What an event, filled with duels, fun, and great conversation! If you're interested in what happened when two, almost exactly alike smart cars took off down the strip... or a forfour which was beating the likes of M3 BMWs... Then read on!

On your marks...

The day started at a very early for a sunday 8:25 when most of us arrived en masse at Santa Pod, meeting up just inside the ticket barriers, by the time myself and Mrs HoagieKat arrived, digi-roadster, zorro-returns and various others were already waiting. In total we had 8 cars running down the strip and by the end of the day 3 more smarts had arrived to spectate.

Get set...

After signing on to run (you need a full valid UK licence by the way) we made our way to the queue.

GO! GO! GO!

The first runs, everyone was getting used to the lights and how the RWYB actually worked, the christmas tree has several lights on it, pre-staged, staged, amber, and green. You roll into the pre-stage line, then into the staged marks, once both of you are staged, the control tower will set the light timers, and you're off! Foot to the floor, or in some cases... confusion as you either pull the gearknob off in your hand (mentioning no names... you know who you are!) or in my case... thinking the engine has stalled and re-starting it on the line... whoops!

Mastering the art..

After the first run, we swapped tips, and rejoined the queue, this time trying to organise ourselves a little better to get smart vs smart, getting more used to the lights, mastering the gearchanges and making quicker times.

Let battle commence...

After lunch, and after 3-4 runs, some people had left already, a fortwo brabus nightrun, and a silver roadster left 6 of the more hardcore RWYBs queuing, this time it was city-coupe vs city-coupe, forfour vs forfour, and roadster vs roadster... The battle commenced...

Pitting a forfour brabus against a forfour 1.3, may not seem a fair battle, and it wasn't... although ZorroReturns couldn't match the reaction time of the 1.3s semi-auto box, the brabus's sheer power more than made up for it, with him putting in consistent times around 15.1secs, the 1.3 forfour not far behind with times around 18.1 seconds... Then the madness started...

Epic struggle, followed by possible expletives...

HoagieKat was pitted against 2Minits in a city-coupe vs city coupe shootout, with the specs of the cars so similar we didn't know what to expect, it was an epic battle, off the start HoagieKat got the jump on 2Minits, with a reaction time of 0.51s to his 1.2s, half way the cars were equal, virtually neck and neck to the finish line, 2Minits crossing the line in 20.2197s and HoagieKat in 20.1239s possibly the slowest race Santa Pod has ever seen, but probably the closest!

There were more races between HoagieKat and 2minits, HoagieKat seeming to get the drop on 2minits with the start reaction time, but always the ET was within 0.5 seconds of each other, there will be a grudge match at the next one.

Brabus Power...

ZorroReturns, though racing mostly against a 1.3 passion, was putting in consistently quicker times, one very close to 15 seconds, and judging by the times other performance cars were putting in, the acceleration of the Brabus forfour is very close to an M3 or similar.

Prizes...

Fastest ET - ZorroReturns with his fastest run of the day (15.2819 @ 91.82) won a bag of fruit pastilles!

Fastest MPH - Digi-roadster (well it would have been Zorro, but nobody wins two prizes) won some dessert allsorts...

Fastest RT - HoagieKat with an RT of 0.41 seconds won some licorice allsorts... no it wasn't a fix.

Other Racers...

It wasn't just smarts racing there either, some of the countries top teams were there testing, with some top fuel cars putting in times around 6 seconds, and nearing 300 MPH! Around 11am we broke from doing the runs for lunch, and watched some of the dragsters being put through their paces, be warned if you come to the next event, bring ear defenders, they're LOUD! We even heard Fireforce (Jet engined dragster) being put through it's paces, and that is very very loud. With each pass of the top fuelers, our car alarms were being set off!

Conclusion...

So finally finishing the day around 4:30 it was decided that we'd done so many runs, and had such epic battles, that the race weary RWYBers would go... Even the official photographers were impressed with the smarts turning up, we had loads of comments, all positive, and everyone commented about how much fun they'd had and when would we be doing it again, and we will be doing it again!

To view our times, please see the RWYB Hall of Fame

The gallery of the RWYB day is here!

Some Hints for racers...

Go when the lights got ORANGE, not green, there is 0.4 seconds between orange and green, an average reaction time will put you around 0.4 to 0.6s.

There's not a heck of a lot of time between being staged and the lights going green.

Take as much weight off your car as possible, run skinny wheels on the front of a RWD car, and skinny wheels on the back of a FWD car, less friction = more acceleration.

Use a race air filter, more air = more power.

VIDEO!

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