Bracket racing tips

[EddyRican]

Mar 30, 2011 16:17:49 GMT -7 srt801 said:

Bracket Racing, tips and techniques

Keys to winning

1. You will win or lose at the tree
2. Consistency, not speed, wins
3. You won’t lose with a fast dial in
4. Luck plays a part


The Staging Lanes


The race really starts in the staging lanes. To develop consistency, you must develop consistent habits in the staging lanes. The biggest hobgoblin we LX’rs must contend with is heat. Therefore, you must strive to reach the head of the staging lane at a consistent temperature.

Coolant temperature is part of the equation, but not the whole story. You should run a low temp thermostat, 180 or 170 is fine, and you need to run both of your fans to get that temperature down between runs.

The next issue is the general underhood temperature. The hotter the engine compartment, the slower your run, but by how much? Don’t guess, just get the temperature under the hood down. Do the obvious, open the hood and leave it open. I open my hood as soon as practical after a run and leave it open until I am at the head of the staging lane.

Don’t run the engine unless you are moving the car. Idling raises the coolant temperature and the underhood temperature. I leave the EVIC on the screen that shows the coolant temp and the battery voltage. If the voltage is above 12V, the car will always start. Don’t worry about the battery. To further minimize moving the car, I always try to be the first car in the line or as least as close to the head of the line as I can.


From the Staging Lane to the Tree


Consistency and well formed habits are essential as you get ready to stage. You need a checklist to make sure you have done everything you planned to do. Is ESP off, in the right gear, helmet on, seat belts fastened, windows up, etc. Follow the same sequence every time so that you do not have to think about it. You need to focus on a launch and not these other details.

Here is some good information on burnouts and staging. Of course, I don’t do burnouts (can’t), but most of you will need to.

The burnout is key.
On street tires like an RSA's you want to spin them till smoke rolls off and NO waterbox on street tires.Set them about 24 psi if its on an 8.5" rim and 26-28 on a 9" rim.

With DR's I like to keep the pressure as high as possible until the car breaks traction.....in the warmer weather I run my DR's at 28lbs and down as low as 18 in the cold.A burnout just to clean the tire and slightly warm it is all thats required.

Use the converter......don't dumb launch(just mash the gas),especially if your making power.....that breaks parts.Stall the car against the converter(one foot on brake and one on the gas)and bring the rpm's up till the car wants to move.

When the lights come down the tree and you launch just lift off the brake and maintain the pedal position on the throttle.....this will let the car "hop" off the line and get a roll before you apply more throttle(this all happens in a nano second and is where the practice comes in).

Once the car is moving roll into the throttle smoothly and quickly.

Your throttle application will vary depending on track conditions.

Most of the guys you see with crazy 60' times do it like this.Just takes alot of practice so get to the track and have fun.

However, keep in mind that the above discussion is geared toward getting the best ET’s and not for the most consistent ET’s. You want consistency and not a banzai run every pass. I found that my launch RPM’s and techniques can either be optimized for ET’s or RT’s and you will likely find the same for your car also. Experiment during the test runs each time to find that sweet spot.

Even more important than consistent runs is your RT. It is the general consensus that a deep stage gives better RT’s than a shallow stage, but keep in mind that the difference is only a few inches. In bracket racing, RT is king. You will win or lose at the line and so will your opponent, perhaps on as much as 75% or more of your runs.

You need to develop a launch technique that gives the best and most consistent RT’s. So what is a good RT? " RT means Reaction Time" not Road & Track You won’t lose very often with an RT less than .10 and you won’t win much with a .50 or higher. Of course those .00x’s will almost always win if you don’t make any other mistakes. “Red Light and good night” as the saying goes.

Getting that low RT and not the Red Light takes practice, thought, concentration and focus. It ain’t easy, but can be done with tons of seat time/practice.


At the Tree


Before staging, I make sure I am aware of the dial in for my opponent. If he is faster, I just ignore him. If he is slower but less than .50, I still ignore him. The really slow guys are trickier and you could be running someone that is 3 or 4 seconds slower.

