I've only made five passes at the track. The only thing that seems to be getting better is my reaction times.
First run---------1.058
Second run------.738
Third run---------.641
Fourth run-------.621
Fifth run----------.591

The last run felt really wierd off the line because I heard the tires spin a little before the light even went green.

 

Our local track has converted to the new .000 perfect light for reaction times. Last weekend I made a total of 12 passes down the track.

Saturday
Time trials
.061
.059
Eliminations
-.120 Red light first round
T&T
.070

Sunday
Time trials
.079
.000 Perfect light
-.036 Red light
.031
Eliminations
.035
.041
.053
.139 Asleep at the tree and lost the round.

The majority of these lights were done with the foot brake since my transbrake wasn't working properly. I have no idea why I was asleep in that last round. The worst part is that I ran an 11.853 on a 11.85 dial and lost by .020 seconds or about 3 1/2 feet.

 

Good lord Stephen, talk about a near perfect dail-and then to lose?!!! One of those times when you hit the ticket booth and then slap your head. Good job on the prediction though

 

Competition is tough. The second round win was when my opponent broke out but .005. The third round my opponent broke out by .001.

 

I hear ya, the group I pit with has been drag racing as a family for 15 years so they have alot of background in it, but their dail technique is crude to me, they take their best TT and dail .02 under and leave it, it has worked well for them in the Street class, but when I decided to move my car up to Pro/Mod this season, the first thing I realized is that the car HAS to be on the number to be competitive. The Dad of that family argues with me that you don't need to dail that tight to win, but 1/2 way through the season, he's paying closer attention to my car and the Pro cars and their dails and I think it's finally sinking in that the lights need to be a maximun of .530 or .030 and the car needs to run either at or at the most .01 off the number. Moving up has definately made me step up my game, but the sad note is my looow compression huffer is just not as consistent on a round by round basis as the high compression counter parts I run each pass and I just try to get them to red light or break out as I never lift anymore, it's too hard being the slow car and judging 1-2' before the finish line, sometimes I get lucky and go rounds, and alot of times this year I've broken out anywhere from .002-.006. I will say also since running the 2 cars 2 classes last weekend, while I worked my **** off going back and forth with little to no break between rounds, it ultimately keeps my head where it needs to be, which is where I find mental lapses are my downfall when I get to shootin the bull with everybody between rounds.

 

Well, tire spin on the line is never good, but you'd better be moving before the green or you're dead meat in competition.

Do you happen to know what is considered a perfect light at your track - .500 or .000?

 

.500 is a perfect light at the tracks I went to. I didn't do any elimination races, I was just going for fun, racing my dad. There was just a little squeek, not really spin. Reaction time is the only area I'm trying to do good at. When you have an LG4 running 16.3's with a 2.3 60' time, none of my numbers can be that great so I'm just going for rt really

 

I've said it again and I still tell everyone. Watching bracket racing is boring. Even as I racer, I don't watch the races. The only cars I see going down the track are the two in front of me when I'm sitting in the water box.

Now get behind the wheel and try doing it and it's a completely different story. Cutting a good light and trying to run as close to your dial without going faster isn't as easy as it looks. Sitting in the stands you just see 2 slow moving cars going down the track. Spectators don't realize how much is involved in a bracket race. Anyone can spend lots of money to make a car go fast and win a heads up race. Bracket racing makes it a drivers skill game. Just like the IROC races. All the cars are exactly the same and it becomes the best driver. A bracket race doesn't have identical cars but theoretically both cars should cross the finish line at the same time which makes it seem like the same. Calculate the driver's reaction time with how close he can run his dial in and it's all dependent on the driver. If the car doesn't run the dial, then something unpredictable happened.

I've seen many street legal racers who won't do the braket racing because they don't think they're good enough. I just had 2 wins because my opponents red lit and I was way off on my dial so anyone can still win. An actual race where both racers get good lights and run close to their dials is very rare. If I lose one of those races, I'm proud to shake the winners hand because he did something a little bit better than I did and had to really work for the win.

 

The second thing I hate worse than a red light in eliminations-that seemily time stands still when your waiting for the win light to come on after a tight race Everything goes into slow motion for what seems like an eternity!!!!!

 

My best so far is a .508, with a .500 being perfect. Just practice is all you can do. My first time ever at the track I had a 1.2 reaction, lol. Usually I am consistantly below .530 or so, but never a perfect light

 

I raced the 2000 season with the Camaro when it was still a stock LG4. Went from 17.65 first run with a bad fuel pump, to 17.3's with a good fuel pump, to 16.80's after tweaks - with 2.4 60's (remember this is at altitude). I won some races over the year's time.

I'll agree it can be painful watching bracket racing, especially when slow cars like mine are involved. I see cars go down the track that run mid-14's, and I say, "Is that how slow I look?" If you know who's racing, and are rooting for them, it's a little different. I keep myself interested by watching how people leave the line and try to predict who's going to win. I'm usually a little better than 50%. And, yes, it is easy to sit in the stands and say when somebody breaks out & loses, "Why did they take so much stripe?" Of course, that's the 16-sec car running the 12-sec car - YOU try it sometime...

(Funny side note: At the Division 5 ET finals in Topeka last year, my first race was against a 19.90-sec Malibu wagon. I dialed a 13.53. My sister video-taped it, and you can hear the announcer say about me as we staged, "He's going to have enough time to eat a ham sandwich, read the paper, and drink a cold Coca-Cola before he gets to go!" Oh, the wagon took too much stripe and lost in a double break-out - I was 2 car-lengths behind and slammed on the brakes as he went across the line.)

 

Anyone that thinks braket racing is easy simply has not done it. Boring to watch hard to master.

MD