Frequency of double redlights
 

With opinions about the POSSIBLE rule change ranging from "this is the greatest thing since sliced bread" to "this will be the end of class racing", how many races actually have both racers redlit?

I race a lot and have only had 1 race in the past 5 years (or more) that would have been affected.

I'm guessing a very small percentage.

Opinions?

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Opinions? Nope.

Fact is you are 100% correct.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

I'm all for not having to see the other guys green bulb as my tree comes down.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

I had one instance (loser) of it this year, which is probably about average, 1 every year or so.

So the extremes of the argument can come back with "It doesn't matter, so why change it?" vs "Since it's not that big of a deal, why not change it?"

-=shrug=-

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Mark, the amount of double red lights is probably less than 2% and where the fast car is worse is less than 1 %. Other interesting statistics heads up less than 10 % in stock, mostly 2 % to 4 %. In super stock the figure is smaller due to more classes.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Mark, I've been in a few double-redlight races. Maybe three or four. As a FWD Stocker, I always left FIRST, but never was my redlight WORST. The one that sticks in my memory was my first NHRA race in Billy Nees' HF/SA Sunbird. -.001 red, and 18.012 on an 18.01. My opponent, Pat Molle, was -.023 and broke something. Still remember it well...lol.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Clint said, "I'm all for not having to see the other guys green bulb as my tree comes down."

Three questions (and, I'm not being facetious.)

1. What does this have to do with double red light rule?

2. If you're going to leave last, you're going to see it with either system, unless the system doesn't change, and he red lights.

3. Was that a joke?

Why don't they "blind" the trees so that the driver in either lane can't see the lights for the other car?

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Fontana dose blind there tree including the red light, NHRA leaves the red light open, Some strips have an open tree.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

I was under the assumption that with a rule like this, the tree wouldnt light up the red or green in the slower lane until both cars leave. Maybe im way off, I didnt take the time to read all 9 pages of posts on the topic. That would be a nice advantage to those of us trying to concentrate on our side of the tree with a faster car though.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Woodburn blinds out all the lights as well.

I would like to see double red light data for the tracks that blind both bulbs. Maybe go back 10 or 15 years. That would be an accurate projection of how often double red lights would happen under the proposed system.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Blinders on the tree will cure that real quick !!! Problem solved !!!

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

The frequency of double red data is not really valid since in cases where the fast guy has already seen the opponents red, he/she will most likely take a good stab at the tree for practice and occasionally go red in the process. The only double red data that really counts would be where there wasn't much difference in dial ins.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Faul and Beard, that cause you guys are professionals and don't get red lights like the weaker of us drivers.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

I don't race as often as some people,but I went into my logbook for 2009 and tried to get some stats.I have competed in 24 rounds of racing this year.On (3) occasions,my opponent redlighted,and on (1) occasion,I redlighted.NONE were double redlights.
It would be interesting to hear some stats from other racers,but my data says that this issue is nothing to get all worked up over like some seem to be.If the rule was changed or left alone,it really wouldn't make a huge difference in my opinion.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

I race a slow F150 at my local track quite a bit, and it happens to me about 2-3 times a year looking back at it. In stock, I cannot remember it happening to me, but i have only run a handful of times in stock in my career.

Ellis V. Buth
3655 W/S 1976 Pinto Station Wagon

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Statistics as they are available really don't tell the real story unless they are from trees that at totally blind. Two examples:
1. Fast car sees the slow cars red light and backs off and waits for the green.
2. Fast car sees the slow car red light and leaves early not even trying to cut a good light.
Jim

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Really if your concentrating on your side you shouldn't be able to see what happenes in the other lane. This past weekend I had 4 reds against me and I never seen it once...the only way I knew is when the car settles down in second gear my win light is already on. Some times luck falls my way...not too often though. My 2 cents...;)

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Ya think that's bad? At least three different times at Pageland Dragway, I've been driving the stripe or dumping the other guy... and then realize that he was red. :p Oops!

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

happened three times to me in last three seasons in probably 200 rounds of competition in both Box and No Box type racing.

I think blocking the red or having it delayed would be OK. We need something NEW to interest more people. What happens when all of us OLD GEEZERS have to use our energy to go cash the Social Security checks.

