Check Your Dial

[Reed Granrt]

I would like to post a small retort and I know I am opening myself up for criticism but that is Okay, the boss of the house has taught me how humble I need to be. Errors are made each and every day. In my early years I was lucky enough to work in the timing tower of a close by drag way. I made more than my share of mistakes. It only takes one miss-punch with one finger to totally miss a number. Put your self in their shoes and honestly say that you do not make a mistake. I tell ya what to do, sit down and write a email and see if you do it without any mistakes. As I wrote this reply, I had to retype 4 words and I ONLY made 1 mistake all of last year. HeHe. Give the guys a little credit but make sure you check the board 4 ya run.
reed

[Mike Carr]

I started working last month at my home track (Quaker City). Usually announcing, but sometimes other duties. The way they do it (and the way Pittsburgh does it also), a person at the head of the lanes calls out car numbers for each pair during time trials, and car numbers and dial-ins during eliminations. Hopefully to help eliminate errors from the person in the tower in reading a slightly sloppy/small dial-in and/or car number. Seems to work pretty well. Not sure if other tracks do this or not.

[jmcarter]

Originally Posted by Reed Granrt

I would like to post a small retort and I know I am opening myself up for criticism but that is Okay, the boss of the house has taught me how humble I need to be. Errors are made each and every day. In my early years I was lucky enough to work in the timing tower of a close by drag way. I made more than my share of mistakes. It only takes one miss-punch with one finger to totally miss a number. Put your self in their shoes and honestly say that you do not make a mistake. I tell ya what to do, sit down and write a email and see if you do it without any mistakes. As I wrote this reply, I had to retype 4 words and I ONLY made 1 mistake all of last year. HeHe. Give the guys a little credit but make sure you check the board 4 ya run.
reed

Reed, I agree with you; sometimes I marvel the folks in the tower can even read the dials. Guess that's why they often have to get call down for exactly what it is. At the same time it's the racer's obligation to check and if they ever misdialed me and I lost because of it then I wouldn't even dream of asking for a rerun...you stage, you bought what's on the board. Suspect it's one of those lessons that's learned the hard way once and once is all it takes.

[Stock4106]

A strange situation happened to me at a S/SS combo race a few years back. I was racing a super stock car that was about 2 seconds faster than me, but his dial was in wrong making him leave first. My tree is coming down and I see him leave which totally distracts me. I quickly look back at my tree, leave, go red by a ton, he wins. I argued that his dial should have never been accepted due to it being over his index, and that him unexpectedly leaving first would be a natural distraction to anyone in my situation. I was told I went red, so I lost. No rerun. I was not happy about it, but I did understand and went home.

Now I check both dails before I stage.

[art leong]

Originally Posted by Stock4106

A strange situation happened to me at a S/SS combo race a few years back. I was racing a super stock car that was about 2 seconds faster than me, but his dial was in wrong making him leave first. My tree is coming down and I see him leave which totally distracts me. I quickly look back at my tree, leave, go red by a ton, he wins. I argued that his dial should have never been accepted due to it being over his index, and that him unexpectedly leaving first would be a natural distraction to anyone in my situation. I was told I went red, so I lost. No rerun. I was not happy about it, but I did understand and went home.

Now I check both dails before I stage.

I had a similar situation at the Belle Rose race this year. It was for the combo class final.
No dial ins just index to index. I ran a SS/AM car my index is 13.85. They had taken down the dial in boards because it was late and they were looking to get out as quick as they could. From inside the car I could not see the et boards at the end of the track. I left and went green. The other car roared by me before the 1/8 mile. The win light in my lane was not on, so he didn't red light. When he got to the finish line his light came on. I thought I might have had something going away, so I stayed into it almost to the finish line (when I noticed my rpms were way up there). When I got my time slip. I saw they had me on a 11.40 index. I was willing to accept the loss but I didn't want the run to count (it was .002 away from an instant hit) .
They looked up the rules (racers are responsible for checking dial in's, the tower is responsible for index's) and made us rerun the next day and the first run didn't count.

[Pete Beau]

Having a crew guy also checking for the proper dial helps. Drivers have alot on their minds at times.

[Dinsdale]

I'd like tracks to have a reader board where your dial shows up close to the start line. Us old guys sometime have a hard time making out the digits from 1/4 mile away and a burnt out light or two on the reader board can make things tough. That said, I probably only check my dial about 50% of the time so I'm as much to blame if I get bit.

[Chad Rhodes]

Originally Posted by Dinsdale

I'd like tracks to have a reader board where your dial shows up close to the start line. Us old guys sometime have a hard time making out the digits from 1/4 mile away and a burnt out light or two on the reader board can make things tough. That said, I probably only check my dial about 50% of the time so I'm as much to blame if I get bit.

I would have been ok had the boards in the burnout box been turned on, but as everyone knows, it's our fault.