Meinerzhagen, Germany: International DSSC Sprint. Update: Movieclips and pictures!

Tomorrow (Saturday) morning (early) I will leave for Germany with some other guys (including my friend with this machine) to attend the international DSSC sprint. I will not enter the competition, but I will shoot some nice movie clips (got a new HD camcorder!) and make pictures of all the shiny metal, extreme builds and good atmosphere that will be there!

Update: I am back from Germany and got a lot of movieclips and photo's to show and some very good news! But for that you will have to read on.

It was a long day for me Saturday. The day started early. I got up at 5 AM in the morning to drive up to me friends place who lives 60 km away from me. I was there at 6.15 AM and 6.30 AM we left for Meinerzhagen, Germany. The drag strip was on a small airport runway, which was rented by the German DSSC for this day. Click here to see it on Google Maps.

Since it was all nice and quiet on the roads, we arrived at 9.30 AM. Still a bit cloudy, but it soon cleared up and we got perfect weather circumstances for some drag racing! The only "downside" was that the strip was slightly hill upwards.

As you can see here, the strip runs up hill

We met up with some other Dutch guys and started to unpack the sprinters and make them ready for the first run. In Germany the rules are a little different from The Netherlands. Where in NL we can make as many runs as possible during the different heats you can only make five runs in total in the German competition. Which makes a day like this more relaxed (one run every hour or so), but on the other hand forces you to make choices in setup of the engine. Since Meinerzhagen is located on a higher altitude than what we have in NL (most of NL is under sea level), changes in jetting had to be made. Furthermore, we had to go slightly lighter on rollers because of the drag strip runs a little upwards.

Although we knew this, most of us decided to start with a run and see how it would go. There is a good reason to do so. Most of the people have spent a large amount of time in setting up their scooters. If something runs perfect, you are not to eager to change that. While the drivers were signing up, I started filming some sprinters that were already driving. Here are some movieclips from early that day.

From 1230 till 1400 there were no activities because of regulations (x amount of decibels per day) which gave us some time to evaluate the progress so far and have something to eat and drink. The progress for us wasn't that good. We came to Germany to win a trophy and the fastest time we drove till then was 6,49 seconds, which wasn't enough. The driver told us that it was running a bit rich from the start (sputtering engine) and that was also something we could see, giving the large amount of exhaust fumes coming from the exhaust. Also take off (transmission) could be improved upon. We decided to downjet the carb and change from green to a blue (Malossi) contra clutch spring. You might wonder, why the hell do you use a green contra clutch spring?! This is because otherwise the machine becomes uncontrollable for the driver. It becomes so aggressive in take off that it would make times worse. 

These changes resulted in a world record run for <100cc class. A 6,24 seconds (including 0,18 reaction time) time was driven by World fastest sprinter? The end speed was a 129,6 KMPH. A very good result, keeping in mind this strip runs a bit upwards. Maybe I should remove the question mark in the title...

Here is a movie clip of the run. You can also watch this on YouTube in HD quality.

From the GPS data logger we could tell that the machine would launch to 100 KMPH in 3,45 seconds. That is Ferrari/Porsche speed, pretty awesome!

Although this was a record and we were (are) very pleased with this result, there was still room for improvement. On the data logger we saw that it wasn't doing enough RPM (12800 --> 13100). So we quickly changed to slight lighter rollers to make one final run....

Unfortunately, it started to rain and the track was to wet to drive. So we couldn't make that run anymore...Which was too bad, but is promising for the next race in NL, where we have flat grounds. We are eager to see what that will bring. The goal is to drive <6 seconds including reaction time. Something that might be achieved this racing season!

We picked up the prize, packed our stuff and drove back home with a satisfied feeling and a lot of enthusiasm for the next race! 

I created a two new pages where I have uploaded some more movie clips and pictures of this day.

You can find them here (movies) and here (pictures).

I hope you enjoyed reading and watching!

Stay tuned!

Bram