summer session of bracket racing 101, please open your books to page 39

Friday, 12-May-2000 17:45:33

152.163.207.197 writes:

Well, my best advice I can give is before you get to the stage lights, keep your eyes on the officials. Don't move until the officials tell you to. If you do what they want, they will become your best friend just because you listen. Ex: when they pull us out of the staging lanes, and your moving up, when you get to the front, stop, and let them tell you when to move. In other words let them be the boss. As they pull you out to the water box, don't pull in until they say, most of the time, they will pull you in and hold there hand up to wait, in other words don't do a burn out until they give you the wind up single. Usually after the person in front of you has left. Once you do your burn out, you are, for the most part, on your own from this point on, just do things at your own pace. First thing in the morning, go walk to the front of the track and take a good look at the tree and get familiar with it, (assuming you are not) find the two sets of lights on top. One set will say prestage, the next will say stage. When you role into the starting line, the first lights will come on, this is prestage. Stop and take a breath, verify your belts, make sure every thing is in its place, verify where your opponent is. Do not stage until your opponent prestages too. (This is courtesy staging) You will run into people that will stage even before you are done with your burn out too. Don't worry about it. Once in competition (elimination's) do one more check and look down the track at the score board and verify that your correct dial in time is displayed. IF NOT, put it in reverse and back out a foot or two and get the starters attention. 99% of the time they will get it right, but it sucks if you loose because of a bad dial in entry, once you stage, you have accepted that dial in time and there is no arguing after that point.

Once all your check outs are done and every thing looks peachy and you can hear "Dyno Don" screaming at the top of his lungs, well you don't have to wait for his scream, roll some 8" farther forward and trip the stage light. And the second both stage lights are on, put the motor on the limiter (assuming you have a limmiter) and wait for the tree to drop. Like Milt said, once you are on the limiter, its you against you. No one else. You are your worst enemy out there. I will try to be your second worst enemy.

Since we are all running similar times, I'm sure the cars will leave in a similar reaction. This is the hardest part of this bracket racing stuff. Timing your self to leave as close to the green with out turning on the BIG RED EYE.

I would say when the tree comes down (5 tenths 3 amber tree) lift the clutch 5 seconds after the green comes on, this way you will not beat me. Hehehhe seriously, try some where around when the last yellow just starts to appear to some 2.5 tenths after it appears. If you see the green before you lift the clutch, you Lost. You know you did pretty decent if you never actually remember seeing the green and the opponents win light doesn't come on. For me, when I'm on my game plan, I never actually see the green light even though the tree is some 40 ft out. My eyes will immediately transfer to the tach or shift light. If you get a red, don't worry, you will see it, at least I do. It just seems to throw a hook out and grab your eye. During competition, I don't care about any thing except getting into 4th gear, then I will look around for my opponent and look up to see that there is a win light on or not, even before getting to the finish. Because if your opponent does red light, your win light will come on automatically at the top end of the track, at that point, it's a free pass for you to take advantage, run it out to see how the weather, track conditions, etc will change your dial in for the next round. You can not loose at this point. So if you brake out, you can adjust your dial-in time accordingly for the next round.

Get there Saturday to get some extra practice passes in, I usually get 3 in on Saturday night, and that's me moving at a snails pace. You definitely can get more.

Any other questions or comments, feel free to ask here or at the track.

See you in the finals.

Muffler Mike