What exsatly is test & tune night? This Thursday at 6pm.You think they will be handing out slips? Does anyone know how I get one?

 

Yup, they'll be handing out slips. When you finish your run and are coming back up the return road, there is a little shack on your left side about even with the finish line and just before you get back into the pit area. Pull up to that and the guy will give you your timeslip. Be sure to have your number written on the driver side window so he knows which slip to give you.

Also, since you apparently haven't been to the track except for Club 1320, watch for a while before you try to run and see how they do things. Some of those guys will put a hurtin' on you if you screw up. And whatever you do, DO NOT drive your Civic through the water box to stage. If you track water to the starting line, they may call in the snipers. Drive around the water box and stage your car. Watch th starter and follow his directions. Don't start a burnout until the car in front of you has left the starting line. After the burnout (if you need to do one) pull to the staging line and trip the first light. Wait until the other car trips his first light and then inch forward to trip the second staging light. That's called courtesey staging. Some guys will take your head off if you go up and trip both your lights first. After both cars have tripped the staging lights, get ready. The lights will start flashing form top to bottom .5 seconds apart. Three yellows and then green. Hint...DO NOT WAIT FOR THE GREEN LIGHT to take off. As soon as the last yellow lights up, go. By the time you react and your car gets rolling, the green will have flashed. The idea is to get your reaction time (shown as R/T on your timeslip) as close to .500 as possible. If you leave too early, you will get a red light which means you lost automatically. If you wait, the slower the reaction time, the higher the probability that you will lose. The fastest ET does not always win because of a better reaction time by the slower car. Good luck.

Test and Tune is where racers go to tweak their cars to get that last little bit of ET out of them. Many, but not all, are getting ready for the money drags which are held on the weekends. These guys may be shooting for some big bucks in the races so they get a little touchy if somebody screws up because they don't know what's going on. So, like I said, watch for a while first and if your don't understand something, ask one of the guys that looks like he knows what's going on.

 

understood. How low of et's does it take to get money for winning races? Can I go to sunshine and pracitce my r/t?

 

Both Sunshine and BMP run bracket races for the most art. In that, it doesn't matter what your ET is as long as you run closer to what yo write on your window than the other guy does. And again, r/t time counts big. In brackets, everybody writes on their window what time they think they will run. That's called your Dial In. If you run faster than that, you lose. That's a break Out. If you red light and the other guy doesn't, you lose. If you both redlight, the first one to redlight loses. If you both run faster than your dial-in, the one wh was over the most loses. They will stagger the starting lights according to what the two driver have dialed in on their cars. The slower car will get a head start of whatever the difference in the dial ins is. Kind of like spotting somebody 1 or 2 car lengths on the street. There's lots of strategy that goes into it. Some guys pad their dial in and write down a time that is a lot slower than they can run. Then, they hit the brakes at the finish line to avoid breaking out. That works until the other guy cuts a real good light on the start and runs his dial in.

The same thing happens at Sunshine except the race is 1/8 mile. A lot of people don't like bracket racing. I actually enjoy it because it's not just the fastest car or the guy who has spent the most money who wins. I like the strategy that's involved. Kind of like a chess game sometimes. Go watch 'em sometime and see how it works.

 

I will be there wednesday mostly to watch.

 

Not too much to watch on a Wednesday.

 

ok then I'll just wait till Thursday's test and tune night.

 

Why not go to the track day and use that as practice......at least there not too many people will try to kill you if you fuck up.

 

LOL! This is true. Could be a lot safer.

 

Very good words Dr.
I don't kill newbies at the track, i wait until they've left the grounds...

Good luck new guy, it's fun once you get the hang of it!