There hasn't been much activity for the June 30th Buick bash at New England Dragway . Is it still on?
I'll be there with the wagon! Haven't been to that track in a number of years so I'm definitely looking forward to it. I hope there's a large Buick turnout.
Haven't heard of it before, Sounds like a cool event. I was going to Chevy fest last year but then it got rained out so I took my Audi up there cause I already had the room booked, and buddy took his 10 camaro up and we still had a great time.:beers2:
Still going. I'm playing tag with the track manager as far as paying for the trophies in advance. He's saying to just pay for it all when I get there, but I like to do stuff in advance just incase something comes up later. I'm also a bit behind on finding hotels to offer discounts. To be honest this event has snuck up on me a bit. It's still on though, weather permitting.
Looking forward to it! NED is minutes from me and after missing the Nostalgia Drags last month, I need a wheelstand fix. Spectator , for now ,unfortunately.
I will be there, but in the spectator stands. The Buick just isnt going to be ready in time. Looking forward to the show, and hopefully to meet some of you Northern New England guys.
I won't be there but I am bent on getting there sometime this summer. After racing heads up though I don't think I could deal with bracket racing. To me it's useless. What kind of racing do they generally do at NE Dragway?
NED is bracket racing unless you are at an NHRA event or request a heads up race. To me heads up is just a way for rich folks to show off how much money they have. A great driver in a great car will lose by a bunch to some spoiled brat in his daddies Ferrari or to some 80 year old in a hennessey Vette who doesn't even know how to drive through a 4 way stop. I'd much rather see people who know their cars pushing them to their limits. It's hard to buy a car from a builder and then rule the strip when you have to pick a dial and then run it.
Whoa, some bad blood there? o No: It's cool that people know their cars and race to prove it, I have nothing against it, just not for me. I prefer WOT from beginning to end. I am as far from rich as the president is from being honest, trust me. I just prefer balls-to-the-wall racing. Backing off the throttle at the top end of the track just ain't for me. I see your point though, looking at a guy with a dial in of 9.78 and seeing him run a 9.78 is just amazing to me. That definitely is knowing your vehicle!
No bad blood or ill will at all. I just don't care for the cars that get trailored to a track and then out pops a $50k engine stuffed into a $100k chassis. It's fun to watch when they race each other, but for a regular guy running a daily driver on street tires it can really ruin an evening to get matched up against one of those cars. Of course when a pair of those high end cars line up together it makes for a great show :3gears: A good bracket racer never lets off. Run your car heads up 50 times and see what time you put up under different conditions. Eventually you'll figure out that certain track prep and certain temps along with certain tire pressures result in a certain time. Then you dial in that time and when the light goes green you floor it. If you sandbag at the end to avoid breaking out you'll usually lose to the other guy. That show pinks makes it look like sandbagging actually works, but in the real world you can only get away with it against another sandbagger or someone who doesn't know their car. When you see an old guy racing his daily driver and nailing the dial in you can see how quickly the big money guys start to get nervous. Of course there are some guys nailing their dial in and running in the 8's, but it means that they've raced that car plenty of times over the years. The high end race cars tend to be harder to run in brackets since they have more room for adjustability. A bone stock th350 behind a bone stock NA 3.8 with stock suspension and winter tires is going to be pretty consistant over the course of the day :TU:
How does it work though? If you let up and fall 1 hundredth above your dial-in and the guy next to you crosses the line before you but falls 3 tenths above his dial-in, you still win right? It's not who crosses the line fiirst is it? I thought it was who comes closest to their dial-in without going under.
Nope. First to the stripe without running under your dial. And faster cars aren't always hard to dial. Whatever number my car runs that day, it'll run all day. I won the Quick-16 Buick race at Norwalk several years ago dialed in at 8.95, and I ran dead on all day long. The only thing that'll effect my car, plus or minus, is changing weather, which will have the same effect on every car at the track, so that's no biggie for me.
If you dial in at 12.7 and the other guy dials a 9.7 than you leave the line 3 seconds before him. At that point you're both going all out because you have to hold him off and he has to chase you down. If you both run a perfect dial and leave on a perfect light than the 40 second minivan and the 4 second top fuel funny car will finish in a tie at the other end. If you dial a 12.7 and run a 12.69 than you lose because you ran too fast (broke out). It's a way to help weed out sandbaggers since there's no possible way to know how much to feather the throttle at the top end to drop a tenth or a hundreth of a second. The only way to cheat the system is to know exactly how precise you have to be to add a fraction of a bit to your time, and at that point you could just as easily dial in the right time to begin with. Think of it as running a race with your friend when you were in 2nd grade. He's slower than you so you don't start until he gets to a certain point (usually a trash can or a fire hydrant :grin That way it makes the race close at the finish line.
Ok, so when they pair up a couple cars, there's more often than not, if not always, a staggered start right? In other words, the car with a faster dialin will sit there till the difference in the two car's dialins is reached then he'll (the faster dialin car) will get the green light? If so, that makes sense. You do run all out after all if so. I agree I don't know why people would let off at the top of the track unless they are so far ahead and they want the extra assurance that they will run slower than their dialin.
You got it exactly right. The faster car has to sit for a bit on the start. It makes it tricky on slight delays because you see the other guys light go green but you can't go, which makes rookies red light or get slow reaction times because they look out of the corner of their eye and try to jump on a green flash. It's easier to wait if there's a 1 or 2 second delay, but on a 3 hundreths delay it's just enough of a gap to screw up your timing if you're not careful.
I didn't like bracket style racing myself until I saw it in person a few years ago. Now I say it's my favorite form of racing, aside from the touring car stuff in europe and australia.
