4-wide Pro red lights

[bill dedman]

Big Show sed:

"If you're worried about leaving first you can do 2 things:

1. Build a faster car.

2. Learn how to drive the one you have."

How do either of these suggestions apply to the omnipresent situation in which the first-to-leave car is required to race under the current rule that guarantees an unequal chance of winning (100% red light jeopardy for the first car to leave, with NO red light jeopardy for the second car to leave, should the first car bulb)???????

They don't apply. When Christmas Tree "handicapped racing" was new, there was a time when the first car to break out was the automatic loser .

The "whiners" got that changed into the long-standing system that is now used, wherein the car that breaks out the most loses. It's done with software. No software existed at that time, that could compare red lights. So, NHRA did the only thing they could and created the "first or worst" rule.. but, there never has been a "worst." It's always the "first red light loses."

Now, we COULD have a "worst red light loses rule," since the software now exists to make it work, and is installed on at least SOME of the Comp-U-Link computers in use..

But we're still stuck in the past, with this antiquated "first-or worst" rule, which has no "worst," as currently practiced; it's just the FIRST...

They fixed the "first can to breakout" inequity when the software to make it possible to compare the two breakouts was developed

Now that the software exists to make it posible to fix the red light problem, why not fix it, too? Let's make it fair for everybody..

As far as " when you do draw a fast car he has to judge you at the big end,".

It is universally accepted that the car that is going faster at the finish line has the advantage insofar as "driving the stripe" goes. That's why you see 1,000-horsepower Super-category cars running active throttle stops in the .90 classes, so they can be the faster car at the finish line; it's an advantage. Don't try to turn that into an advantage for a slower car... it isn't.