QUOTE=Ed Fernandez;
"WHEN you raced,did you leave first or last usually?"
My car was a 15-pound per HP car (H/SA then, M/SA), so I'd say it was pretty much 50/50 at that time.
>>>"By the way you are attacking this issue it seems you were the slower car and lit the red bulb more than a few times.Why do you insist on stirring the pot when you are out of the loop?Sitting in the stands who redlights has no bearing on you what so ever,unless your friends all have first leavers.What's the story?"
The real story is, I didn't even drive my race car usually, because when I raced Stock Eliminator, they didn't weigh the driver... just the car. I weighed 220 pounds; I had a friend who was a decent driver who weighed 120 pounds... as you know, that's a solid tenth.. a car-length. My car wasn't fast enough to be giving away performance a car-length at a time, so I had him drive most of the time. Red lights were never a factor in my getting beat; a lack of horsepower WAS. lol!
As a rabid, wild-eyed fanatic of Stock Eliminator since 1955, I have been delighted by NHRA's modus operandi over the years to make things as fair as they reasonably could. Look at the multitude of ways NHRA has bent over backward to level the playing field for these cars WHEN THEY COULD.... to the extent of bouncing cars for valves that were a few thousandths of an inch too SMALL, to measuring breakouts in thousandths of a second... to weighing the components of the reciprocating assembly against a predetermined weight/value that cannot be manipulated.
All that monumental, and near-comprehensive effort, and then, this.... a simple-to-fix, one-sided rule that came into being in 1963, when there was no other way to operate, but has since, acquired an easy way to fix what's wrong with it, in the interest of continuing NHRA's philosophy of making racing as fair as they reasonably can.
I have no dog in this hunt, true; I'm just a Bracket racer for reasons financial, but that doesn't mean that my lifelong passion has no interest in seeing the kind of racing I so dearly love, being changed for the better (more fair), since the "fix" is cheap, easy, and won't affect ANYBODY'S driving style.
I can't think of a single reason not to fix it. It's not a "slow car vs. fast car" thing at all.... This crap happens every time an A car runs a B car...
EVERY TIME there's a race, unless it's heads-up, the second car to leave the line gets the advantage of MAYBE getting a free ride to the next round, if the first car red lights. He needs his chance to red light, too; even if the first car leaves too soon, just like in a double breakout.
There seems to me to be no reason, in 2009, to be doing the same cockeyed way of running things that they did in 1963, when they were doing it because they HAD to. We no longer have to...
It just seems stupid to me. But, that's just my German ancestry dictating my "logic circuits," I guess...
>>>"Also usually it's only an issue when the dials are close.Usually say a P car fouls to an A car if you look at the numbers the A car has a terrible light because he saw the red light
Well, with this system HE WON'T BE SEEING ANY RED LIGHTS because no red light will come on until AFTER both cars have left the line.
That is the THIRD time I have explained that in this thread, but nobody seems to "get it." I don't know if they just scan the highlights, don't pay any attention to what I write, because I am just some redneck goofball to them, with crazy, wild ideas, unworthy of consideration or that this double red light system is so foreign to what they're used to that it doesen't "register," but rest assured NOBODY will see a red light before BOTH cars have left the line.
To do it any other way would be patently UNFAIR to the second car to leave.
Double red lights are, and will always be, a seldom seen phenomenon. This rule wouldn't come into effect very often at all, and it is likely that nobody would even be aware that it was in place, unless there were a double red light.
If it never gets implemented, the world will still revolve the same way, and lots of other inequites will continue to exist in our drag racing world. This just seems like one that is an easy fix, and needs to be done in the sake of fairness to every first car to leave the line in any kind of handicap racing.
Beyond that, have a nice day!!! And, I mean that!
Bill