As I approach the staging lights, I try to forget or ignore everything but the lights. If possible, I prefer to stage last as that gives me less time to think before we go. I bring my RPM’s up on the first amber and go on the third. Doing this will allow you to get a great Reaction time without red lighting and the more consistent you are the further you will get.


Those really slow guys, yeah they can be tough. Often they are beginners and will be slow on the lights and unsure of their dial in’s. But there are always some at every track that run to win with a slow car and know how to get it done. So, I try to ignore them also and just use my regular technique. It just requires a lot of focus to wait for my first amber to bring the RPM’s up.

Probably this seems a bit complicated and it is until you have done it enough that it does not require thinking about it. However, keep in mind that your opponent has to do the same thing and you really only have be better on that run than he will be, unless you Red Light. But if he Red Lights, you win no matter what you or he does after that. You should still make the run at full tilt just to verify your dial in though.


Dial in’s, much ado about not much

Ok, you ran an xx.32, an xx.36, and an xx.40 in your test runs. What should you dial in? First thing to understand is that you are now splitting small, curly hairs, the time differences demonstrated are in HUNDRETHS of a second. The second thing is the objective is not hitting your dial on the nose, the objective is to not break out. If you didn’t get your opponent at the lights, you are not likely to make it up at the finish line. So don’t break out, leave that dishonor to your opponent.

First question to answer is what was the order?
Ascending order, DA is increasing or the time interval between runs was short and you didn’t get cooled down between runs.
Descending order, DA was decreasing or you had a good cool down time.
Mixed, your launch techniques changed or the time intervals varied.
I rarely have seen DA changes of several hundred feet during a session. A 150 ft change in DA is worth about .01 in time, slower or faster. By the way, a 15% change in humidity will have the same effect. So as the sun goes down, the DA will most likely decrease and the humidity will increase.

In my experience, the cool down time between runs is really the prime consideration. If you have a cool down of 40 minutes or more between runs, you will likely be at optimal temperature for that day. On the other side, 6 or 7 minutes between runs will likely slow you down in the range of .05 or so, compounding if you continue back to back runs, and decreasing as the cool down time increases.

So you need to compare the cool down interval between practice runs to see the affect on your car on that day. At my home track, I can usually get 6 or 7 test runs without trying hard. However, at some events, you can only get 2 runs, but you usually get a well cooled car between runs.

So how do we play the sample numbers above? First issue, how long until we run again? Look at the last run and the cool down time from the previous run. If you think the cool down time would let you match your best run or you know that you just launched poorly on the slower runs, assume you will do better. If you anticipate or get a much longer cool down than you have had before, your car will run faster so allow for it.

So the magic number is .05 faster than you best run or your last run, which ever is faster. Remember we are playing with hundredths of a second here so don’t try to cut it too close, seriously. Option 2 above is most typical so we would go with xx.27.

So you are thinking “I haven’t run that fast today”. You haven’t run that fast yet, but more importantly, you can’t win if you breakout, don’t take the chance. Now you are thinking “That 2 or 3 or 5 hundredths might be the difference in the race!” Not very likely! Remember, the other guy has to dial in and not break out too. He is going to be over by 2 or 3 or 5 or more also or he is going to breakout and you win.

So the difference in winning is back at the light. You run 5 hundredths over, he runs 3 or 4 hundredths over his time and the winner will be the guy with the better light. Think about this way. You run a .07 light and he runs a 1.1 light. Will he be 6 hundredths closer on his dial in? Not unless you make a big mistake. In reality, you only have to have a 2 hundredths better light, whether it was a .01 or a 2.24.

So you win and go to the next round. Review your winning run. If you were 4 or 5 hundredths over then you look at how much cool down you will have for the next race. In most cases, you can just leave it alone. However, if the cool down is going to be short, as is common in the last couple of rounds in the bracket, you could raise the dial in by 2 or 3 hundredths. If the cool down is going to be long, you can probably lower it 2 or 3. Don’t make big changes, they will bite you. Remember, the objective is to win the race, not to hit the number. Let the other guy make the mistakes.

