Introduction
Every ones afraid when they come on to the strip for the first time. Rarely is your first run good because you get nervous you dont know whats going on and then the lights come on and you pannic when the staging light turns green. Dont stress it your first run is rarely going to be perfect so just try to relax and have fun because its a learning expereince and even veterans go through this with a new car or a new set up.
In this write up im going to cover some of the fundementals of drag racing, how to stage, an explanation of the staging tree, a few launching techniques, reading your score card and what you should bring to the drag strip.
What you should bring- Your drivers licence insurance and registration
- Shoes no sandals or open toe foot wear
- No shorts you need to wear pants or jeans
- If your planning on running 13s or lower a helmet
The reason for the shoes and no shorts is in case a fire starts. The helmets under 13 is for insurance reasons and obviously safety. Also I beleive that the helmet should be snug but comfortable and it should be m2000 which is the same as auto x.
Inspection
Make sure theres no loose objects in the interior, the battery is tied down and everything is as it should be. If you have shaved door handles you wont be allowed to race at the strip because of safety issues. If anything happens they wont be able to pull you out.
Staging and Prep
Alot of people warm up there tires before a racem, this is especially important if you have slicks or radials. You need to roll into the water box. This is where you get your tires wet so you can spin them out and get them warm and sticky for traction. Put your car into secound if your stick shift and rev it up to 2/3s of your redline and drop it. After you drop it in rwd cars slam on the brakes and hold it for a few secounds till you see smoke flowing out of the tires. FWD should just be ready to stop the car. This should only take a few secounds.
When you go up to stage there is a tree of lights. Move your car up slowly until the first set of lights come up. One will come on first and then another. This is called pre staging. The person your racing against will do the same. Once your both ready it should take about three secounds and then the lights will activate, you need to be ready because they move fast and thats what gets alot of the newer guys nervous their first time.
Launching
Now that you know whats going on before you go to race we will cover the most important part which is launching. Obly watch the the yellow lights come on and dont anticipate them wait for them to come on and then floor it. If you wait for thr green light to come on you should get +1 rt if you go to fast you might get .499 or lower which is bad idealy you want to get .500 which is a perfect score. You can get that score by trying to time it from the third yellow light.
Many people start out with the dump because its the easiest. When the third yellow light comes on they just dump the clutch and wait for it to catch. Some people have enough expereince where they know how to dump the clutch in a way to get instant traction. The problem with this is when you dump the clutch the front end will rice a little. It will then come back down and your suspension will compress which is hard for the engine to counter for and you will dlow down the car and have a higher 60'.
Another way is slipping. This is when the driver lets out the clutch controlling it so the tires dont slip. If they do slip pushing the clutch in just enough to gain traction is how you compensate. This will cause the front end rise but not in a way that it will come down fast because the power is being added and applied through out the launch. This will take a little more practice but it will end up being a better launch in the long run.
Bracket Racing
Alot of new enthusiasts dont know about bracket racing. This is a fairer way of racing for newer people and slower people. It puts a handicap on the more expereinced or faster driver. This allows for a 15 secound car to run with a 11 secound car in a competitive way. This ends up being more fun for both parties. If you both run your dialed in times perfectly you should both cross the finish line at the exact same time. If you cross faster you will brake out and lose.
More to come
Portions of this write up were contributed by stangnet.com
Linear Mode
