Amar Sood and the entire Texas Speed Syndicate staff have been hosting some of the most prestigious races in the state of Texas for the past 8 years. These races include Runway Rivalry, Quick 30 Drag Racing, the Viper Nationals, the Texas Invitational and the newly added Pump Gas Invitational.
“We have been trying to figure out what to do year after year to make the playing field as even and dry cut as possible and it just clicked,” Sood recalled. “Let’s have fuel-based requirements – true street cars running 93 octane and pump E-85.”
The Pump Gas Invitational will hold its first ever event this upcoming May 13th at the Caddo Mills Municipal Airfield about 45 minutes east of downtown Dallas, Texas. The runway is 4,000 feet long with 1,500 feet of acceleration space and 2,000 feet of shut down. There will be two classes: 93 Octane and E-85. These will be true street cars with full interior, two front seats, OEM dash and chassis. All drivers will be required to show up to the airfield on “empty” or they can drain fuel in their own containers there. After that, all drivers must fill up with the official fuel vendor at the event by purchasing either 93 or E85 fuel from them out of sealed fuel drums. The 93-octane fuel will be name-brand pump 93 and the E85 will be Ignite 85 “orange”, which is not to be blended with race fuel.
“The back end is we have always been trying to make competitive classes,” says Sood. “You can see a shift from eight years ago, until today. Way back when we were organizing the first events, we could create class limitations based on tire size, being that most cars that competed were rear-wheel drive. We could do an 18-inch tire or a 15-inch or whatever and everyone would fit into that rule. Apart from the Viper Nationals, we have never had a brand-specific event, so from day one we have had variety across the playing field. Then once we moved into airfield events and the GTRs and Lamborghinis started showing up, you could no longer have a tire-based restriction, which changed the game up quite a bit. Once this started we had different classes, like a rear-wheel drive class and six-speed class to kind of change it up a little. Once cars started getting faster, everyone started converting to E-gear or to the dogbox and we started losing a lot of the six-speed cars. From there we were just trying to adjust to what would appeal to the drivers and have a level playing field for everyone.
“It’s a real struggle because we have to have practical rules,” Sood continued. “We can’t just say there’s a horsepower requirement. That’s the worst way to do it because you can’t verify horsepower unless we were to dyno each car the day of, and that would be impossible. Brackets are boring; people try to get into the slowest bracket and then they end up breaking out, etc. We don’t like the turbo size or manifold requirements because we have seen people stuff bigger compression wheels and there is just too much that goes on behind scenes.
“We have been trying to figure what to do year after year, and it just clicked – let’s make fuel-based requirements and that will revamp the whole playing field and shake it all up. We can make the rules fair and enforce a specific fuel requirement. We wanted to appeal to a very broad range of cars so we kept the pump gas 93-octane and true pump gas E-85 cars. We should have nothing but real street cars out of these two classes. Ignite Racing Fuel is on board. We will be using their Ignite Orange, which is the closest thing to pump E-85 you can get. We developed a relationship with Race Fuel Depot and they are going to dispense the fuel on-site. Everyone is required to come to the runway on empty or drain their tank there and buy fuel from the vendors. We are seeing a 50/50 split of cars in each class so it will be pretty balanced.”
“All of us at Texas Speed Syndicate wanted to make this race all about the sponsors and drivers,” Sood concludes. “This is for them and they are the reason we are doing this. The demand is there; we just make it happen. The whole day will be focused on giving the racers time to have fun and race as many times as they can fit in the allotted time. The morning will consist of test and tune (grudge runs), followed by speed indexing, lunch, more grudge runs, and then we finish the day by the top drivers running eliminations. The list is filling up fast and we cannot wait to see the head-to-head competition and see who comes out on top at the first-ever Pump Gas Invitational!”
Head on over to www.texasspeedsyndicate.com for more information.
Amar
January 26, 2017 at 5:40 pm
Thank you very much for your support and coverage SR!