What is your worst reaction time
 

Thought I would add a little bit of fun as I seen someone mention a bad light in another post. A freind of mine wanted me to run his car at a bracket event. He wanted to see if the car reacted the same way with another driver. This is the first time I had ever been in an electronics car(trans brake and such). He went through the spill and I was ready to go(of course I was sure, um hum, I got it, lets go). I looked over and saw the delay timer and (yes I was that stupid) thought it was some sort of device that would control my ET. Like an idiot I hit the first little button and I got it to 5. I thought to myself "Hell yes. I want to go as fast as it will go and I know it don't run 5's. Never been faster than my 11 sec bracket car". I did my burnout and staged. I hit the transbrake button and waited on the bottom yellow released the button at full throttle banging the chip and nothing. I started looking around and was looking down at the shifter and bang. Car took off like a fat man waiting to eat at Ryans. My reaction time was 5.036 and I walked around looking to my right for several days.

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Thats awesome......about 8 years ago, the LAST real build I did was of a 67 Galaxy , 351 Cleveland pretty fun and dead consistent brakcet car at 12.6 spot on. Being a weekend cruiser and bracket car it was slick "on the cheap" Well right after it spent 4 months in the paint shop and was looking "right"

Well I went out to 42, looking good, ran great and I finally talked the old man into taking it down the track.

I went over everything with him, line lock, trans brake, etc....and hes sitting at the line tree goes down and hes looking down and around, at buttons and gauges and such well hed never driven a TB ca and well couldnt figure out why he wasnt going (I explained all this to him) the other Guy was long gone and on my third shout of "GO DAMMIT" he finally heard me through the glass and helmet. His hand came off the button to basically throw up in the air and off he went.....lol....2 second....

Total was 14.6.....spot on...lol. (its a big inside joke for us, "Now I dont want to be having to yell GO....pay attention to the tree)

Me probably something like that being distracted.

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

at a big money footbrake race they posted "first round worst winning reaction time" would get a biondo practice tree. guy went red to me so i sat there for about 1 min. then went back on converter, ran dead on. they said i wondered who would figure that one out. they would not give me the tree, but they did think it was funny!

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Recent screw up. I drove our GT/GA Duster in Baton Rouge at the IHRA national event. Some years ago, we crashed the car, had short time to fix it including a windshield. We could only get a tinted, shaded on the top. It didn't have any effect on anyone until I got in the car. I'm 6.2" and fat so my body don't really go to the bottom of the plastic seat. The shaded area is in the lights. I had two green stage lights, three green lights going down, and one real green which looked like the other lights. The starter kicked the 1/4 panel first and then opened the door and said leave. Not real good.

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

I had a .161 RT at an IHRA race in 2005 (at my home track no less). I still have no idea....guess I just missed it.

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Jeff, was it Reggie? You should have kicked him back. Thats funny.

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

I got one to tell on Kevin Helms. At No Problem at the Cajuns, he ran someone is Stock Eliminator. I was in the tower, and his opponent had an .008 or something like that, and Amy Faulk and myself were in the tower looking at the screen when the .136 light comes up. So now I gotta know. He said he put a real high chip in the car which is a 396 stick, when he went to the mat, it was so high, he just lost his place, thought about moving his feet, and then left, hence the .136. Very unusual for a guy who a .030 is a bad light.

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

I still think I would rather race Kevin that that Simoneaux kid yall got down there. He scares the crap out of me on the tree.

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Hey Floyd, you talkin' 'bout me? :D

I had a really bad weekend, I finally got comfortable in the car. And then just couldn't wake up and hit the tree. First round, anything better than a 0.150 would have been good enough...........................

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

:eek:

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Hey Floyd, I am not sure but I think the worst R/T belongs to a Funny Car driver. I remember he said that the light came on and he was so late that he pretended that he was broke, to avoid having the worst R/T in history.

As far as worst lights go, me personally, about a .036

Ron Ortiz
U/SA ..............

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Uhh Ron,put that decimal point one spot to the right.Thank you.Truth in advertising.

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Ron, If your WORST light is a .036 remind me never to line up next to you!:D

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Ed, I do not need to move the decimal. My natural reaction time is .022 If you take roll out and remove it and run on a pro tree set at .000 it will show what your true reaction time is. My worst was an .036 So there you go.

Now as far as RT at the races when it is posted on a time slip, I'd just rather not talk about it. Put it this way, I know exactly when to leave, I just don't do it all the time.

Ron Ortiz
U/SA Reactions like a cow

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

After carding a .007rt in qualifying, I'm very embarrassed with my .121 in rnd #1 @ Tucson 2wks ago...

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

I thought you were talking about being in the car.Even Peter and Fletcher aren't that good.

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

How about worst RT and still win the round.....

This story is true and I have the track paper writeup to prove it.....

I was bracket racing.....footbraking my Vega in SuperPro....Car was running around 9.7's....

