starting line reaction tools/methods for stockers

[CrateCamaro]

Originally Posted by 1664SSJA

It always amazed me that if you look around....it's easy.... the ones most serious about what they do, and those doing best, are doing what you say, Its a no brainer. I would venture to guess if some people were tested in the morning, they'd prob blow over the limit!
NOT good.

Your absolutely right. Some people can't see the difference between having a few and having too many. What scares me is all the clowns flying around on golfcars and atv's drunk when my car is outside the trailer. Im going to have to ask Dan Fletcher what he does next time I talk to him in the lanes. I can remember a second call for superstock to the lanes and passing him while he was walking back to his trailer with an ice cream. If eating ice cream will help me win a national count me in.

[SSDiv6]

I will take one example of an old racer that takes care of himself: Bob Dennis. Those that know Bob, will recognize that he jogs and also stays in a healthy diet. Let's also acknowledge that he did not only qualified #1 at Indy, but also won Super Stock class. Indy, due to its lenght, can be trying to many racers.

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by CrateCamaro

Im going to have to ask Dan Fletcher what he does next time I talk to him in the lanes. I can remember a second call for superstock to the lanes and passing him while he was walking back to his trailer with an ice cream. If eating ice cream will help me win a national count me in.

In lieu of ice cream, he could have been eating some nutritional and healthy frozen yogurt...

[CrateCamaro]

ok enough man...go have a beer and stop it with your frozen yogert.

[David Lee]

I have been off road racing (SCORE) for the last 7 years. I noticed a big differnece between the off road crew and the drag racers. I noticed that most drag racers were in bed by 10 and not seen until the pits opened. The off roaders left thier hotel rooms at 10 and drank all night long. One of the top drivers told me that a hang over just made him drive a little meaner

[George Mirza]

This is an interesting topic, and so far most of the discussion has been on driver reaction time (DRT), but I think the author was looking for tips on vehicle reaction times (VRT). As most of you know DRT is very difficult to change, you can sharpen it but making it consistant is the thing. I agree 100% with getting rest, staying hydrated, eating right and physically fit as very important factors.

One thing most of the older racers face are meds for many different kinds of health issues. Many of these can affect ones natural reaction time, this is something the average person would never notice, but as a drag racer you will when thousands of a second count.

As I mentioned earlier being consistant is the most important, yet most difficult factor to achieve. Thats where practice and natural abilitly come in. Face it some racers have it and some don't and never will, some people are just better at certain things in life than others. The difference between the great drivers and the good drivers is DRT consistancy. A great driver will have a RT variation of say (these are just random numbers) .020 average of 50 RT's where the average racer may be .040. So the racer with the .020 RT variation can set his car up to react closer to .000 than the racer with .040 RT variation.

Once you reach this point you can start to adjust the car to work with you. When the car is working right and the driver has a comfortable spot on the tree and the VRT is right you'll start going rounds. Often you'll see a racer change a converter, gear ratio, or tire size and all of a sudden he starts winning rounds. It can go the other way also, being class racers we are always trying to go faster and sometimes a change may pick the car up .1 but hurt the VRT by .05 and now you have a faster car to lose in the early rounds with. Now it's time to make more adjustments and it just keeps on going.

Let's hear about some things that can help VRT's. I'll start with converters, if your late put a tighter one in and if your red a looser one may help. Thats if adjusting the launch RPM doesn't help, some times it will sometimes you won't see enough change. So lets hear some others.

[Ron Ortiz]

At the season opener divisional race in Bradenton, FL I took my future son in law. He had a good time and enjoyed all the cool looking cars. All the friendships and howdy do's from other racers that I have'nt seen since last year impressed him. I informed him of the great parties at night with all these other people. What a dissapointment to walk around the pits at 9:00 and see no one. It was like a ghost town. Everybody was huddled in their motorhomes or had gone off to their motel rooms. I believe that we saw maybe 4 areas where there were people hanging out, but it was not as if they were having a good time. I guess that most people have decided to lead the clean life and get ready for the upcoming days activities. I would understand this reasoning if it was on a Saturday night, with eliminations starting at 8:00 AM on Sunday, but this was a Friday night. What a dissapointment.
If anybody is at a race and wants to have a good time at night, look me up, I'll be the one with a beer in hand and food in my mouth sitting there waitnig to party.

