I hope this is not a stupid question but here it goes. Im real new to drag racing, at tracks atleast, and I'm curious about R/T. I've only made one pass in my life thus far and it was a 1.5 R/T, if I had of left the line a .5 R/T would that of made my car a sec faster or does R/T not count into ET.

 

no. reaction time does not count in your et. reaction time is the time between when the light turns green and when your front tires move to start the timers .

mike

 

During time trials, reaction time means nothing. It won't change your ET at all but it can win or lose a race.

You can sit at the tree when the light turns green for 10 seconds before you finally go. Your ET will still be the same.

However in a bracket race RT means everything. I lost 2 races in the last few weeks right at the starting line. Both times I ran right on my dial in however the first time I was asleep at the tree and couldn't can't my opponent. The second time I got the big red eye by leaving too soon. It's depressing when you can run your number but you give the race away at the start line.

A 1.5 second reaction time is very bad. You waited for the green to come on before leaving. The trick is to launch when you see the last yellow light come on. By the time you and the car react, the light will be green and you'll already be moving. If you time it correctly, you should break the starting timer beam a fraction of a second after the green is lit. It just takes practice.

 

I once had a 6 second reaction time...beat that.

 

8 seconds during time trials once a few years ago.

When the light turned green I launched and the car just bogged and died. I didn't roll forward at all to break the start beam. I ratcheted back to neutral, started the engine, ratcheted back to first and launched. Took 8 seconds to do all that.

ET stayed the same since the start timer wasn't activated.

 

There's an outfit out here that's promoting their diesel performance mods. They've got some of these full-size Dodge & Chevy turbo diesels trucks in the 12's (at this altitude).

But, they put out a lot of smoke doing it. One race last year, this guy stalls the turbo up at the line. There was a slight tail breeze, which blew his smoke (tailpipe at the rear wheels) over the starting line (just his lane). He gets a green light, takes off, but the smoke is so thick the beam doesn't make. He bolts down the track, the smoke finally clears enough to start the clock, it thinks he's made a 9-sec run.

Funniest loss I think I've ever seen. (This was in eliminations, too.)

 

I've seen lots of re-runs because gophers are playing down in the finish line beams. A 14 second sportsman car runs an 8 second 1/4 mile. The finish line beam gets activated when he's at half track.

The safety truck down at the end has a rifle to take care of annoying gophers. I've also clipped a gopher after the finish line.

 

Damn! I'll beat you yet!

I dropped the clutch from near idle cause of a bog I was getting leaving anything over that and for some stupid reason I forgot to release the line lock..woops, car just died. I looked around and laughed and then started her back up and went.

 

I had a 10-sec timeslip once. They gave me a rerun (which I won). They blamed it on rabbits.

Haven't heard if the safety guys have a rifle. Something tells me they don't.

 

Hey, anythings possible up there in Canada During the night races we tend to have a minimum of 3-4 "deer round ups" since we're surrounded by corn feilds and timber off in the distance-that'd suck clipping something like that at the big end-oofdah!!!
I'd be real scared to see any of our track crew hold onto a rifle, probably shoot each other or themselves!!