times were achieved by loading the transmission slighty by holding the brake so the truck doesn’t move at the line and revving the motor between 1100 and 1800 rpm.

Reaction times also improve when launching an automatic at the dragstrip with this method. Holding the brake and revving the engine just high enough to shoot out of the hole without peeling out seemed to net the best times from the stock TBSS (14.2 for the first day out on a stock 2007 AWD).

Yes it’s festive but what do all these lights mean?If you’re a beginner in drag racing just pay attention to the lights in your lane. Let’s go from top to bottom.

PRE-STAGE

The first two yellow lights side by side are PRE-STAGE. The PRE-STAGE light is lit when you trip the first light beam (There are 2 light beams separated by about 7 inches at the start of the strip.) You are NOT staged yet if ONLY the PRE-STAGE light is on. The actual yellow and green lights will only start dropping after you’ve tripped the STAGE light.

STAGE

When your car, truck, or motorcycle breaks the second beam of light at the line then the STAGE light is lit. IF you roll past the PRE-STAGE light then it will turn off and only the STAGE light will be lit. This is called “Deep-Staging” and it is OK. You don’t have to roll back and turn the PRE-STAGE light on. Now you have just seconds before the tree drops if your opponent has also STAGED. If your opponent has not staged then the tree will not drop. Basically the computer will drop the light about a second or so after both of you are staged regardless of the PRE-STAGE light.

YELLOW LIGHTS

These three lights drop in descending order from top to bottom at .5 second intervals. Leave before the GREEN and you will get a RED light (you lose.)

GREEN LIGHT

What are you waiting for? It ain’t gonna get any greener.

RED LIGHT

If you see this then you lost already. This can only happen if your car rolled out of the STAGE beam before the tree turned GREEN. Some people will pull their ebrake at the line to keep from rolling around. You may want to do this at Sears Point / Infineon Raceway as some people claim that it’s not level at the starting line.

Cool Christmas Tree Simulator