Sonoma 2025 (19 Viewers)

[TF CREW]

A couple of notes.....

Despite the stellar conditions and Brittany's ballbuster pass, nobody is really knocking it out of the park. 10 fuelers entered, August made one tire smoker but didn't show for Q2 and 3. Maybe he just decided to take the qualifier money and call it a day. The funnies are doing fair; 3.86 is low. PS, 2 or 3 high 6.40s at 210-211, par for the course in good conditions. Erica Enders? Whazzup? Q2, massive shake at the hit A-GAIN. Q3, massive shake at the hit A-GAIN. Her reaction times for the 3 rounds were .098, .060 and .080. Come on, girl...get it together.....come on, Team Elite....do something about that heap Enders is trying to drive. That thing has been plagued with that problem for months.

PSM had a 6.70/202 pass, good but not otherworldly considering the 358' DA. And only 9 bikes.

FYI Ron August did not smoke any tires on the one Qualifying run.

 

[TF CREW]

Let me preface this by saying I’m a fan of drag racing. Big fan.
However, I remember when the NHRA would sit a racer out for a race or two if they were blowing up stuff on a regular basis. Then the team had to make some positive passes to show that they were able to make clean passes.
My question is why don’t the powers that be have a conversation with Jim Dunn Racing? Get them some help with a tune up that doesn’t blow up?
Someone is going to get hurt or worse if car blows up race after race, year after year.
I’m not saying they’re a bad team but they haven’t been competitive since the early 2000’s.
I respect anyone who goes out and tries their best to field a nitro burning car week in and week out. I can’t imagine how hard it must be.
But at some point someone needs to offer some help or advice to help get them back to competitiveness.
Moderators, if this isn’t within the guidelines of this space please delete it.

It was for leaving oil on the track not necessarily for blowing up.

 

[Rich D]

Well, among all of us “experts“, we ought to be able to come up with some ideas, don’t you agree?

My idea was throttle rate, (duh) but then Alan came in and Pooh-poohed it, but seems like there’s really something there. If you look back at Tony Schumacher‘s lights, they are historically pretty bad. He had a long pedal travel and thus, a slow rate, but he argued that that helped him pedal and drive the car down the track with precision. I don’t dispute that, but let’s look at how to improve reaction times, specifically.

The other thing is the rate at which the chassis torques once the throttle is applied. Maybe there’s that.

It would interesting to look at a super slo-mo of the throttle blades vs the Christmas tree. How much quicker do Justin's throttle blades start moving vs his opponent's (which would indicate his physical reaction time). If there isn't much difference seen, then the difference HAS to be the car's reactions time (clutch, chassis etc).

 

[LoPony]

That’s kind of what I was thinking. No doubt Ashley is very quick, but it would be interesting to see if there’s any visual difference in the cars on a frame by frame slow Mo basis

 

[M Jones]

That’s kind of what I was thinking. No doubt Ashley is very quick, but it would be interesting to see if there’s any visual difference in the cars on a frame by frame slow Mo basis

I was taught to read the bulb as it brightened, never raced with led’s they are much quicker from on to bright, with old lights I could red light on purpose .02 lights in qualifying to keep my self on edge. Even at my best I don’t think I could’ve done that with led’s, anybody pulling consistent low reaction times with new lights impresses me big time

 

[Chili]

Years ago in the midway, NHRA used to have a video game simulation. Anybody could participate and they that took the top 16 qualifiers for an elimination bracket on Sunday. Justin was a teenager at the time and he was almost always at the top of the qualifying sheet and won a lot. I used to see Bobby Bode in the list too. Justin is one of those kids that is good at everything he does.

 

[DanTheFan]

What about leg length to the pedal? Some have shorter legs, seats can be configured differently to vary knee bend etc? Are some muscles quicker to react?
Hard to believe the builders and crew chiefs haven’t worked through all these things so maybe it’s all in his head. Also, it always bothered me that there aren’t more red lights in fuel cars. Yes, you want the car to make a valid run but if you’re never red, especially in qualifying, how do you get the feel for how aggressive you can get with RT?
All that said, these are really fine details for beast like machinery.

 

[Rich D]

Just thinking out loud here...Scientific studies have shown that on average, the brain reacts to audible stimuli 40 milliseconds faster than to visual stimuli. 40 milliseconds is the difference between a .070 light and a .030 light. What if someone has devised a system to give the driver an audible prompt to react to??

 

[Just Paul]

What if someone has devised a system to give the driver an audible prompt to react to??

Yes, I can just see Tommy D yelling "GO!" into his headset. I'm going to watch for it in Brainerd.

In all seriousness, the only way that would work is if the time from the last stage bulb was lit to the yellow coming on was fixed, which it is not. Even then it would take a lot of work to be consistent.

Here's a thought. It's total BS but something I thought about.

Remember when Gary Ormsby started cutting ridiculously good lights during his championship run in 1989? They had a diversion with some (KB like) towel near the pedal that was all smoke and mirrors to distract people away from the real reason for the sudden reaction time edge with the barrel valve. Lee Beard's right hand man at the time???
Mike Green.

I certainly don't think it's any special trick with the car. He's friggin good. Not just often, every time. And that can get into other drivers heads which only benefits Justin even more.

 

[GumbyWVU]

I'd be curious as to how good Ashley's vision is. The great Ted Williams could actually see the seams (but not the actual stitches) on a baseball as it came to the plate. I think his vision was like 20/15 or 20/10, something like that. One reason he was a great fighter pilot in WW2 and Korea.

Some folks are blessed with sharp vision like that.

 

[cknight]

What about leg length to the pedal? Some have shorter legs, seats can be configured differently to vary knee bend etc? Are some muscles quicker to react?
Hard to believe the builders and crew chiefs haven’t worked through all these things so maybe it’s all in his head. Also, it always bothered me that there aren’t more red lights in fuel cars. Yes, you want the car to make a valid run but if you’re never red, especially in qualifying, how do you get the feel for how aggressive you can get with RT?
All that said, these are really fine details for beast like machinery.

I preferred the throttle pedal pivoting from the top, heel resting on the floor pan. It was a more natural feel for me. Only left on once in 17 years.

 

[Rich D]

Yes, I can just see Tommy D yelling "GO!" into his headset. I'm going to watch for it in Brainerd.

In all seriousness, the only way that would work is if the time from the last stage bulb was lit to the yellow coming on was fixed, which it is not. Even then it would take a lot of work to be consistent.

Here's a thought. It's total BS but something I thought about.

Remember when Gary Ormsby started cutting ridiculously good lights during his championship run in 1989? They had a diversion with some (KB like) towel near the pedal that was all smoke and mirrors to distract people away from the real reason for the sudden reaction time edge with the barrel valve. Lee Beard's right hand man at the time???
Mike Green.

I certainly don't think it's any special trick with the car. He's friggin good. Not just often, every time. And that can get into other drivers heads which only benefits Justin even more.

 

[Rich D]

I will be watching for Tommy D as well, LOL. I was thinking more about a device that watches for the amber flash and then sends a tone to the driver. Probably in a very grey area of the rules, but the sensor looking for the amber is not connected to any function of the car (just the tone to the driver) so it may be legal?

 

[z28]

I will be watching for Tommy D as well, LOL. I was thinking more about a device that watches for the amber flash and then sends a tone to the driver. Probably in a very grey area of the rules, but the sensor looking for the amber is not connected to any function of the car (just the tone to the driver) so it may be legal?

build one and make millions

 

[Rich D]

build one and make millions

I guess I should have kept it to myself then The trick would be getting NHRA to accept it. With current technology, I bet it could be made for $500 and some time invested. However, I don't think there are too many people making millions in drag racing, LOL.

 

[mick]

build one and make millions

and call it (your last name)'s response

 

[LoPony]

build one and make millions

How would that not be allowed? I honestly don’t know, but why wouldn’t that be legal? Easy enough to hide.

 

[LoPony]

Yes, I can just see Tommy D yelling "GO!" into his headset. I'm going to watch for it in Brainerd.

In all seriousness, the only way that would work is if the time from the last stage bulb was lit to the yellow coming on was fixed, which it is not. Even then it would take a lot of work to be consistent.

Awesome suggestion!

That would be a reaction time to a reaction time. Something I’ve thought about, but could that be the case? That would be visual cue followed by an audio cue, which would probably make it worse than either one alone.

Remember when Gary Ormsby started cutting ridiculously good lights during his championship run in 1989? They had a diversion with some (KB like) towel near the pedal that was all smoke and mirrors to distract people away from the real reason for the sudden reaction time edge with the barrel valve. Lee Beard's right hand man at the time???
Mike Green.

I certainly don't think it's any special trick with the car. He's friggin good. Not just often, every time. And that can get into other drivers heads which only benefits Justin even more.

Mike Green? Maybe. All this is what I’m trying to get people to talk about, and I DON’T know the answer.

People keep saying it’s a combination of driver and car. No doubt Ashley is quick. BUT. What about the setup of the car?? And/or car and driver? How can NHRA regulate that? IMO, Maybe something that people haven’t thought of, and I think it would be totally fair game.

What about a photodiode that senses the light, then sends an audio cue?

Cool!

Hopefully, this conversation continues.

 

[mick]

........ Mike Green? Maybe .......

oh yeah. lee, mike, chuck schifsky, and a fourth i can't remember name.

 

[Rich D]

Awesome suggestion!

That would be a reaction time to a reaction time. Something I’ve thought about, but could that be the case? That would be visual cue followed by an audio cue, which would probably make it worse than either one alone.



Mike Green? Maybe. All this is what I’m trying to get people to talk about, and I DON’T know the answer.

People keep saying it’s a combination of driver and car. No doubt Ashley is quick. BUT. What about the setup of the car?? And/or car and driver? How can NHRA regulate that? IMO, Maybe something that people haven’t thought of, and I think it would be totally fair game.

What about a photodiode that senses the light, then sends an audio cue?

Cool!

Hopefully, this conversation continues.

The thing that really caught my attention is that the documented response time improvement is .040 sec (auditory cue vs visual cue). A good consistent reaction time in a nitro car seems to be around .070, whereas I see Justin regularly ripping off .030-.040. Hmm...the math works out pretty good?! (Just food for thought. I have no evidence this is what is taking place, LOL)