questions concerning christmas tree

[bill dedman]

Ed, I have a race car. I told you all about it in a post about a month ago.

Do you remember?

I do...

I know you're not as old as I am; you should remember...

But, this issue doesn't require the owning of a car to understand it.

What aspects of this worse red light question do you think requires the ownership of a car to understand?

Enlighten me... please.

P. S. What kind of grief would it cause you to finally get a fair shake when racing a quicker car? You never have, you know...

[bill dedman]

Ed, This is the race car I don't have... according to you. The brown one...

[John Leichtamer Jr]

FIRST or WORSE Why is it that the starting line always FIRST and the finish line is always WORSE What the hell is this. If its first at the starting line it should be first at the finish line. double brakeout should be the one that took the strip.should be out.

Hammer

[Brandon Peterson]

i figured this one out last year.....DONT REDLIGHT

[bill dedman]

Yeah, John; it's that double standard that needs to be fixed....

[Rich Biebel]

We have a very good racer in our area and he is well known. "Big Bucks" Bob Mullaney. Bob is a pretty damn good racer and has won countless races over the years. He is best in a bottom bulb footbrake car and has driven all kinds of cars from fast to very slow. He once raced an old Nova in Pro bracket and the car was usually about the slowest car in the bracket. He won many many times with that car and did what anyone that races a car like that has to do...HIT THE TREE well first above all else.....Once people know a racers ability, the pressure shifts from the slow car driver to the faster cars driver. He knows he must also cut a good light and then try to judge a much slower car. This perceived disadvantage of racing a slower car is next to nothing. Very few races are double redlights where the faster car redlighted by more than the slower car, Just trying to block the slower car as it leaves the line is also a distraction for the faster car. A much slower car is not that bad...but a car that is about a bulb slower is tough to completely block from view and it attracts the faster driver to follow and leave early. To me the bigger disadvantage to racing a slower car is trying to look over your shoulder and also find the finishline. A slower car is on the track longer and usually has more ET variations than a faster car. You choose what you bring to the track to race. There are plenty of guys that win and have won with slower cars. I raced my street car 2 times in Street et and ran some mid 17 second times......I got to the semi's second time I raced it. I found a comfortable launch technique.....Lost by .001" at the stripe.....dragging the brakes....against a 13 or 14 second car......had the better RT.......That was way to friggen slow for me.......I'd sooner watch paint dry.....

I have to ad that Bob Mullaney drove an R/SA Chevy wagon (SLOW CAR) to the Division 1 Stock championship one year and came pretty close to winning the national event at Maple Grove as I recall. Billy Nees has won also with an even slower car......and Ed F. has won as well. Fast cars outnumber slow cars by a lot these days and that is probably because people like racing faster cars more than any other reason....I have had Stockers and would not race anything slower than a 10 second car, even in Stock....

[Ed Fernandez]

Originally Posted by bill dedman

Ed, I have a race car. I told you all about it in a post about a month ago.

Do you remember?

I do...

I know you're not as old as I am; you should remember...

But, this issue doesn't require the owning of a car to understand it.

What aspects of this worse red light question do you think requires the ownership of a car to understand?

Enlighten me... please.

P. S. What kind of grief would it cause you to finally get a fair shake when racing a quicker car? You never have, you know...

You own it,but do you race it in S/SS?I don't believe you have any grade points for 2008-2009.So you are basically an ex racer who is now a key board racer.Your constant blathering about every aspect of our racing can in fact be picked up by the wrong yahoos in Glendora and have changes that affect us.Key board racers will not feel the effects of these changes.
So reminiscing about the old days is fine but you don't have a dog in the fight anymore.

[Alan Roehrich]

It's not a "software problem", it's a "problem" in YOUR perception.

At best, it is a very minor "problem", if it is a "problem" at all.

Do you want to know why a lot of us don't give a damn about this mole hill you are desperately trying to make into Mount Everest? I'll tell you why. Because there are a lot of real problems, that are very serious problems for a lot of racers.

THESE problems are REAL deal breakers:

Increased purses and fees, with reduced payouts, which will most certainly be even further reduced next year. Nothing like spending more to get less.

Sportsman racers being held outside the gate, while tech is going on, and while their first time trial is being run, so that the "professionals" can park their rigs early. Nothing like driving all night and parking in a field, then being left there while the "pros" get their perks and your time trials go on without you.

Piss poor track preparation. Nothing like a wasted time shot because they are too cheap or too lazy to prep the track.

Absurd scheduling that makes it hard to keep on top of your plan for a day of racing.

Sportsman racing either canceled or rescheduled at ridiculous times due to weather. It's great to never get your shot at class because of a brief shower, when you had a great chance at the win. Never mind sitting around for 2-3 days missing work so the pros can finish first, when they have nothing to do but race.

Five day national events that could be done in three with decent scheduling and common sense, so people with an actual job wouldn't have to take a week off to go to a race and sit three days and race two. It's always cool to leave your business closed and not making money an extra couple of days, so you can sit and watch a dog and pony show on the three days of a five day event that you don't run.

I could probably list 20 more real serious problems that actually need attention, as opposed to the "perceived crisis" of "unfair " red light issues. As I said before, there are a lot of serious problems that Stock and Super Stock face, and yet here you are again, campaigning and complaining constantly about a hangnail, while we're all struggling to survive a sucking chest wound.

[bill dedman]

Alan,

All the complaining in the world about the problems you mentioned has nothing to do with this issue.

If you think it's not important, then, ignore it. It's not worth your time.

I think it's a mole hill, but one that people have been tripping over for 36 years, and it's time to level it out, and level the playing field, in the process.

Doing so, won't affect any of the many other problems you mentioned in the slightest... one way, or another.

In all your verbiage, you still have not come up with one single reason NOT to fix it... none. Even YOU can't logically defend keeping this lopsided rule in effect.

That is very telling.

Glendora couldn't care less, I am sure; if they cared, it would have been fixed long ago.

I'm not holding my breath...

Thanks for your comments.

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by bill dedman

Alan,

All the complaining in the world about the problems you mentioned has nothing to do with this issue.

If you think it's not important, then, ignore it. It's not worth your time.

I think it's a mole hill, but one that people have been tripping over for 36 years, and it's time to level it out, and level the playing field, in the process.

Doing so, won't affect any of the many other problems you mentioned in the slightest... one way, or another.

In all your verbiage, you still have not come up with one single reason NOT to fix it... none. Even YOU can't logically defend keeping this lopsided rule in effect.

That is very telling.

Glendora couldn't care less, I am sure; if they cared, it would have been fixed long ago.

I'm not holding my breath...

Thanks for your comments.

Bill, you are operating on an invalid assumption.

You assume that the change you desire will level the playing field. But you don't know that to be true. You only know that it would appear to have the same effect on everyone. That may not be true.

Rules are not necessarily about making everything the same for everyone. They are often about achieving or trying to achieve balance. In handicap drag racing you can NEVER make everything the same for every racer. It is impossible. You cannot give both racers in a handicap race a clean tree. Nor can you give both racers the same waiting time for the last yellow to come on.

You see what you assume is a glaring inequity that you feel you have the solution for. Others see that what you think is simple and obvious is actually neither simple nor obvious. You assume that a balance does not exist, but you do not really know that for sure, and yet you still seek to change something, without having the knowledge to be certain you will not actually upset an existing balance. Beware the law of unintended consequences.

You THINK you will level the playing field, but do you have statistical data to prove it? Do you have definitive proof that an actual imbalance exists? Or do you simply see what you think is an inexcusable inequity?