Ron Ortiz
U/SA maybe I should get serious..................right.

[Ron Ortiz]

Good post Mr. Mirza. I spoke to Scotty Richardson years ago just before he won the Stock Championship. I asked him what was the difference between his performance last year when he was going red quite a bit, and this year when he was cutting good lights. he said to me that he weakened his front end springs to slow the cars reaction down and put him where he wanted to be.
Even though I speak of the partying side of racing not affecting what happens during the race the following day, it is extremely important that your race car be properly set up to compliment the driver.

Ron Ortiz
U/SA am i getting serious.................oh no

[Michael Beard]

Tire sizes, tire presure (both front *and* rear), launch rpm (not to mention actual staging technique, re: bumping in and then getting on the coverter vs getting on the converter and then bumping the car in), taking extra bumps after staged, staging alignment, sunglasses, choosing a lane based on the sun's orientation with the tree, shock settings...

Changing a converter just to move r/t sounds like way too much work for me, George! But otherwise great post! You hit on the most important thing -- if the driver's not consistent, you can throw everything else away, because you don't know what you're adjusting FROM. Race or test a lot, and worry about becoming a consistent reacting driver first. I don't care if you're .080 green or -.020 red all day long, just as long as you are *something* all day. Once you've found *your* spot, then you can go to work on the car.

Some people think that there is just one spot for a driver... that may be true for some, but if you mess around with a practice tree long enough on different rollouts, you may find that you can be comfortable in several different sweet spots that may be several hundredths apart. You may have one "best" spot, but there may be others that are quite good for you as well, and give you a fighting change. I've driven more than one car that I had to leave on the 2nd bulb going out... cars anywhere from high 15's to high 9's!

Another important note is that all of these opinions are just that -- listen to everyone, then go figure out what works best for YOU. Every driver is different. Chip Johnson is a killer top-bulb racer, but he's a tree counter when bottom-bulbing. Some people like to block, and some are worthless if they can't see it coming (me). Arm yourself with information and seat time.

I guess the best advice I can give class racers is what I told Jim Bailey earlier this year: "Approach driving like you do building your car. Break it down into its component pieces and say 'How do I make that piece better?'"

I've been working on a Guide to Bracket Racing off and on since college. I'd finish it someday, but I keep learning stuff.

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by Ron Ortiz

At the season opener divisional race in Bradenton, FL I took my future son in law. He had a good time and enjoyed all the cool looking cars. All the friendships and howdy do's from other racers that I have'nt seen since last year impressed him. I informed him of the great parties at night with all these other people. What a dissapointment to walk around the pits at 9:00 and see no one. It was like a ghost town. Everybody was huddled in their motorhomes or had gone off to their motel rooms. I believe that we saw maybe 4 areas where there were people hanging out, but it was not as if they were having a good time. I guess that most people have decided to lead the clean life and get ready for the upcoming days activities. I would understand this reasoning if it was on a Saturday night, with eliminations starting at 8:00 AM on Sunday, but this was a Friday night. What a dissapointment.
If anybody is at a race and wants to have a good time at night, look me up, I'll be the one with a beer in hand and food in my mouth sitting there waitnig to party.

Ron Ortiz
U/SA maybe I should get serious..................right.

Ron, that is an interesting observation. Just do a poll on the age of the Stock and Super Stock population ages and you will see that there are not a lot of young people racing in these classes in comparison to the older folks that are racing. A lot of the young ones are the kids of racers.

In the past, we have discussed the shift in the population of our classes; interesting enough, we have come to the conclusion that many of the kids are more interested in Japanese/JDM/Ricers/Drifting, Hip-Hop/Rap music, technology/computers, hybrids, environment and text messaging. In a nut-shell, a lot of us are getting old and many of our kids are not interested. Also, look at the limited selection of new cars to race; probably with the advent of the new S/SS factory race cars from Ford and Dodge, things may change. Also, the cost of racing has escalated.

The new kids cannot afford that buy an old muscle car and build a car from scratch because the prices have gone up with the classic car auctions and the trends to modifiy the cars just like Unique and Fosse by lowering the cars, putting big wheels and big sound systems.

Let's face the reality...our population is growing older, health issues pop-up and we cannot party the way we did in our earlier days.