3 New Drag Racers Tips

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Here are 3 quick tips every drag racer needs to know.

Tip #1: New Drag Racers Rush Staging

The bottom line with this tip is that as a new racer, you’re impatient to start the race. When staging, here’s what to do. So, let’s start at the top of the Tree and work our way down, the first pair of bulbs at the very top are the pre-stage lights, followed by the stage bulbs beneath them, below that there are three LED: amber bulbs, a green bulb and a red bulb as the cars stage up, the lights on each side of the tree, illuminate in turn from top to bottom.

The most important thing drag racers need to understand with this tip is that it does maximize the amount of rollout that you have which improves elapsed time, but at the expense of reaction time.

This tip will help drag racers because you use deep staging in order to reduce reaction times. What you do is roll the car slowly forward until the pre-stage lights go out. This’ll put more of your front tires ahead of the stage beam, and less tire that will need to go the stage beam and will trigger the ET clock. Now, this can improve your reaction time, but it also will increase your chances of red-lighting if you do not time your launch just right. Without a doubt, deep staging will require a lot of practice in order to master this technique..

So the next step for you here is to strive to master what works best for you. Like with anything you want to excel at, the absolutely best way to master these staging and rollout techniques is to practice and practice some more. And once you find a method for staging that works well for you, stick with it. When you stage the same way each and every run, you will become consistent and confident. Check out the article  What is Staging.

Tip #2: Don’t Forget Your Comfort Zone

This means that don’t go beyond what you feel based on your experience with regard to how the car feels on a given run. With time and experience, you will begin to notice if something doesn’t feel or sound right.

What’s most important about this is that washing out the backend or slipping, time to rollout of throttle, bring car back under control, and it could be a number of things that caused it… (greasy track, tire pressure, not placing car into groove, suspension, and a multitude of other things).

This is key for every drag racer because safety, your life, safety of others as well as your car, understand you are not racing for a NHRA championship in top fuel, a large majority of the racers are grass roots racers that have a 9 to 5 job.

The next step here is to remember, in any form of racing, there is nothing better than life experience and practice, as you gain experience, you’ll know when to roll out of throttle or steer back in and continue with momentum, as you understand your car and what your full capability is. Learn the ins and outs of your car and master it.

Tip #3: Be Courteous To The Other Driver

The important thing to understand with this tip is treat other drivers like you want to be treated
if you give respect you will get it.

What’s important about this tip is that like I said above, be a decent person to others, including your competitors. Your biggest competitor is you. .

This tip is critical to your success because besides the obvious, there could be mechanical reasons or performance issues, ie trying to burn down your opponent.
Fans like staging battles when 2 competitors try to outwait each other.
Overheating of engine components could possibly add to overall lack of performance. Let me explain. These race cars are setup to perform within certain heat parameters, by waiting additional time to stage, all you are doing is increasing the temperature of the engine which if hot enough will compromise performance, or worse.

Stage your car with purpose, your job is to stay focused on the task at hand. Do your job and don’t dick around.

In Drag Racing, as well as every aspect of life, we have no choice but to learn the crawl, walk, run program. Racers do NOT pop out their mother’s womb with a steering wheel in their hand.

A small number of people are endowed with these skills, where most have to work hard to acquire these skills.
You have to take the sport and learn one step at a time, and practice, practice, and yes, you guessed it, practice some more!

So, there you have it! 3 tips to help any and every drag racer not make silly, rookie or bonehead mistakes.

Need more? Well, if you really want to not make silly, rookie mistakes, this amazing page spells it all out for you by providing a bunch of helpful articles! Check it out here on the Blog.

Drag Racer Tips Conclusion

If you are a new racer, or a racer at any experience level, and you have any motorsports questions about racing or performance parts used in your racing area of interest, then just hover over Team UMS in the top menu bar on our website and click on Contact Us. Just add your name, email, and ask your question in the Comments/Questions text box. John Uzbasic, the Owner and drag racer of Uzbasic Motorsports Performance Parts, will answer your question on his weekly Ask the Racer Facebook Live every Wednesday.

 

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