How much ET do you kill by lifting at the MPH cone 1 time?

Where do you primarily try to kill ET?

How much do/have you hold/held during a run?

What is your theory behind how much or little you hold?

Do you believe in holding every run or only in some cases?

How do you choose whether you're going to hold that run or not?

Do you think a guy who has a consistent car is at a disadvantage if everyone knows he's dialing to go dead on? Why?

Wow,that's alot of questions all at once.

IMO the best answer to all of your questions is to be predictability unpredictable.

I never hold numbers, except when I hold numbers.

Holytown, great questions. Obviously you see we have a bunch of old geezers here that would rather speak about the past.

Q1 depends on mph of car.

Q2 multiple places

Q3 enough to make you look perfect on the track

Q4 similar to Q3 and Q5

Q5 depends on who you're racing or track conditions

Q6 similar to Q3, 4, 5, 6

Q7 no, actually at an advantage if you can get them to believe you're not or you can give them a different look each time.

SL...

quote:

Originally posted by 1320racer:
https://learn.thisisbracketracing.com/

What Ed wrote….. Excellent place to learn this and much more

When a guy can let go at .000 and hold his foot to the floor to run dead on zero,I'm not sure all of this matters.

I hold more when I index race because I have more time to judge and dump. If my index is 9.00, I'm going into the race knowing it'll run 8.95. Bracket racing, I base my "holding" on how fast or slow the car is next to me. I'll usually dial dead on if I'm running a car 1.5 seconds or more faster than me. I don't worry about what the other guy is doing, unless he's Mr. Big Ego in the lanes, then I play games.

SL pretty much covered it, but I'll add...

- How much ET do you kill by lifting at the MPH cone 1 time?

Depends on the gear, weight, carb, mph, 1/8 or 1/4, how long you lifted, etc. Your job is to practice something repeatable and learn how much it is for YOU and YOUR combo. i.e. Quick rips with my EFI combination don't do hardly anything. Rip it once in the 1/4 mile with my buddy's thermoquad 340 Stocker, and the thing about stops. LOL

- Where do you primarily try to kill ET?

Depends on the run and how the race is playing out. Typically it's very late in the run, as I usually don't have much if any work to do.

- How much do/have you hold/held during a run?

How much DO I hold? None, until I change my mind. How much HAVE I held? .10-.12 in some really bad situations. Actually, I guess you could say I've held about 3.8 seconds before... Dragway 42's Hangover Nationals New Year's race is an index race of whatever the year is. I came up with a method of getting my low 16-sec Dakota to run the 20.xx index pretty close, killing 99% of it up front. I've held a tenth or more in the 1/8th and killed most of it by half track before. I've held a tenth in the 1/4 on a godawful track, and killed most of what I needed to around 1000'. But generally I'm dialed honest.

- What is your theory behind how much or little you hold?

You don't have to hold any more than what you could possibly be behind on the tree. I dial honest, then decide downtrack if I need to adjust my E.T.

- Do you believe in holding every run or only in some cases?

Only in some cases. I want to limit the number of variables I introduce in a run.

- How do you choose whether you're going to hold that run or not?

Based on how I hit the tree, how the race is playing out, and/or last second changes in wind, weather, or track that weren't already accounted for.

- Do you think a guy who has a consistent car is at a disadvantage if everyone knows he's dialing to go dead on? Why?

LOL! I ADVERTISE that I'm dialed honest. You have to run me like I'm dialed honest, because I am. You can do whatever you feel like with that information.


On the flip side, holding numbers is also most effective with a consistent car, so that you can predictably kill when and how much you want to achieve your goal.

try it and find out what the difference is for your car lifting at the 1st mph cone,its not much,depends on how fast your car is as to the difference.Most good racers knowing their holding numbers know if they cant get to the stripe and lift enough ,they will dump you off at the finish line,thinking they will run close to their dial-in and push their competition out.

Somebody posted on this site a good while ago statistics from run sheets at 1/8 mile races (John Rollins maybe? Or was it Michael Beard?) that showed that on 80% of pairs in 1/8 mile racing, the better reaction time was the winner. Based on that data, I'd say dial as close to honest as your car's consistency allows, and spend time working on your reaction time as opposed to developing holding strategies.

JMHO

quote:

Originally posted by SlyFox:
Somebody posted on this site a good while ago statistics from run sheets at 1/8 mile races (John Rollins maybe? Or was it Michael Beard?) that showed that on 80% of pairs in 1/8 mile racing, the better reaction time was the winner. Based on that data, I'd say dial as close to honest as your car's consistency allows, and spend time working on your reaction time as opposed to developing holding strategies.

JMHO

Consider also what I tell my son: A better reaction time makes everything work better at the finish line. It's much harder to do your job and win finish line racing if you are at a disadvantage at the starting line.

Bottom line is this, if you want to be a player, you and your car better be able to put together .015 packages and better at will.

what is this holding you speak of. i dial down 1 and dont let out til i get to the ticket booth

ep

quote:

Somebody posted on this site a good while ago statistics from run sheets at 1/8 mile races (John Rollins maybe? Or was it Michael Beard?) that showed that on 80% of pairs in 1/8 mile racing, the better reaction time was the winner

Actually the % is much higher than 80% if you change that from better than or no greater than .002 difference in RT. It’s car and luck after that.

What many of the event race winners have are timely breaks. Look at Drag Story for these results.

quote:

Originally posted by DragRaceResults:
Holytown, great questions. Obviously you see we have a bunch of old geezers here that would rather speak about the past.

Q1 depends on mph of car.

Q2 multiple places

Q3 enough to make you look perfect on the track

Q4 similar to Q3 and Q5

Q5 depends on who you're racing or track conditions

Q6 similar to Q3, 4, 5, 6

Q7 no, actually at an advantage if you can get them to believe you're not or you can give them a different look each time.
SL...

This is all good !

A technique I've been working on is dialing dead honest and spraying my way under if I am trying to make it look closer/different. Of course its much harder to do this against cars with a ET gap more than .5 second or so 1/8 mile. I think people vastly under estimate how much nitrous can be an effective tool.

quote:

Originally posted by 1320racer:
Bottom line is this, if you want to be a player, you and your car better be able to put together .015 packages and better at will.

THIS ^^^^^^

quote:

Originally posted by J178RED:

quote:

Originally posted by DragRaceResults:
Holytown, great questions. Obviously you see we have a bunch of old geezers here that would rather speak about the past.

Q1 depends on mph of car.

Q2 multiple places

Q3 enough to make you look perfect on the track

Q4 similar to Q3 and Q5

Q5 depends on who you're racing or track conditions

Q6 similar to Q3, 4, 5, 6

Q7 no, actually at an advantage if you can get them to believe you're not or you can give them a different look each time.
SL...

This is all good !

Yes excellent excellent summary!