There is one special situation that you will encounter. You have everything all planned and know you have the right dial in for the situation, you have a good spot in the lanes and you are pumped and ready. Then a Mustang or Camaro oils down the track and it takes an hour to clean the mess up. Think! You now have an hour more of cool down time than you expected and your car is going to be faster! Take advantage of that while everyone else is jaw jacking and drinking soda pop. Bump your dial in down by another 5 hundredths. Smile quietly when your opponent fails to change his/hers.


At the finish line

You feel like you have done everything right and the finish line is coming up. Do you just let it run out or do you back off. Remember, the objective is to win the race. You don’t need to set any records and there is little glory in just running the number.

Let it run out if you are trailing, the other guy may be breaking out. If you are leading and the other car is more than a second faster on the dial in, keep the pedal to the medal. If he fly’s by you at the finish, maybe he will break out. It happens a lot.

If the other car is slower or less than a second faster and you are leading by a car length or so, you have him beat. Let out of the gas. Don’t take the chance on a breakout. You want to cross the line first, but a foot or 50 feet is still a win. Think about this way. If the opponent is dialed in near your speed or is slower, he is not going to have a burst of speed in the last 100 feet. However, those cars that are really faster than you are still accelerating hard right to the finish. Make them break out.

If you backed off, compare your interval times to your other runs. Were you running faster or slower on the interval times. Slower? Adjust your dial in. Faster? Aren’t you glad you backed off and are now going to the next round?

Another situation you will encounter is the “sand bagger”. In my experience, these are slow older cars with very skilled drivers. They can hit their brakes and still run just over their number. Watch the other competitors run and see what they do at the finish line. So how do you beat a “sand bagger”, the same way you beat everybody else, blow him off at the starting line. If your light is better, he can’t make up for that at the finish.

Go for it

You can do everything very well and still lose or you can screw up and still win. You are racing another guy that can get lucky or screw up worse than you did. We can’t all be the fastest in our class, but all of us can run and win in bracket racing. Try it and get hooked. If you have any suggestions or questions post away. We can all learn how to be more consistent winners.

What the tree looks like



When you pull up at the line for staging, you can try your luck, or your skill, to stage as far into the staged beam as you can. How you stage has a large effect on things like your reaction time and final time.

Staging "shallow" means that your car takes more time to pass through the staged light and increases your reaction time, assuming all other variables are constant. However, it lowers your final elapsed time, and increases your trap speed. This is because the timer doesn't start the timer until the tire comes out of the starting line beam. By then, your car is already moving, so you get a slight running start. This only gives you an advantage over your opponent if you are a bit quicker in your reaction time to make up the difference. The thing is, the race is won based on who crosses the finish line first, not your elapsed time. It's possible to have a quicker time and still lose because you were late off the line. Shallow staging also allows for a driver who leaves early or creeps forward a bit before the green light.


"Deep" staging puts you at the edge of disqualification, but also a little closer to the finish line, which is always an advantage. If you find that you can't get your reaction time down enough, either because your car is a little jumpy off the line or you are having trouble leaving on that last yellow, deep staging can help. If you have large-diameter front tires, you probably want to deep stage to decrease your rollout. But be aware that if you car has very little ground clearance, pieces of the front bodywork or suspension can also trigger the lights. Be sure that it is really your tire in the staged beam, and not your front chin spoiler.

So in conclusion, shallow staging increases your reaction time, reduces your elapsed time and increases trap speed, while being the safe choice for beginners. Deep staging decreases your reaction time, increases elapsed time and reduces the final trap speed, putting you at the edge of disqualification so it should be reserved for experienced racers.

That should cover the basics of getting ready for your drag run without heavy modifications to your car. There are more things that people do, like put ice on the air intake and such, but those are touchy subjects. And launching the car is another subject by itself. Just have fun. For as little as $10, you can test your skills at a proper drag strip, while speeding to your heart's content and keeping your behind out of jail.

[440Gordy]

Ok, here's my two cents. Chris has given a lot of great information, but I'm going to give the "Drag Racing for Dummies" version.

The big key is constancy, constancy, constancy, constancy, constancy. What ever you do, do it the same way each and every time! That's it! I tried to keep this simple for Kira and it seemed to work. Now remind you I'm no expert by any means. Just things I have picked up from people I've talked to at the track the last couple of years.

