Saturday night I saw a car lift the front tires out of the lights before rolling through them. Got a red light for that. I hadn't seen this before and didn't know it was possible. Would limiting the body rise more than needed cause this? Maybe letting the body come up more would keep the tires on the ground longer. The car didn't go very high, maybe 18" or so.

i think that would have been cool to see.......most guys i race with have pretty stout cars as well and they use nylon type straps on there front end to limit rise on the front end to keep it down(combined with slower reacting shocks).........and one of them uses a bolt thru the top arm screwed into a nut welded on the frame just so he has no front end travel....makes the car move forward instead of up then out.........(john) who uses the bolt to achor his front end has enough traction to get away with this move.......

i think if this guy you saw would use some straps up front(combined with a slower reacting shock) he could eliminate that problem, he just needs to slow down the rate of the "weight transfer".........but i think there would be some tunning to go on with using the strapes because if set to tight could cause the rear end to unload.......

my car does the same thing at the moment it rises straight up out of the hole and the car looks like a 4x4......but i think i need to move my center of lift on my traction bars closer to the middle of the car.....use like ladder bars or something......with my new power plant i think my front end is rising to fast and my upper a arms are banging on the frame and cause me to unload the rear end.......

i would liked to have seen what you seen just for the cool factor......

Years ago most of the strips in Northern Cal used the pro tree exclusively, and I seem to recall some cars that used this method of cutting a good light. There was no data available other than the red light, but these cars seemed to be consistent winners.

Originally posted by Pat Kelley:
Saturday night I saw a car lift the front tires out of the lights before rolling through them. Got a red light for that. I hadn't seen this before and didn't know it was possible. Would limiting the body rise more than needed cause this? Maybe letting the body come up more would keep the tires on the ground longer. The car didn't go very high, maybe 18" or so. Saturday night....I take it you were at Fontana. I wanted to go but didn't have the extra funds I thought I was gonna have. Some of my buddies went and ran their cars. How often do you go to Irwindale? I try to go when budget permits, and I'm hoping that it'll permit me next Thursday graemlins/thumbsup.gif ....maybe I'll see you there one of these days...just too bad your nephew Aaron doesn't live around here, he's a good guy, and someone I'd consider a really close bud graemlins/thumbsup.gif ....take care and keep up the good work with your Elky.

Pat,

With my car my reaction times are pretty consistent, with the exception of when I lose a little traction and the tires spin. When that happens my car actually comes out of the beams quicker than when it lifts the front end in the air. So my car will typically red light when the traction starts going away becaus of this. I would be surprised to see someone red light because of the wheels coming out of the beams by lifting as this takes more time than going throught them. Which car was it by the way?

Pat, my Vega S/G car is set up to do exactly what you described.
My reasoning was that at 96" wheelbase, 2200lbs., and big tires it would have a natural tendency to wheelstand. And would be hard to make drive out of the lights consistently. Whichever it does, it must be able to do the same thing ALL the time. So we set the motor back and the crank at 14" above the ground. With a 4-link, DA coil overs, and anti-roll device.

On a Pro tree, it is able to go .380 red in the daytime anywhere we race. We just roll .025 or so in the box and have at it.
On a full tree, I run 1.115-1.120 in the box in the day and 1.125-1.130 in it at night. Works like a charm.
The only drawback is it trips the 60' timers with the back tires giving false 60'times.

Randy

Mike, I don't recall the car but it was a woman driving. I'm sure it takes more time to lift out of the lights than going forward but, it seems, going up is a red light. At least that is what the announcer said.

LXS, I was at Irwindale Saturday for the Summit Series race. I can't run at Fontana since it didn't license the car this year. I sure wish they would do away with that requirement. I pretty much only go to the Summit events. Thursdays only if I have some testing to do and then I'm usually out of there by 6:00. Too much of a mad house. Aaron is a good guy. I wish he was local, too. I expect he'll be getting his 11 second time slip sometime soon.

I've seen short wb, tube frame type cars do that on occassion. Ones that don't look like they have any front end travel and react very sharply.

Why is lifting out of the lights considered a red light? If it doesn't happen before the green, it shouldn't matter. Am I missing something? :confused:

Chad, I don't know, but that's what the announcer said. It would seem a disadvantage since up isn't the shortest way to the finish line.

Something happened to me last year, maybe the announcer got confused.

Last year. I was bumping my car into the stage light and the car had flickered on the stage enough for the tree to activate, but not enough for me to see it flicker. And the car came out of the light and I got an automatic red for coming out of the beam, maybe thats what happened. I dont' know?

I think that even if you bump into the prestage beam and the starter activates the tree and then you back out of the prestage, you redlight. Once the tree is activated, the only way is forward.

Dave,

I believe you are right, but in my instance it was the stage beam since that is the beam that I generally roll into and not bump. In fact because of this happening, I am now doing a slow roll into the stage beam rather than a "bump", has worked good to get me consistent reaction times in the .510 to .525 range.....thats until they changed to the LED lights...

BTW, Pat...what did you think of the new light system how were your reaction times. Mine were all over the place .510-.610..I saw alot of people redlighting too..in fact out of my 4 rounds I made, 2 were against redlights, and in fact I red lighted first round, but the guy I raced left first and redlighted first.

Since I'm a bit slow with incandescent bulbs (.560-.600) the LEDs help me. .520-.535 now. I did red light in the second round. :(