Looking for info on HO drags.....

It's been at least 3 years since Steve Geary and I discussed faster cars being more consistant but I don't remember why. We are nowhere near as consistant as what your cars are hitting. It could be that the slower the car, is the more friction will be able to add to inconsistency. I read an article in National Dragster a couple years ago about how many revolutions a crankshaft in a Top Fuel car makes during the time it leaves the starting line and crosses the finish line. Not that many revolutions! A 20 second suv stuck in high gear with the same stroke, gearing and tire diameter but with the equivelant of a street four barrel carb pulling a 6000 pound suv should make the same number of revolutions in the same distance. It would just be turning them a lot slower than the T/F car and I assume it would be much more suceptable to variations in air, spark, fuel atomization, etc. Even so I would have to believe a lot of our inconsistency at my track is with our power supply and track wiring. Both lanes come off the same post at the 10 amp power supply so when you race different cars with your same car, the fact that the other two cars could be pulling totally different amounts of current would effect your car. We are having a test n tune Monday night and I'm going to do some testing on this theory. I'll run a bunch of singles and try to duplicate the times with various cars in the other lane. I'm betting I'll get a significant change in times between the bye runs and racing a stronger car in the other lane. Regarding... Yellow, yellow, yellow, RED....yep, I'm using the same tree!

I did'nt get to try out my theory on Monday night, however yesterday was my birthday and my wife and kids suprised me with a "Family Drag Night". I have 4 grown married kids who got babysitters and came with their husbands/wives for a drag race. With my wife that made ten and too many bye runs. I sat down and figured a way to have fair racing without any bye runs. It worked great! I spend about 30 minutes with my son-in-law in getting the cars ready for the race. We found out that I had a group of 15 Super G+'s that ran from .511 to .567 so we could race reasonably fair heads up with the track supplied 45 ohm controllers adding a variable to the mix. Great fun, three different winners, no...I wasn't one of them...they are too competitive to let me win on my birthday. The real reason for your question? With the testing to find comparable cars and the races themselves we had over 100 side-by-side runs down the track with only 3 of the glitches that call for a rerun. Makes me think my theory regarding the amp robbing from one lane to the other was right. I will be ordering an identical Galanko 10 Amp power supply to go along with my birthday present. We will be switching from my Semi Pro timing system to the better 3000 Pro Series System. When we install it we will be shielding each wire and it will have enough power to run both the flat panel and the big screen tv so everyone can watch everything from anywhere in the room. It should eliminate any problems we have had. Looking forward too it!

Yeah, it was fun. Not our normal group and I'm sure it will help all us guys with the wives understanding why we've been up there making so much noise on race nights. The ladies had a fun evening. I think two of the five are wanting to join us.
I'm curious too to see the difference in MPH from 1/2 track to finish line. Should help with figuring out if we've got our gearing and tire diameter/width anywhere near correctly... Weird when you think of it, as we 1:1 drag raced in the late 70's with out any 60', 1/8 mile times and didn't even have reaction times. Lots of racers swore the track was making them lose to "favored" racers. Wasn't true. Now I've a better system for my HO slot cars. Course I do have to admit to watching my first drag race at Alton Dragway with a flag starter.

Sounds like it was a good time at the "Nacho Nationals". I thought your were going to get rid of that faulty tree when you made the upgrades to your system.

I agree. The quickwer the times the cars turn...........the more irrelevant the race itself becomes. The tree is everything. When we used to race back in the seventies and late sixties we had about a 12 foot drag strip. With diffrent gearing you could watch a Stock ratio T-jet dig out of the hole, and often the see a taller geared Jet run it down at three quarter track. At 24-26 volts this action would be just a blur. At the NHRA races havent you noticed the closest races in terms of distance are the stockers? A slower race gives you time to apply 'body english' as you urge your car onward! Also cost is course a consideration, as I like building fleets!

This is intriguing. I like runs that take 2-4 seconds too since there is something to do. A track could be wired this way to a master on off switch. When this system is off a conventional system could prevail.

I really like your idea of the shifting. I seem to remember that the Hurst shifters booth had a slot car drag strip back in the 60's or early 70's at the winter indoor car shows. You had to shift your car as it reached a certain spot on the track to keep the momentum up. Fun, but you had to stand in line for a long time to get your chance at it. Car's were very slow too, but still neat.
I wonder about your 3 out of 5 races chasing off the "reaction/coordination inhibited" as the guys with better reflexes would come to the top in every pairing that way. It is a quick way to find out who's the best but would eliminate the "challenged" driver from having any luck/chance. I mean even Warren Johnson still wins on a hole shot sometimes. (That will get mail.) It's the reason that 1:1 tracks all over the country have trouble keeping their car count up. The "track pro" in each class just kicks butt each race and nobody likes to get beat "all" the time. I strive for multiple winners at every race to keep that from happening. Instead of running the best 2 of 3 to extend the evening, we run multiple classes that you can still use the same car for. (New guys usually only have a car or two till they get hooked, and yes loaners are available.) We run a regular bracket race, then a Super Gas (10.90 type class on a .460 mandatory dial in) and also a "Pro Stock" class for Tomy Super G+ with all parts as manufactured including the funky hard rubber rear tires. All that's allowed is a body clip to mount a Pro Stock style body. The last race of the night is a Top Eliminator class on a pro tree for what ever ya brung that has a drag type body on it. The two heads up classes are for grins and a "winner sticker" while the two bracket type classes are for points in our points series. Seems to work pretty good as we have about 15 people wanting to come every month with somewhere between 7 and 11 showing up. (Work, wives, sickness, out of town, etc. keeping some away.)
I would like to know what you use for the shifter switches as I'm sure they take a beating in the heat of battle! We use 3 position toggle switches to turn track power on for the shut down area so you can drive your car back the return road and even those switches take a beating over time. Your track has got to be a ball to race on though!