Last week I talked about some of the things that go on while at the track. This week I want to talk about the things that me as a driver will go through when making a pass down the track. People who aren’t familiar with drag racing look at it as just driving a car in a straight line, but it is a lot more complicated than that.
When it is time to make a pass, you push or drive your car up to the staging lanes and pick which lane you would like to run which normally just depends on the driver. When the car is in the lanes you need to check the tires to make sure that they have the proper air in them. If one tire has more air then the other this can cause the car to drive different and be inconsistent. Next you can start putting on your safety gear for my class I have to wear a three-layered fireproof jacket, pants, gloves, and shoes. Once you get in the car you need to put on your 5-point harness which is just a more advanced seatbelt.
Now that your suited up you can fire the car up to begin pulling up to the burnout box. Throughout the run the driver is responsible for keeping an eye on all the gauges to ensure that everything is running properly. The burnout is when you heat the tires up on the car to help the tires stick better to the track surface. When heating the tires, you need to be careful not to overrev your engine since it turns up a lot quicker since the tires have less drag in the water. After coming out of the water you need to make sure that you line your car up in the groove. The groove is the two lines on the racetrack where the most stick is and can look different depending on the track.
The car is now ready to make a pass so now you can stage the car which is where you pull forward until the top lights of the Christmas tree come on this is called being pre-staged. After this you clear the engine out to make sure everything is good one last time then you can inch forward until the bottom stage lights come on which will then activate the tree.
Now you hold down your trans brake on your steering wheel and once the top yellow comes on you release it and put the gas to the floor. Once the tree gets to green the car will take off and your main job now is to keep the car going as straight as you can and continue keeping an eye on your gauges. After you reach the finish line depending on how fast your car is you will pull your parachutes, knock the car in neutral, and shut the motor off. Then you will pull off the track and return to the pits and that’s what its like to make a pass down the track.
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