It's extraordinarily rare that I ever encountered a traction issue at any IHRA event, but one year at a Bracket Finals many years ago, we were there on Wednesday for an Early Bird Gambler's race. A couple of the local staff had recently quit, and didn't tell anyone, so they were short handed, and whoever the guy was on the starting line (IHRA starter wasn't due in until the next day) must've thought his job entailed nothing more than flipping the switch. I blew the tires off in a pile of rocks on the starting line. Didn't even throw stuff in my logbook. Parked the car in my pit, got out, and stomped toward the starting line. Didn't holler, just grabbed a push broom and started working. This guy didn't even glance at me sideways like "Who's on my starting line?" Nothing. After awhile, one of the EMT's must've felt bad for me, because he grabbed the other broom and started helping. We got the line back into shape. If you drag junk into the burnout box, you're going to get junk on the starting line. It still amazes me that people don't clean out their wheel wells/rocker panels. I still get funny looks when I'm cleaning mine in the lanes... often come up with half a handful of sand or pebbles, depending on where you're pitted. With the regular staff in place, it was fine the rest of the weekend.
I worked the starting line at Quaker City before and discovered (self-evidently) that if you KEEP the starting line clean, it stays clean. I'd be over the rail every pair to get any tiny dot of fluid or pebble. Let it build up, and you're going to have trouble bringing it back around. Ran two complete rounds of time trials with 260 cars without so much as a touch-up, and the place would still take your shoes off.
Sometimes you're going to have problems that are out of your control. The best thing you can do is recognize a problem when it starts, and get on top of it as quickly as possible. We run some big money bracket races in November, and cold temps come into play at night. We've learned: If the sun is down, any time there's not a car going down the track, the drag needs to be on the track. There's no more helpless feeling for a promoter than seeing the track not working.
I've got Redman in charge of the line at the Class Nationals next year, and we'll give him all the tools he needs to do what he knows to do. Done!