Here's what we do and I'm listing them in my order of importance, as pertaining to our type of bracket racing with normal street cars. The further you get down the list the least important it is.

Staging
RMR requires curiosity staging. This means when you come to the staging area you move up until the first amber light is lit. You hold there until the other car lights up the first amber light as well. This is called "Pre-Stage". Once both cars are pre-staged then you can continue to finish staging. There are reasons for this, but in an effort to keep it simple I'm not going to get into why. You are staged when both of the top amber lights are lit.

When you stage, you need to stage exactly the same way every time. If your staging differently you'll have trouble getting your timing with the lights down. Kira will pre-stage the car and then inch forward until she just turns on the second light and stops. That way she knows she is in the exact same position every time she races. It also means that the car has the same exact distance to travel before the beam sees that the tire has moved and the clock starts ticking.

Launch
This is when the car takes off or you hit the gas. Again the key is to do it exactly the same way every time. For most people I would recommend leaving the engine at idle, especially if you are new to drag racing. The reason for this is again, the car is in the exact same stage every time you take off. Remember the name of the game is constancy! If you raise the RMP's you have to the RPM's at the exact same point each and every time you launch. If not it will effect the final time of your car. It may only be 200th of a second, but you can loose a race by 200th of a second. This is the method that my daughter uses, as well as some some other successful bracket racers I know. This type of launch won't damage most stock cars as it's no different that punching it at a light.

ABS
I recommend turning the ABS off, some people feel differently. The reason being is if you have it on and if it notices that your tires are starting to spin, it will automatically back off on the throttle (even if you have it floored) in an attempt to stop the tires from spinning again effecting your time.

Tires
My recommendation if you are running normal street tires, do not go through the water box (this is an indent in the pavement where they spray water to aid people so they can break their tires loose to heat them up - this is where you see them smoking their tires at the beginning of a drag race) but go around it. Once your on the other side you can punch it if you like to make sure that you knock off an loose dirt or debris, but do not heat them up! Most normal street tires become more slippery if they are heated up too much. If you are running a high performance tire then you can heat them up a little bit if you like. I've never had to heat my tires up, even though I'm running high performance tires. If your running drag radials or slicks, then it's a totally different story.

I've played with tire pressure and really didn't find much advantage running the tires at a lower pressure. Again the main key is to make sure that the pressure is the same at the end of racing as it was at the beginning. Again keeping things consistent.

Keep you Foot in it!
You need to keep you foot on the gas until you are past the finish line!

Car Temp
I have been running the stock thermostat on my car and don't seem to have any issues. We do watch the temp of the car, but the temp we have picked is 203 degrees. The reason for this is we've found it's the easiest temp to consistently maintain. It's also the temp that the car has ran it's best time. I've found that temp on the newer stock cars really doesn't effect the time very much. My car has ran the same average time weather it's at 180 degrees or 230 degrees. Again it's just best to keep things consistent.

Misu
Some of the other things we do is to make sure that the A/C is turned off. Also Kira puts the car into auto shift mode.

There are all kind of little tricks people do to help improve their time, but going faster just gives you more bragging rights, doesn't really win you races. It's cool to see if you can get your car to go faster, but save that for fun races and not when your in eliminations.

The last thing to remember is that you are basically racing yourself and your time. Don't worry about the other car. If your dial in time is good and your consistent off the light, you could have the slowest car and win. When Kira was racing in the High School Class last year she had the fastest car. Every time she had to sit there at the light watching the slower cars leave before her, getting a good head start. If she focused on the other car and how much of a lead they were getting, she would be a little quick on the peddle and red light. She was always having to play catch up. If both cars were close on their dial in time, she would just catch them right at the finish line.

This sounds like a lot, but after the first couple of runs it's not that big of a deal. But it is a lot of fun! Plus we'll be there to help you out with the details.

Hope this helps!

[MikEy]

This is the one i used before.

Items to take with you: Small ICE CHEST, 2 BAGS OF ICE, RAG,
OLD BATH TOWEL, TIRE PRESSURE GAUGE, SHOE POLISH (I use a brand called Dial In).

