ET with and without wheelie.

[Dan Bennett]

Originally Posted by Bob Sherwood

You need to look at your G-meter -that will show you what is really going on

Excellent point. Back in the day all we had for data acquisition was lacking in a lot of ways. The holy grail for me was in tracking ground speed. The g-meters at the time (and sadly, the most popular DA computer) did not have sample rates fast enough to give a precise view of what was going on. Yes, it would give you a general idea, but like Stahl used to say "there's a reason we don't measure bores with a yardstick". He understood how important precision was in almost every area of racing.

A couple of times I ran across teams trying to step things up. Chuck Peterson had a 5th wheel with speed sensor tucked under his PM Chevelle until the IHRA made him remove it. He told me it was more of a pain than a breakthrough, since any decent amount of sideways movement would just fold it up.

I was standing under the tower drivethrough during a night session at Englishtown. Harold Stout's car had a light go on from under the car in front of the right slick when they fired he engine. I had found that system previously, used on Bonneville cars - the sensor would measure the time it took for the sensor (aimed straight down towards the surface, beam aimed a bit forward) to move across the beam and then calculate the speed. I asked Donnie Gardner about it later and he said he hadn't gotten much useful info from it. That could have been whitewashing, but he always seemed like a pretty straighforward guy.

To explain why I was so interested in that tech, remember that the only reliable thing we had to look at was driveshaft speed. And if you think about it, that alone tells you very little about exactly what's going on. How much, if any, of that speed was created by a slightly (or more) spinning, non-glued to the track slick? No way to tell for sure.

[Barry Polley]

Originally Posted by Stan Weiss

Billy,
I believe it can be summed up in one word.

verb: pontificate;
/p?nˈtifəˌkāt/

express one's opinions in a way considered annoyingly pompous and dogmatic.

Stan

Well I don?t think I?ve heard it summed up better.
Mic drop?