At 10:52 PM 3/20/98 -0600, you wrote:
>Tomorrow, the local track is open for "test and tune" from 12-5. I'm
>going to try and race for the first time ever. Does anyone have any
>suggestions/tips/help for someone who's only seen one drag race in his
>entire life?
Cool! :-) The track here doesn't open until the end of April.
Well, I've only been drag racing once, so I'm probably not really
qualified to give you a lot of good advice, but I do have the newbie
perspective...
I would say the most important thing is to keep your eyes and your
ears open. Pay attention to everything, and you will be less likely to
be confused. For example, they might stage trucks in certain lanes,
bikes in another, cars in yet another, etc. It would really help if you
could hang out with someone who knows what they're doing. (For me, that
was our own Bill Tierney.) That might not be possible though... You
can always ask a track worker for help and info. You might want to show
up an hour early just to walk around, get a feel for the lay of the land,
and approach one of the officials or someone else working there and tell
them that this is your first time, and ask them if there is anything you
should know. They can tell you how it will work, and what to expect.
When you're waiting to race, a lot of people prop open the hoods of
their vehicles to cool them off. You could do the same, (good opportunity
to stand around and talk with people and gather information), or you
might not want to bother. (Yet another thing to worry about.) As far
as the actual racing goes, there is probably a water pit in front of the
track for getting the tires wet for the burnout. This is probably
something you'll want to avoid, at least for now. The information I've
read is that a burnout doesn't help a street tire to get any more traction
than usual, and that the water might actually make you lose traction if
you don't burn it all off. Plus, tires aren't cheap. :-) I drive around
the pit.
When you pull up to the line (if there is a line), keep an eye on
the tree. Roll forward until the top light (pre-stage) is lit, then
roll forward a *little* bit more until both the top light and the second
from the top light (stage) light is lit, then stop. You are now
staged (and this is your signal to the people or the computer running
the tree that you are ready to go) (so if you aren't ready, don't pull
into the staging beams). The tree could start at any second. Don't think
that just because the other guy isn't staged that the tree won't start. On
one run, I was sitting there staged, waiting for the guy to get around to
staging too. I'm looking over at him, and when I looked back at the tree,
I saw the green light coming on!! I wasn't anywhere near ready; bogged it,
etc. A waste of a pass; a crappy run then back to the end of the line! Again,
pay attention! :-) There are three yellow lights, then green. The clock
starts when the green lights, but you leave on the yellow before the green.
(By the time your truck rolls out of the staging beams, the green will have
lit.) If you leave before the green, you will redlight, and in a competition
you would be disqualified (unless the other guy redlighted too), but there's
no reason not to go all-out. Redlighting does not affect your E/T; your clock
starts when you leave the beams.
If you are able to make several runs, you can experiment with different
things to improve your E/T. One thing that I suspect might lower the E/T
(but which I did not have time to test out) is leaving the windows open
during the run. If you were bracket racing, you'd need to bring some
shoe polish or something to write your dial-in on your window, but if its
just a test and tune, they won't be racing, so you won't need it. But anyway,
don't worry about any of that, just go out there, pay attention, and have fun!
(Go kick some Ferd and Chebby butt for all of us northerners with cabin
fever!) :-)
You should check out this web page: http://sl.rconcepts.com/
(Michael Beard's "The Staging Light")
There is a lot of EXCELLENT drag racing info there, including an applet
that you can use to practice your reaction times. :-) I read through the
stuff on that page before going to the track, and it really helped to
figure out what was going on.
Have fun!!
-Jon-
.--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu -- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---.
| DoD# 1038, EAA# 518210, NMA# 117376, USUA# A46209, KotWitDoDFAQ, RP-SEL |
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I do not speak for the SUNY College at Fredonia; any opinions are my own.
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