foot brake reaction times
 

i am wondering what kinda reaction times yall foot brakers cut? i been building this car awhile but have not went yet. i been watching guys at the track and looking at results online and i have notice a few guys cutting .01x or .00x very consistently. that seems exceptionally good. i thought being around .02x to .03x was pretty dam good.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

I was cutting .03-.07 on average during the Sportsman race season this year, and that got me third in points at the end of the year. But then I went to the Summit Divisional finals, and an .03 couldn't get me past the first round. One thing I do is I bump in and barely light the second bulb, and for me taking off on the third yellow with that nets me a .1200 light. So I bump in once more just a tad, and that gets me in the .03-.07 range every time.

I would love to be able to get .01 - .00x every time, yet to me .00 is a good light but so close to a redlight that I almost feel like I just got lucky, lol.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

Years ago before LED tree lights were used, you could easily watch a light come on and go off. If you timed it to launch when the last yellow was at it's brightest, it's possible to get very low reaction times depending on how your car reacts.

With the LED tree lights, it's much harder to get a perfect light. The square wave light blinks on then off with no reference to how long it stays on. It becomes a guess on when to launch during the last yellow light.

Right around the time LED tree lights started coming out, I switched to a delay box and now launch off the top bulb with a transbrake. Anything worse than a 0.020 reaction time means I'm asleep.

Footbrake off the bottom bulb just takes a lot of practice to figure out how to cut a good light. Best trick is to completely ignore the top 2 bulbs. Block them from your vision if possible and only react when you see the last yellow light.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

yea my dad leaves on the button in his car. i just dont see how week after week run after run guys cut .01x lights on the foot.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

it depends on setup of course. when i was running the 305, the car ran mid/upper 12's without too many problems. i could cut .00x-.01x lights routinely leaving as soon as i saw the third yellow flicker on. this was shallow staging as much as physically possible. i have many .000 lights under my belt.

fast foward to when i started running 10's. leaving this way would yield -.020 or faster red lights. i had to get creative with front tire height and launch rpm to get it to slow down. (alternatively, going down in front tire diameter will decrease roll out and will help you react faster). then i started running .500 pro tree classes and the lights came back around (not really sure why leaving on the first flash of yellow i saw vs waiting on third yellow made a difference). i could do this running footbrake or transbrake.

last summer i ran a .400 pro tree 7.0 1/8 mile class. that was HARD. you really need power enough to go 6.40's to be competitive. it was a no throttle stop class, so guys were doing all sorts of crazy things to limit power. they'd leave on full power to get the car to react, pull timing (step retard or otherwise) at or around the 60' clocks, then ramp it back in to run big mph. i ran 7.01-7.05 @ 99ish in the heat on a good day so i was letting it all hang out to try to keep up. the car was just a little too far down on power and a little too heavy to be competitve on a .400 pro tree. i went out first round every time i tried that class.

now with the clutch i'm learning again where to leave. i've found that .500 pro tree is my favorite by far. on both .500 pro and full trees i've already gotten my r/t's in the .04x range, but will still redlight pretty easily on a full tree. having less than 20 passes on the new combo shows my rookie mistakes though.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

Deep staging helps me get consistent reaction times. Here is my 4th round race from last weekends 10k foot brake race at Cecil County drag way. I was running the right lane.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

^^^not bad man! anytime you can have a package <.010 you're doing some serious work. pushed the other guy out i see.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

What did your 305 setup 60 foot? See my biggest consistency issue with trying to move past a .03-.07 light average is that if I barely flicker the second bulb and take off on the third yellow, I get a .1200. But bump in one more time after the second bulb and get a .03-.07. And my car 60 foots 1.55 on average so its no slouch off the line, lol. I would be more consistent with barely flickering that second bulb but hard to take off before you see the third yellow.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

it would sixty in the bottom 1.6x range typically. car ran 12.3-12.5 at the time, depending on air conditions and such.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

Try deep staging 1500 rpm launch. See the third amber come on and go. You really will need to try a few times because you will more than likely come up red. A good way to test if your seeing the tree properly is to run a 5 tenths pro tree shallow and deep staged. Even with my last 3rd gen with a 1.42 60ft I still staged deep.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

over the years I have run a few different street cars down the track to get my feet wet before I get my third gen on the track. I started out running my daily driver. RT's were always around .200-.500. Granted I was 16 and didnt know much about cars or how many rpms to launch at. Next I began racing my fathers 99 camaro. Stock v6 motor with street tires. Was about to launch at higher rpms then with my daily driver. Best light I had was in 2008 which was a .007. I raced it a few years at the Super Chevy Show at Maple Grove. Id say i was consistently around .060-.080. The biggest piece of advice i can say is buy a portable practice tree to get hits on a tree. then transfer those practice hits to the real thing. a friday night street legal is perfect to get a bunch of runs on the car. Focus on how hard you can leave. Like MW66nova said about every combo and car launch differently.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

Last weekend in eliminations my RTs in two classes were: .025 (lost to a .015 in the other lane by .0014 MOV - the other guy runs a tranny brake), .033, .014 (red light in the other lane, put a "1" on my dial-in), .011 (red light by another tranny brake car in the other lane, I dialed down .01 and put a "7" on my dial-in), and .021 (car picked up a bunch and I took too much stripe to a .045 RT, another tranny brake car). Oh, in all 5 rounds, I was the slower car and had to leave first.