1.---Remove your spare tire and jack assembly--leave at home

2.---Remove the spare tire wheel well cover--leave at home

3.---Take a cooler with you that is big enough to hold 2 x 7 pound bags of ice

4.---Put the cooler in the car between the passenger front seat and the back seat {if you trust people just leave the cooler in your pit area}

5.---Buy Shoe Polish that wipes off with a rag. it is called Dial-In and it is made by Geddex: part #916

6.---Remove the engine cover (to let heat dissipate better from the
intake)--leave it at home

7.---Take one rag to wipe off the numbers when you are done at the track. Don't drive home with your numbers on your window as it is a FLAG waiving to the local Police. Also take an old bath towel with you and lay it on top of the intake manifold while the car is sitting in the staging lanes and put your ice on top of the towel. You are trying to keep the intake as cold as possible. Remove the ice and towel and put them back into the cooler before you make a pass down the 1/4 mile.

8.---Get to the track early. (try to get there at least 15 minutes before it
officially opens)

9.---Take a tire pressure gauge with you to the track. Adjust the rear tire pressure to 22 to 23 psi. The front tires move up to 42 psi. DO THIS AT THE TRACK ONLY AND THEN RESET BACK TO 32 PSI ON ALL 4 WHEN YOU LEAVE THE TRACK !!!!

10.--Try to let your car's engine cool of about 30 minutes between passes.You are trying to make passes when the water temp is around 150.

11.--Find out if the track broadcast in simulcast over your Charger's radio.
If they do set your radio to that station to listen to announcements and
lane assignments. ASK THIS WHEN YOU PAY TO GET IN....

12.--When you go into the staging lanes to finally make your first pass be
sure to TURN OFF the ESC and your A/C

13.--Have only 1/2 tank of gas (don't go any less as it will slosh to the back
of the tank--any more is just extra weight)

14.--Take all the stuff out of the glove box--center console--door
pockets--again less weight)

15.--Stay out of the water box !!!! (all that does is get water into your
tread) drive around it if you can

16.--Do one GOOD BURN OUT (just to clean off any debris on your rear tires)

17.--Now slowly pull up to the TREE and turn on the top yellow light (STOP)

18.--You now have 6 inches before the next yellow light comes on (try to go in slow and easy---once that light comes on and your opponent has both lights on the tree will come down.

19.--Start to power brake the engine to 1,500 rpm (but not much more)

20.--There will be THREE AMBER LIGHTS that will flash every .500 second
(try to leave after the 2nd one goes out but before the 3rd one comes
on)--some tracks have .500 as perfect others are .000 ASK an Official

21.--You are trying to cut a GOOD light (some tracks have a .500 as perfect others have a .000---you want to be as close to .500 as possible)

22.--Try NOT to RED LIGHT as you loose then.

23.--FLOOR IT until you get to the last set of cones---once you pass that--then lift off the gas and slowly apply the brakes--stay in your lane

24.--When coming back down the return road--turn on your DEFROSTER to
HIGH HEAT & HIGH SPEED FAN--also pop the hood and drive no more
than 20 mph (you are helping cool off your engine)

25.--Get your time slip and LOOK at your Reaction Time--your 60 foot time
and then see what you ran and if you WON !!!!) If you have a good memory write as much as you can remember on the back of your time slip; such as how much gas, grade/brand of gas, oil temp, tire pressures, Density Altitude,
launch rpm, in auto stick or drive.

26.--REPEAT---better known as practice !!!!!!

[Deleted]

Great tips Gordon & Mikey! Thanks for sharing. Gordon, I am sure you meant ESP(traction control) and not ABS (anti lock brake system). For those srt8 owners, you can hold down the ESP button on the dash for more than 5 seconds, you will hear a chime and if you have EVIC, you will see it on your EVIC cluster. For those Non srt8, you will probably have to use your Diablo Programmer to put car in Dyno Mode. Very easy to do and completely safe for your car. This just prevents your traction control system from slowing car down if there is any wheel spin. If you are unsure on how to do these, just ask! We are all here to help. I showed Ken in CA @ SpringFest and he was doing burnouts with 22s. :thumbs up: