Consistency Is King (My Experience Drag Racing)
Not my car, but an obvious attempt to copy my build.
May 3, 2023
I placed second out of I imagine ten at Cordova last weekend, and I’ll put my mistakes to good use and tell you my tips on drag racing. Further going into my mistake I got too ‘excited’ and jumped the light by 0.114 seconds. In the perspective if either of us didn’t jump it, it would have been a win for me by 0.137. It is miles better than getting beat by one hundredth by the eventual winner. It was my only red light and I regret it days after, but I had fun. I was required to wear a helmet and that’s what I think made it all worse. It also should have gave me a reason to look fast in the first place. Despite all the “I could have won if I did this instead of this,” I had fun whilst doing it. Like my dad always says when this happens, “That’s racing.”
In the world of racing and especially drag racing it is in all reality a race against yourself. That’s when you are racing with an ET in mind, and in a short conclusion it’s all about getting the same time over and over again. Consistency isn’t just king, it is in fact everything in drag racing. Your reaction time and your launch corresponding to it. Even the fraction of your timed shifts that should be muscle memory. Every single fraction of you racing within your threshold it all comes down to putting the same numbers down as previously. That is all once you’ve hit the peak of your ability and the ride itself. For instance I ran seven times recently and had nothing beyond 0.07 of a second off each of my times. That in perspective is 300 milliseconds less than the average reaction time. (Which is about 0.1 second) My reaction time ranged drastically throughout, but I kept my 16.6-or-7 time every single round including my worst run. With this in mind, and furthermore I think that I could get a high ~16.5 with how every race had the potential to be better. Common human error and the pressure of racing in a competitive setting can create even more errors. Sometimes it’s always better to improve under the circumstances for racing against only you and yourself. By keeping momentum and breaking your own threshold, because you can instead of pushing it over winning a race against someone else. That is my take on drag racing as for what I’ve experienced, and I have more to learn. In the future maybe I’ll give tips on autocross or the definitive entry into motorsport of track days.
The Three Best Runs:
R/T: .195
60′: 2.382
330: 6.902
1/8: 10.647
MPH: 65.64
1000: 13.892
1/4: 16.658
MPH: 81.14
R/T: .736
60′: 2.397
330: 6.915
1/8: 10.654
MPH: 65.86
1000: 13.890
1/4: 16.656
MPH: 81.10
R/T: .074
60′: 2.379
330: 6.903
1/8: 10.649
MPH: 65.69
1000: 13.889