Why not a Pro-Tree like AHRA used to do. turn off the pre-stage light. .3 Pro-Tree, EVERYONE was late. That was some interesting racing. I know, not many of you remember that.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

My local track was running AHRA with that system when I started racing. I had pretty quick physical reactions, so I was able to do pretty well.

As far as double redlights, I have experienced 3 of them this season, out of roughly 40 eliminations rounds. One was in my tow rig (I was the slower car), and my redlight was a lot closer to green. In my S/G car racing non-electronics brackets, I am usually the quicker car. I was the beneficiary of a slower car's double red-light earlier this year (mine by 0.002 to his 0.031), but at the ET finals I was slightly slower and red-lit (another -0.002), while the other guy red-lit by 0.045, but he crossed the centerline and lost anyway. I'll bet I average 2 double redlights a season since I started racing regularly again in 2007, and this year is the first that I've been the faster car on a regular basis.

Regards,

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Okay, update my total to 4 double redlights this season. In this case, I saw the other guy's red-light so I raised my launch RPM to take a stab at the $100 perfect light bonus (I missed).

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

We used to have that here at Tulsa. I liked to run cars about .5 slower, and just left when their car moved, the slower car was dead meat, and could do nothing about it. Several guys did that. One was killing us until the starter found he was watching him press the button.

Many faster guys take a shot at the tree when the slower car goes red, or just stop sitting on the converter for no reason. If they change it, I think the guys wanting it will be suprised at how little it actually helps them.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Ed wrote, "I think the guys wanting it will be suprised at how little it actually helps them."

Ed,
It's not a matter of "helping" anybody.

It's a matter of giving both cars an equal chance to red light... PERIOD. That's all it does.

I fail to see what's wrong with that scenario, or, why anyone who values sportsmanship and fair play could object to it. NOBODY has an advantage with this system. NOBODY.

That's not true with the system now in place.

This double red light system will work effectively to level the playing field, whether it's a race between an AA/SA car and an A/SA car, a AA/SA car and a W/SA car, or a V/SA car and a W/SA car.

It plays no favorites.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

A racer's "job" is to look for and gain every advantage. He's not looking to level the playing field, but to gain an advantage.

Now we're talking about taking one advantage away. This rule would help about 50% of the racers and hinder about 50% of the racers. What could be more fair?

However I can understand the 50% that it would hinder bitching about "Just leave things the way they were. We don't need any more changes." It's not to their advantage to make things more fair.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

i think you'd find it comes into play a lot more on evenly et'ed cars (ie h/sa vs e/sa) much more often than in huge spots...
anyway it would be FAIR ...

jack

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

I most always leave first, and don't really care either way. I think the slower cars are not going to gain what they hope to. How about both go red, both loose?

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

When I bracket race, I almost always leave 2nd (so I'm one of those guys who would be losing an advantage), but I think they should change the rule in the interest of fairness. Yes, it cost me more to build my car to be quicker, but I also get the advantage of better visibility judging the stripe. The slower car does have the advantage of the "clean" tree (no distraction of the other car leaving), so if you take away the red-light advantage it leaves us with one significant advantage each.

Regards,

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Ed,

You mean the "First or Worst" rule changed to the "Too bad!" rule?

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Looking back at my log book for '89 I found that most of my redlights, about 60% , were from leaving early to catch a slower car that did NOT redlight. I guess the were "anxious redlights".

I believe this is a non-problem....that's my opinion, shoot me.

JimR

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

The answer is. Under the present rule. What if 2 cars break out do both lose?

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Bill,

Didn't we debate some of these other racers on this topic earlier this season? I'm with you (again) on this one, and I'm glad that a faster class racer (Michael Pliska) appears to agree with us, because the faster class cars already have the "everything is in front of them" advantage, so why should they sustain this advantage too??? I hope this is for real and not just a figment of my imagination!!!

Now, another thing I hope they change is the reading height of the timing lights that are tripped by the nose of a car under hard braking (newer cars with ground effects skirting, or other devices?), so that the finish line will be tripped by the same device that the starting line is tripped by...THE TIRES!!!

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

What about the distraction of the slower car leaving ?....I think the 'first or worst' is fine. If I have to wait while the slower car leaves, then why give the slower car the 'advantage' of maybe distracting me into a redlight....?

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Mark - this weekend @ Memphis, Bob Dennis was -.007 red just before Bones lit it up -.006 red. And then yours against A.D. just before that.... Both first red were worse.

