from the horses mouth so to speak..
Carl (The official timer at York) sent me this info and he has no objection to it being posted on Cliosport.
Excellent Stuff !
Joe.. (I have thanked him a lot for this, what a nice guy !)
To: <A title=captainslarty@ntlworld.com href= "mailto:captainslarty@ntlworld.com">U face=Arial color=#0000ff The Captain /U
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 11:00 AM
Subject: RE: advise please.
Well, in "proper" racing he reaction time, although not part of the run time is usually what wins the race.
The reaction time is the time between the last amber and the cars front wheels leaving the staging beams. There is .5 of a second between the last amber light (if using a sportsman tree - um, all lights count down one by one) and the green light - thus if you set off when you see the ambers you will get a better reaction time.
As the green comes on .5 of a second after the last amber, if you less than a .500 reaction time you are deemed to have jumped the lights (because you started moving before the green light was showing).
There are different types of racing :
"heads up" racing is where both drivers get a green light together. The first one to cross the finish line is the winner.
Now, imagine the 8 second car in the left hand lane is asleep on the line and the 12 second car cuts a .500 light (ie perfect). The 8 second car sets off and gets a 4.5 second reaction time. The 12 second car passes the finish line first and wins - yet the 8 second car is a faster car.
This type of racing is used for a lot of classes, but sometimes can be seen as unfair (fast car will usually beat slow car - and there is not so much "good driving" involved). This is the sort of racing you will be used to with RWYB, and the shootouts.
Reaction time is not important during qualification as it is not counted in the time.
Picture 2 identical cars on the start line, if both drivers can get their cars to run 12.5 all the time, the winner of any race will be the driver who can cut the perfect light.
Top fuel drivers who drive 6 second type cars will consistently get .501 lights. This is because the cars are so closely matched it is all in the reaction time.
"bracket" racing is where drivers write on their cars what time they think they will run. This is called a dial-in. The driver that runs closest (without breaking out of their dial-in) will be no.1 qualifier.
When the elimination rounds happen, the dial-ins become really important. Imagine again that an 8 second car and a 12 second car are racing. The 8 second car writes an 8.1 dial-in on the side of their car and the 12 second car writes 12.2. These figures are put into the computer and the lights will go down to green at different times for each driver, so as to handicap the faster car.
How this works is, the 12.2 dial in is 4.1 seconds slower than the 8.1 dial-in, thus the 12 second car gets green lights 4.1 seconds before the 12 second car.
When the 12 second car gets green lights they have to catch-up to the 8 second car, and overtake it ! without going faster than 12.1 seconds.
This makes the racing more exciting as each car has equal chance to win - it is all down to driver skill.
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60ft times are the times when you go past the tree.
1/8th mile is by the york dragway sign
1/4 is obvious
The 60ft times can tell you how good a launch you are getting. For example if you can adjust your turbo, you will be able to make changes and see how much difference it makes to your start. A turbo that does not kick in for ages will not help your launch
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There seems to be a trend for taking out one of the front lights of a car, do not see how this can make the car quicker (if it worked I suspect the pro stockers would do it). Oh, and burning out on one wheel is a no-no (one hot wheel one cold). Handbrake whilst burning out (hahaha) you would not believe how many people think that is right ! All it does is spot your back tyres.
Trick with burnouts is to get your wheels in the water on the concrete burnout pads... then drop clutch and floor it. Make sure traction control is off
Gets your tyres warm, thus should give you a better launch.Oh, call-up... the little call-up lights on the top of the tree - no point being on the start line till they are there lit. MANY people sat on the start line hurting their clutches and giving their rev limiter some action. MMMmmm love the smell of clutch in the morning - smells like victory. The lights cannot go green until call-up is there. I enter the race numbers into the computer and tell it that race control is ready which brings the call-up lights on. That is when drivers should come onto start line
Cant think of anything else atm
I am still a happy bunny as I saw Vectra GSis racing for the first time, and saw that my Astra GSi is as fast as the Vectra GSi
Woohoo. I knew it was much faster than the Vectra SRi (2.0) as I have one of those too.Anyway, Hope that helps.
Any questions feel free to ask
)Carl Smith