Had a .00x Rt in the qtrs......had to race someone in the semi's that was prone to make mistakes so I said to myself a couple times before we staged...."don't foul whatever you do"!......he was dialed about 10.90..... The tree came down on my side and I froze on the bottom bulb.....when I finally hit the pedal I knew I was WAY late.......ran down there and saw his nose never drop so I hit the brakes......I was +.23 green......and my opponent broke out!.....I went in for the final and was again .00x and my opponent, a much better racer, was .01.....I pedaled hard and ran dead on for the win as I slid by him.............So my worst winning RT was .73 on a .500 tree....

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

A year ago at Bandimere my friend goes to the line 1st round dialed 11.72 the other guy is dialed 10.27. The tree comes down and my friends car dies at the line. The other guy goes .043 runs it out never slowing and goes 10.23. My friend watches the other guy breakout starts his car has a 22.03 reaction time goes down the track run 12.27 for the win. Unbelievable and his luck continued the rest of the day with redlight wins, breakout wins and a bye run to win the event that day. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.:eek:

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

I can't recall my worst..guessing 9 something. I never kept those timeslips, throwing them out the window.

However a better story was years ago before the LED trees I was bracket racing an old Merc land barge and couldn't cut anything better than a .670. After 3 tries at the 3rd amber I got frustrated and left on the 2nd amber purposely trying to go red. To my amazement it went green, nailing a .503 on a 5 tenths tree!!! Was really ticked I couldn't repeat during eliminations, going red instead.

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Drooze told a story about me being about 14 and some change on reaction time..... but it wasn't my fault... He should have banged on the window or done something else to wake me up..... I had never driven that car before and frankly hadnt even driven at the track in 40 years...

It is so cozy in that helmut and a stock car........that I must have fallen asleep.. yea. that's the ticket....That is my story and I am sticking to it.

I bought a porta tree and practice regularly now... recently had a friend into the shop with his son who was in town and was a racer too. I got out the porta tree to show him. We hit a few lights, and I was crushing him.. Then he started to "get it" and was getting close to my times, and I said "OK, this is the last time " He agreed, and we ran it one last time. I hit an .000 and he hit a .025 and said he Wow.... How often can you do that?

I said, "every time I really want to"..... and I smiled... putting the porta tree back into the box and thinking how that was really good planning to have said this will be our last run.....

The last time I saw an .000 reaction time on the timing slip, it belonged to the guy in the other lane...

David
The New Hemi Guy

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

In 1997,when I was 16, I was racing in the high school class at Numidia Dragway. I was racing an 1989 5.0L Mustang at the time that went 14.90's.The track had one high school race a season to decide who went to bracket finals. During second round the sun got so bright that it didn't even look like the tree was coming down and it was. I didn't pick up on the 3rd yellow until it was almost turning green. I don't remember how bad the light was, but it was def a 4 digit one. The funny part was when we got to the 1/8th mile the scoreboards started flickering and we only had numbers to the 1/8th mile when we got our time slips. The guy I raced was .050 on the tree and I had a 4 digit light. They brought us bad to the lanes for a re-run and I won. I still feel bad for that guy almost 13 years later!

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Floyd, I would be happy to give you a shot at me. I probably have the car fixed by now....

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

My worst reaction time was at Gate Way International in the final round when my partner/crew chief came up to me, opened the door and said..."Whatever you do, don't red light" then slammed the door shut. Need I say more? lol I would have rather taken runner up with a red than runner up watching the grass grow "green".

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Hopefully soon. I am still scared of that Simoneaux kid though. :D

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

Floyd, it only matters what kind of light you cut, and how close you can run on your dial. It does'nt matter who is in the other lane, if you can do the above, things will turn out OK, and if you get beat, then your opponent did a better job.

Ron Ortiz
U/SA Cool is good

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

I was racing a faster car one time and on the hit of the gas the car backfired out of the carb and took about 1.5 sec to break the beams, the other driver drove out the back door and broke out boy were they pissed.

my great driving skills won that won lol

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

This year at Norwalk I was hot on the tree during qualifying. First round had a.023 light not to bad. second round a .032 decent enough. Third round a Brain fart .289. Yes I wrote it correctly.
I Picked a bad time to glance at the oil pressure. Ahhhh Duuuhhhh. And to make things worse I ran 9 thou over my Dial, and a light somewhere in the .060-.070 range would have won me the race. Bahhh oh well we all have our moments.

Re: What is your worst reaction time
 

this is funny,,,,i was trying a blinder ,,(kept going red) ,,works great if you are the first car leaving ,but if you are chasing ,different story had a .250 light wasnt even in the same zip code,,couldnt get with in 2 car lenghts ,,,didnt even look at the time slip when i took it from the shack,,,looked at the numbers back at the pits and was real upset ,,,double breakout ,,,if i tossed i the towel before the run i would have got the round ,,,,,gmonde