Reading the Track
This is a very easily misunderstood job of the driver or crewmember. Doing it right makes the team stand out as winners. Doing it wrong will give you a fast trip back on the trailer.
A finely tuned race car will virtually drive itself with little effort from the driver. The "feel" of a good starting line will literally try to pull your shoes right off you feet when you walk across it. The stickiness will have the feel of "dried rubber cement" as you try to twist your foot on it. This makes it nearly impossible to feel any twisting motion. This would be ideal starting line conditions.
One of the hardest things to determine is knowing whether the track is "going away" or staying consistent. When the sun beats down on the track surface, heating up the surface, will cause the oils to rise to the surface. This still gives a sticky, but greasy, feeling when you twist your foot on it. You will actually feel your shoe twist on top of the track surface as if the "rubber cement" was still wet.
As the cars run in the heat of the day, the rubber will peel up, causing the track to get "bald spots." Most crew members on the starting line will place the driver away from the bald spots and out of "the groove." They do this thinking they got around the problem. However, this may cause the car to drive to the right or left as it leaves the line. Most of the time there is more traction by staying in the groove than straddling the bald spots.
It is very important to make sure your crew member reads the track and lines you up CORRECTLY on the starting line before you make any chassis adjustments.
Tuning For Bad Track Conditions
Knowing what to look for on a starting line is one thing. Knowing what to do with that information is another.
With the use of computers and scientific weather stations, most racers know how much the change in weather conditions will affect their car's performance. However, they really don't know what to do about the changing track conditions.
The most common mistake an unexperienced racer will make, is going the wrong way with their chassis settings. For instance, when a car is working fairly well on a good race track, and suddenly the track starts going away due to heat , bald spots or what ever the reason, they have a tendency to soften the launch or take "hit" out of the car. When in reallity, this is the total wrong way to go with your chassis set up. When this happens, the car doesn't have enough power to keep the rear tires planted because the front end dropped and lost its weight transfer. The end result.....Tire Spin.
You will hear it said, "the car tried to hook and then five feet out just blew the tires off."
The real answer is, the car needed more "Hit". You will notice, when some of the lower horse powered cars can not get down the track with out spinning, the faster, high horse powered cars are not having any problems.
This may be just what you need to get by that one round of eliminations when the track is at its worst.
Doing a Consistent Burnout
One of the hardest processes for many new drivers to learn is the burnout. When executed properly, the burnout almost looks like the car does it by itself. I get more questions from new drivers about the burnout than any other subject.
Here’s how I do a burnout:
The first step is to slowly roll through the water box and stop right at the edge of the damp area. I do not recommend stopping in the water and spinning the tires to clean them off. I see a lot of racers do this
and they end up with water dripping from the wheel tubs onto the track surface.
The second step, after you are in position, is to pump the brake pedal 2 or 3 times holding about 500 psi of brake pressure and to energize your line lock with the line lock switch closed and the transmission in the proper gear for starting a burnout (consult your transmission builder for this info).
Now you are ready to make some smoke and noise. Quickly open the throttle to a few hundred RPM's above your converter flash point (about 5500 - 6500 RPM's) and shift into high gear. Hold the engine RPM's at your desired point and you will hear the engine speed start to come down and the tires will have a haze of smoke (or more) coming off them. At this point, release the line lock switch and hold the engine RPM's steady and drive through the burn out till you are out of the water area and back out of the throttle. Then quickly place the trans in neutral and clean out the engine.
Practice your burnouts a few times and it’ll become easy. But no matter how easy it gets – it’s always fun!
