Im curious about what others decisions would be under these circumstances,which i have seen occur on occasion.
You drove 10 hours to a race.Some weather came in that postponed your first round of eliminations till the following day.
Its 900am and the way the schedule has worked out your the first class up.
Its a chilly 50 to 60 degrees and there is alot of dew still in the air.When you pull up to get paired your opponent is already at the front of the staging lane and the officials wave you to the front.Your going to be the first pair out and the guy your running is dialed over a full second slower than your dial.
Race director says fire em up...
Do you fire up and stage hope for the best?
Do you flag an official and tell him you dont feel safe enough being the first car down track in these conditions?
What if the race director says go or your out?

The one time i was in this situation i was sideways half track and had to lift.Race director tells me no rerun you both had the same track.After we went down they stopped racing for about 2 hours till the conditions improved.

It’s always your decision to go down the track or not. If you don’t feel safe, put it in the box or at a minimum just stage and hope for an opponent red light. I think most cases track officials try to have the track ready to go and somebody has to be first out each day. 10 hrs makes it tougher but that is still up to you and bottom line if you aint feeling it, save it for another day.

Dial the same as your opponent, wheel race him. Car gets loose, lift and go home. Otherwise if you’re really apprehensive then put it up and go home.

hope is not a strategy and vern is correct!

that said you decided whether to stage or not but know that if you refuse to stage the NHRA will DQ you. When the NHRA decides the track is ready, it's ready, no reruns no matter how many cars are sideways. Happen to us at Indy in 2021

NHRA LOL

I trust NHRA Officials to make the correct decision to send me down a track. Over the past 60 years of racing I've seen tracks I wouldn't go down under any circumstances......ever!

In the end it's your butt in the car, and your ride that can get wadded up.

Bob

Most everyone is right about this. You have to make the call and if you do not feel safe then do not run it, do not stage, get out of the car and tell them it is not safe. Should you choose to run it be prepared to abort. There have been 4 times where I did not feel comfortable but ran it any way but was on high alert and ready to abort run 3 of the 4 times. Twice the Championship was on the line which I Won and one time was IHRA bracket finals. I went four rounds there and told them it was not safe several times. I just could not pull out of the race while still in it but last round blew tires off at the hit and I collected my check and went home. Another time it was a regular weekly bracket race and I was still in loaded up and went home. Not much on the line no reason to risk it. Some times it is a risk verses reward deal and it just is not worth it.

With all that said if they stopped the race after you got out of control because track was not safe then they should have allowed a rerun there. So they basically admitted the track was not safe when they sent you down it but would not let you run it when it was?

Tracks do not like to ever have a rerun because I think once they start that everyone will be up in the tower wanting a rerun every time they lose. And of course NHRA would NEVER admit they were wrong.

Brings back memories of running rounds after exhibition jet cars went. Never ever knew what to expect. Seems like it was always the money rounds too.
I will add I did gain a ton of relative confidence, after I lost the Goodyears and ran MT. Those late dew track rounds never gave me as much trouble as my opponent and I loved that.

we are all really competive and dont wont to quit,that said i would likely complain to who i could ,sandbag the car really hard and go racing.

If you have an unused toggle switch on your panel you could easily remove XX amount of pre-programmed timing activating a Step Retard in Grid or even Analog ignition at a moments notice when desired. If you know about how much the reduced timing would slow you down it could possibly offer you something. Minus 10* could do much in poor conditions.

Dialing same as your slower opponent was an excellent suggestion.

If the round of racing was suspended, NONE of the runs should have counted, complete restart of the round.

I tried to hang back one morning at Montgomery, but ended up being about the 4th pair, had to watch a 4-link dragster shed most of it's Dzus fasteners from tire shake in front of me, and I knew I was toast. Spun .020 off, and out of there.... Car behind me aborted the run.

NHRA sent the first pair of Top Dragsters down a wet race track at the 2016 Gatornationals. Both cars crashed in there own lanes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJck7wwKGfQ

quote:

Originally posted by Big Steve:
NHRA sent the first pair of Top Dragsters down a wet race track at the 2016 Gatornationals. Both cars crashed in there own lanes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJck7wwKGfQ

If I remember right the NHRA did not accept any responsibility for that mess?

Why would they? They signed a waiver acknowledging that this is dangerous and can result in death and they staged their car.

Let me tell you something about waivers.....they are legitimate documents, however they DO NOT nullify responsibility of the party, if a party is negligent and that can be proven in court I don't care what waiver you signed they will be found guilty. Period.

We have had some issues in the past at RT 66. The one year, It rained like he** the night before. The following morning,Track clean and good to go. Overcast weather and warm. Sun comes out @ 10:30 ish. Here comes the moisture seeping up through the asphalt at about the 800. There were about 50 or so out there trying to get it dried. Kept bleeding no matter what. Cut it down to 1/8 mile event. After that the track invested in a high$$ drain tile system on both side.

The biggest problem there is, no matter how well the track is prepped, You have a air temp drop and the sun goes down. the dew starts rolling in from the fields and makes for a dangerous condition no matter what they do or how they do it.. The one night there were i believe 4-5 wrecks at or about the 800-900. We went home. One came close to a fatal.. I refuse to run there at night with high humidity and dew seeping in from the surrounding fields.

In the end, the driver makes the last call. He alone makes the final decision as to the safety of the racing surface.

No round win is worth wrecking a car and/or bodily injury. In the OP's scenario, SOMEBODY has to be first, so I don't see the point of informing an official that you don't feel safe being first. 50 - 60 degrees really isn't all that cold, either.

quote:

Originally posted by BG7X77:
Let me tell you something about waivers.....they are legitimate documents, however they DO NOT nullify responsibility of the party, if a party is negligent and that can be proven in court I don't care what waiver you signed they will be found guilty. Period.

Exactly ain’t worth the paper it’s written on…