WannaGoFast Half Mile in French Lick Indiana
This past weekend ZZPerformance’s own Ryan Derrick, Steve Hickman, and Ryan Graham made the 7 hour drive down to French Lick, Indiana with each of their vehicles in tow. Excluding Steve Hickman’s 2016 ATS-V, hours of preparation went into both Ryan Derricks’ and Ryan Graham’s vehicles. Dyno tuning, various installations, swapping parts, you name it. Making sure everything was up to par for both vehicles was nothing short of chaos. Ryan Derrick’s Snobalt preparation came so down to the wire that he installed his new Advan Racing RGIII wheels and Pirelli Pzero tires the day of the race.
The crew arrived late Friday night, in the long, dark backwoods of Indiana. Much of Saturday was spent prepping Ryan Graham’s LSJ, checking out a few of the races happening, and talking and getting the chance to meet with customers and individuals from different performance shops. The excitement and passion displayed were tangible.
The Ryan’s vehicles’ competed in the Front Wheel Drive Privateer category while Steve’s ATS-V competed in the Heavyweight category. They went up against Porsche 911s, Dodge Challenger Hellcats, Dodge Vipers, Corvette c7 Z06s, and twin turbo Lamborghini’s.
Unfortunately Ryan Derrick’s Snobalt was unable to get the sort of passes we expected and experienced a few mechanical issues. Such is the price to pay with testing out new parts and products. The team’s already working out the issues and learning from the experience and will come back better than before for the Tail of the Dragon event.
Steve Hickman ran his 2016 ATS-V 7 different times, with his 5th run being the best at 144.1384 MPH. It was Steve’s first time racing a 1/2 mile, as he usually competes in quarter miles. An emphasis was placed on shifting quickly and accurately to achieve the times he wanted to.
Ryan Graham took only 4 runs to prove exactly what him and his LSJ are capable of. For the 4th run at 3:05 pm Ryan put up a 173.0769 MPH, breaking the LSJ and Cobalt record as well as his own personal record and winning his vehicle class.
The whole event was a major success for the team. From racing to just seeing the whole community come together for such an event was super positive to see, and a highlight for many. Everyone at ZZPerformance is proud of the amount of work that was done and just how far we’ve come.