Back in August at Super Chevy, they had a special "LS Shootout" class (had to have an LS type engine). My RTs were .002, .038 (got lazy on that one, .072 RT in the other lane), -.019 on a bye (got sloppy), .003 (against the track announcer's son - last year, in the "big race" of the season, I was paired with him in 5th round of two different classes, put a .008 on him in the first class, and .021 in the other), and .010 in the final.

This is with stock-type '82 Berlinetta brakes, ~3500 stall converter in a 4L60E with shift kit, and MSD LS 2-step triggered by a momentary push-button switch mounted in the brake pedal pad. I have the 2-step set at 2900. I stare at the third amber and release as soon as I see it come on.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

Wanted to catch up to you and maybe give ya a poke.How about the 57 for this coming season??.Apart of the RT's is the car too.

After the way things went last Saturday, I almost came back in here to delete my post out of embarrassment. Couldn't find the tree, in TT's or eliminations. Still managed a win each in two classes, but it was pretty ugly.

A little redemption on Sunday - three .00x lights in eliminations, including a .004 in the semi-final (last pass I made) against a .051 put up by a tranny brake car, but the Camaro picked up a bunch on me and his 130 MPH was more than my old brain could compensate for that day, so I broke out on my last pass of the season. He happened to be the class champ for the fall season, and also won the class that day - for what that's worth.

Yes, the car is part of it. I'm planning on getting the '57 ready for next season. Just have wiring, intake and cooling hookups to make, then get exhaust fabricated and a dyno tune. It should be easier to stage (have to pump up the brakes on the Camaro while holding the line lock to get it to hold while stalling up), and for sure it's easier to judge the top end in it vs. the Camaro. Ease of staging is a big factor in RT's, especially when you have to leave first (which I usually do). So, I'm looking forward to that. When I last ran it, the '57 was a lot more hassle in general to run, but with the new engine/trans, it should be just as easy as the Camaro has been (but easier to stage...).

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

57-in any car it's you footbraking in eliminations that are tough to beat.Going in if I ran against you I would have to "try" to throw you off your game by shallow staging to double bubbling you to holding numbers for a MPH charge running the stripe.And it seems to me you have a great sense of time which makes it harder to win against you.It's those god given talents that are hard to teach.Truth of the matter is some guys go a whole racing career never achieving what you have.:nod:

I am certainly glad you live where you do so we will unlikely never have to run against each other in a battle royal.;)

With all due respect Sir.:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Having raced in two different cars the same day multiple times, I can tell you the car does play an important part in reaction time...

As for talent, while not discounting it, I would say it's more of a skill. Skill has to be developed and maintained. We all know of talented athletes who don't make it, because they aren't willing to develop their talent into skill. Happens a lot with college football players, who manage to get by on talent until they graduate, but wash out as pros because they haven't established a work ethic, and candidates with less athletic talent out work them and out perform them.

I hadn't mention it yet, but I have my pocket practice tree with me in the staging lanes, and will be hitting it while rolling to the tower. I have even found that I need to retune my brain after a little thing like putting on my helmet, or looking over at my opponent. I don't know how many times my last hit on the practice tree was red when they motion me into the waterbox, and sure enough, I go red on the run. Or the other way, when it's a mediocre last hit on the practice tree, and I cut a mediocre light on the run.

Early in the 2011 season, I was having a terrible time trying to cut a light in the Camaro, lights all over the place. I blamed the car, which I was still sorting out with the LS engine. Mid season I put a new battery in the practice tree, which I had neglected after the '57 went down in June the previous year. I found that I was all over the place with the practice tree - so much for blaming the car. That's when I started carrying the practice tree in the car, and developed the routine in the paragraph above.

I don't know if everyone needs to carry a pocket practice tree with them, but I have had a couple of track people tell me that after I started doing it, they started seeing a lot of other racers start to do it, too...

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

i have a p-tree app on my phone and ipod....gives me something to do on the airplane

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

I would usually get down to consistent .00x-.01x lights. Practice, practice, practice! A practice tree makes a huge difference. one with adjustable rollout is nice as well, so you can fine tune it to react closer to your car.

I have a Jegs pocket practice tree I got about 4 years ago. It has many functions, including delay box, .500 & .400 tree, and adjustable roll-out. But, you have to adjust the roll-out in .01 increments. Last year I would change the roll-out by .02 between running the auto car and the clutch car. Made for some "interesting" days when I was running both.

My son has a pocket practice tree he got from Summit last year. Same functions as mine, but came with a hand-held switch as well. It allows adjusting roll-out to .005. Until you get consistent, that extra adjustment fidelity really doesn't matter, though.

Re: foot brake reaction times
 

I have had days where I'm .000-.011 all day until night time later rounds and -.001 or -.002 RED. That's foot braking, no wheelies. When I use the transbrake I am always freaking red!!!!

Practice is key, also focus on getting consistent, whatever it is, then adjust it.