We finally made it. Every year, David Buschur of
hosts the
DSM Shootout, a massive gathering of DSM,
3/S, and
Evo owners, along with cars with
similar engines and lineage. We left Aurora on Friday, around 10:00, and met
up with a friend of ours for the drive to the
Lincolnr
Oasis, where we met up with six other DSMs and their occupants, five of
which accompanied us at 1:00 for the drive to Norwalk, Ohio. Speed laws were
dutifully obeyed (by everyone else on the road), and we made it to Norwalk
around 5:00.
We got settled in, and the next day everyone made the drive down to Buschur
Racing's shop for a massive DSM car show and dyno day. A friend of ours,
Albert Raczynski, managed to spin his
wheels on the dyno and still put down the highest horsepower numbers of the
day (I don't remember what he made off the top of my head; previously, he's
dyno'd at 515fwhp). Incredible stuff to see:
Vineet Singh came out with his
twin-engine Eagle Talon, Buschur's RWD monsters were everywhere (along with
his beautiful 50's Ford Pickup, powered by a DSM 4g63 engine),
Andre's targa-top Eclipse GSX,
Starions, Colts, and Evos galore.
That night: Econolodge. Fireworks. Pocket bikes. Big smokey diesel burnouts.
Police and firetrucks. And one very unlucky stuffed animal.
On Sunday, everyone woke up bleary-eyed and headed over to
Norwalk Raceway Park for the
real meat of the Shootout: drag racing. I entered with the Laser in the
Bracket 2 (ie. slow) class, while others from our original group entered
into both Quick 16 (best of the best) and DSM Eliminator. I managed a new
best time with the laser: on 110 octane leaded race gas, I pulled off a
13.748 @
96.48 mph, which raised a few eyebrows; considering the only real
changes made to the car that would have contributed to that are an
open-element air filter and a boost controller, I'm pretty surprised. (It
felt like it had more in it, but I only had four consecutively-improved
runs.) A local fellow, Adam from Devotuning, pulled off the Quick 16 win
in his incredible right-hand-drive Evo III. Unfortunately, we didn't get
to finish out the day with any more runs, because of rain.
After that, most folks packed up and headed for home. We stuck around the
night (mainly because we were dead tired), hit the go-kart track one more
time, and hit the road Monday morning. Fantastic experience; if you own a
DSM, something that works or looks like one, or know someone who does, go
next year. It was well worth it. Oh, and here's a few
pictures that Erica took
while we were out there. Enjoy.