copied the following definition from the NHRA web site

Reaction time: The time it takes a driver to react to the green starting light on the Christmas Tree, measured in thousandths of a second. The reaction-time counter begins when the last amber light flashes on the Tree and stops when the vehicle clears the stage beam.

I have also read that the delay between the yellow lights is .5 second.
What is the delay between the last yellow and the green? Is that also .5 second?

Asking as I have heard and read that a .5 reaction time means that one rolled through the start line just as the green light lit. So that would be as good as it gets concerning starts. If one was perfect on the start would their reaction time be .000 on the slip picked up at the timing shack? I am wanting to interpret my reaction times. The better runs I had at MPD were .335 to .115 Would I take those values (.335 for example) an add that to .5 to get an actual of .835 as the time it took me to roll through the stage beam ?

thanks

Yes, 0.5 sec between all of the lights (yellow-yellow and yellow-green). Most tracks print 0.000 as a perfect light, but they all used to use 0.500 and a few still do. Clay City uses 0.000 I am pretty sure, so your 0.115 means you left 0.115 sec after the green light lit. You would never add time to get your real reaction time.

Hope it was fun! Now the "human tuning" begins...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

thanks,,

and

You also have to remember that the reaction time you get is a combination of your time it took to react to the light AND the time it takes the vehicle to react and move.

In all honesty John, a .115 light is not too bad for a newb with a stick and a super slow reacting vehicle.

Practice, practice, practice........

Hell, I've been racing almost 40 years and there are still days when I can't hit the tree with a sledgehammer.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

I only have 10 runs under my belt,, once I had the process somewhat figured out a .3xx is more typical.
I got the .115 by trying to go late on the second yellow, it worked once, I tried that in my last race run and red lighted,, was not much, a.0xx

SZ is right, I need timing light practice

That's the fun part of running a slow car, the sweet spot on the tree is somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd yellow, and it seems to change every run.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

John that is how I had to leave with my truck also. Tail end of the second yellow produced a .012 light and a win at Elk Creek a few years back.
Rick
PS. I have Red lit every time since in my car!!

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

Yeah, that's not a bad light. You know its getting bad when the guy running the tree walks over and taps your window and says, "Today"....

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There's no such thing as too much cam....only not enough engine!

The best way to improve RT is "Seat Time", the more passes you make the better. What's the old saying? Practice makes perfect.Hell I've been doing this for 40 years and it still takes a few passes to find the sweet spot. Most of the time I never find it......

When I was driving the red car on the street every day and racing once or twice a week I got checked twice at RT 66 for a delay box.

Lately they usually check to see if I still have a pulse.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

what about the roll distance between the pre staged and staged lights,,?

from reading the rules, it looks like deep staging eliminates the pre staged roll out, but it looks like the pre staged roll out is dependent upon tire diameter, I guess one can trig all this out, based upon the heght of the timing light,, actually I like Rodney H's and Brian M's approach,, just run fast and consistant.

Deep staging will give a better reaction time, but the car will lose a little ET.

The trick to staging is to do it the same every time.

Again, practice, practice, practice.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

Deep staging also slows your MPH down, but you can pick up a few hundredths of ET because your starting closer to the finish line. The deeper you roll into the lights also affects your reaction if you try to leave on the same bulb as before. Like slant said, consistency is the key and so is practice. However, if you decide to deep stage, your real close to having your car roll out of the lights, so its a fine line your on if you do it.

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There's no such thing as too much cam....only not enough engine!