Got the new bullet in yet?

Hugh

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

You can talk 'til the world looks level about advantages that slower cars have, and the advantages that faster cars have, but those are usually not things that can be changed.

This is a system that CAN be changed, so NOBODY has the advantage in this area.

You can't say, "Let's keep this advantage for the faster car, because the slower car blah, blah, blah..."
because for every advantage you can name for slower car, there's a matching one for the faster car.

And, this change is not just going to affect cars on a "slow-vs.-fast-car" basis; it will affect ANY two cars that are not running heads-up. When a V/SA 6-cylinder car spots a W/SA 4-cylinder Pinto wagon, it will apply to both of them, and so on up the board.

The ONLY car that won't USUALLY have a chance to benefit from this will be an AA/S car, although it was recently pointed out to me that DRC reported that an A car spotted a AA car at a race, so the AA car was the first to leave, and could have been the beneficiary of a worse red light by the second-to-leave A car, if they'd both red-lit.

That's an anomaly, but proves that at some time or other EVERY car could benefit from this change.

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Gary,
I agree that the finish line lights need some attention, for the reasons you pointed out.

How would you attack this problem?

Ideas????

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

BANG!!!

What if your race car were a W/SA Pinto wagon with a C-3 transmission, that would result in you being the first car to leave 100-percent of the time?

That would mean that any time you red lit, your opponent would never have a chance to red light.

Never....

Can you logically justify a system that unecessarily removes your opponent from jeopardy (red light variety) just because you left early? You have deprived him of his chance to red light.

He has no way to return the favor... Nothing he can do will remove you from the jeopardy of a red light.

Do you think you'd still see this situation as a "non-problem" if that were the case?

Does that seem fair to you?

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Bill,

I'm wounded but not dead.

I have been in the slow shoes when I raced a slant six Valiant. When I say it's a non-problem I'm looking at the frequency of such situations. Is this such a big problem that it needs fixing? If so then use the blinders, which won't work at night because the glare will tell the other guy what color your lights are.

If this is a big problem then let's lobby for a change, but what will the NHRA say ....."It's not a big problem".

Just trying to be practical,

JimR

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

What if your race car were a W/SA Pinto wagon with a C-3 transmission, that would result in you being the first car to leave 100-percent of the time? (quoted from Bill Dedman a few posts ago)

Who in their right mind would race a W/SA Pinto wagon? LOL. We have a W/S and leave first 99.9% of the time (unless we race Polhill, Seibenick, or the occasional W/SA such as Philley, Nivans, or my uncles old Pinto Wagon in Minnesota). I dont know if the rule would help us as much versus say a Cobra Jet, but it would definitely help cars that are clustered closer together where there is no time to see a red in the other lane (people argue that if you are focused on your side of the tree you dont see the red light, but i think against a car 4 or even 6 seconds slower than you that you can see the red light and still re-focus before your tree comes down) I know I always could in my junior dragster.

Ellis V. Buth
1976 Pinto Station Wagon W/S

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Ellis,

No red llight will come on until after BOTH cars have left the line.
No red llight will come on until after BOTH cars have left the line.
No red llight will come on until after BOTH cars have left the line.

Running the car that you do, and after my having posted that sentence on this forum at LEAST ten times, in weeks, months and YEARS past, I figured that YOU, of all people, would have seen it...

The computer will not show a red light in ~either~ lane until after both cars have launched, and the computer has compared "lights."

Only then, will a win light and a red light come on, IF there was, in fact, a (red) light in either lane.

Hope this helps...

Re: Frequency of double redlights
 

Jim, better get that bullet wound taken care of.... don't let it get infected!!!

RE: "I have been in the slow shoes when I raced a slant six Valiant. When I say it's a non-problem I'm looking at the frequency of such situations."

You are surely right, in that, this double red light wouldn't happen very often at all...

But, it WILL happen, and could happen in the final round for Stock Eliminator at the U.S. Nationals....

I'd sure hate to lose that one to a red bulb that was a lesser-inftaction than that faster car's (red) bulb in the other lane. That would leave a bad taste in my mouth for a long time...

No, it won't happen often, but since it's such an easy "fix," I can't see any reason NOT to fix it. They fixed the "first car to breakout loses".... a long time ago.
Time to fix this, too.

Just tryin' to be fair...