some track pointers please

practice launching. if im reading your setup i believe your making pretty good tq from 2500 and up so if you can launch around there you would be golden. i thin slicks would help.

Only practice is going to help. Every car is different, every track is different...

Get there, get out soft and drive it hard!

With slicks, launch it hard and drive it hard!

For starters, you're going to blow the tires off....so get ready to feather the gas and clutch. #1 rule of any kind of racing is to learn to communicate with the car. Learn to listen and feel what the car is doing and then adjust to it.

You've got a whole lot of engine there, and a whole lot of torque and you've got plenty of gear to back it up. My car has a 90% stock engine and i blow the tires off all through 1st through 3rd, so don't get over anxious with either the gas or the clutch. It's ok to ride the clutch a little (known as slipping the clutch) on launch. This lets you keep the RPMs up and adjust how much "go" the car is getting through the clutch instead of the gas...if you just dump the clutch and smash the gas then i'm sure you know what's going to happen.

You're not going to hook on street tires even in 3rd gear with that combo...so even once it starts to get traction don't get excited and over do it. You wanna be easy "into" each gear and once it starts to grab then give it more gas and clutch, and then shift when you need to...DON'T over shift...and by that i mean just because you started to grab at the top of 2nd doesn't mean you can pound it into 3rd, because you'll just spin like crazy and leave a lot of ET on the table.

Most cars, even powerful ones, once they're hooking in 3rd then you should be able to mash the gas and gun for it. With 4.10s you'll have to shift into 4th....my car even barks 4th when i shift but you should be ok by then. Once you're in 4th mash the gas and don't let up untill you cross the line.


If this is literally your first time at the track at all, then don't just head straight for the staging lanes. Watch the race and see how people stage their cars at the tree. You don't want to be that guy who doesn't know how to stage at the tree and everyone's laughing at you..lol. Sit back and watch how they pull up to the lights and get both sets of yellows lit and do what they do. I would probably launch your car around 2k and feather the crap out of the clutch and gas.

Once you learn to drive your car at the track, there's a lot more to it...more than even most experienced racers know about. How you stage your car alone can give or take 2-3 tenths or more in the 1/4...Here's how you do it...

It's called Shallow Staging...basically when you line up at the tree, there is an infrared beams that your tire breaks through...this is what lights up the yellow lights on the tree and let you know that you are staged in the right spot. Your ET doesn't start untill you roll forward (or backwards...i've seen it lol) and break that beam of light. When you stage, you want to be as far BACK away from that beam as you can, while still lighting up the staged lights. This literally gives you a small running start on the ET clock...maybe only a couple tenths but in drag racing that's the difference between 13s and 12s, so take every advantage you can get.

If you ever wondered how or why it isn't the first car to cross the line that wins the race, this is why. The cars can actually launch at different times (depending on how the tree and race are set up) and the last car to cross the line might run a faster ET because he hasn't broke the light yet. I've also seen cars do the line-lock-slide where the front tires slip a little bit and break the line before they ever drop the hammer, and then they wonder why they ran a half second slower when their MPH is the same. This will also drop your 60 foot a few tenths as well.

Shallow vs deep is not worth tenths... it is worth womething, but not tenths of a second... At best maybe a 10th from a very shallow to a very deep stage. A 12.90 car will not go 13.20 staging deep.

The track should be level and the car should not roll. I have heard of tracks where the starting line is not 100% level and cars roll, but I would think your track should be fine.

Also to note, if your spinning bad, dont just throw it into a higher gear. Pedal it and get the car through that gear, then get it into the next gear. Too many guys slam the next gear in a panic and it just makes the spinning worse or bogs the car a lot.

After this weekend (had to be a spectator, it SUCKED) watching at Tasca Ford day, I see a lot of errors made by drivers that can be easily avoided. Just take your time, drive around the water, clean the tires off, stage it slowely, and come out soft (on street tires). After a while youll get the hang of it and be out there working on things!

87Mustang351 said:

thanks alot man i will deffianly take a looka t the staging a guy i know screwed that up and got a good picking on about it lol, but with my lake woods my car hooks up reallllly well, i only chirp 3rd gear, i have been praticing a good bit and i can take off and not squeal first but im launching from idlewhich is no good, so ill try revving it at 1500 RPM or so

but i get a little sideways in 2nd anyways like i said hopefully i can have the slicks.

another question is when im at the line i only got 2 feet how will i be able to stop the car from rolling when im trying to idle it at 1500 and hold the clutch in? i was thinkin pull up a touch on the e break and soon as i hit it pull it down n shift second? good or bad idea?

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Ok there's a couple things here. Most guys rely on roll control or a linelock, but i don't see them as necessary. Most tracks are actually flat enough that you won't roll unless your tires are ROCK HARD, which the backs shouldn't be (you can actually inflate the fronts a bit hard and reduce rolling resistance). If you find that your car does want to roll, then you've gotta heal-toe it. This means your left foot is all clutch, and your right foot is half on the brake and just enough on the gas to keep it where you want to launch, and then when you launch you let off the brake and roll your foot over to the gas and go from there.


Also, practicing on the street is a good start, but the track is a whole different animal. The surface is usually very smooth so that slicks will hook well, and because of that your street tires will usually hook even less at the drag strip than they do on the street.

You also need to do a decent burnout. You don't need to destroy your tires...that only makes your tires gooey and it's a waste. You want to do a 2nd gear burnout because it's easier on the car and you'll spin the wheels faster with less RPM. Burn out long enough to get a good amount of smoke, but you don't need to kill all the wildlife in the surrounding mile LOL.

Personally, i drive around the water box. I do because you only drag water up to the staging line with you, which you in turn drive through on your way out and lose traction. Also, if you burnout in the water box, you sling water up into the fenders which then drips down on the tires while you're staged and that defeats the purpose.

So...drive around the box, and then try to pick a spot in the box that's "between grooves" or so that your tires are on a good flat surface. Some burnout boxes are trashed and look like ruts in the ground. Once you do your burnout, don't head straight to the line...stop, and then drop the clutch a little bit from 1st gear and see how the tires bite. You want to hear some squeel from the tires...this lets you know they're nice and warmed up. You'll feel it when you pop 1st if your tires are warm enough because they'll bite pretty good in the roughs spots in the box.

Getting out of 1st gear without blowing your traction is key. If you can't land a good 60 foot, you'll never see what your car is really worth.

All the advice in the world won't solve all your problems. Only ONE way to get good, and that is to and practice, practice, practice.

Don't go try to run the best time you can your first run. Try not to look like the newbie/idiot by going out and staging at the 60ft line or right next to the tree, or staging with your back tire, or just haveing to annoy the track officials. THEY ANNOUNCER WILL PUBLICLY EMBARRASS YOU, and everyone will laugh at you. First run, just bark the tires to get them cleaned off, very carefully pull to the line, stop on the second stage light, if you go too far, back completle up and try agian, when the light hits green, just take off like it was the street, but get on it. Practice shifting smoothly and quickly. Your times won't be what they could, but it's your first try. Then after that, start practicing other things. It will take some time, but once you get it, you've got it. Some people never learn, because they go out and try to run before they learn to crawl.

I dont mean to high jack this thread but I have to ask this. Ill be going to the track soon for the first time with this car. I had some track time in my cobra but that was on Nitto's so I didnt have to worry about hooking. My question is , ill be on street tires the first time out, is there any advantage to doing a burnout or dropping the pressure in street tires or am I wasting my time doing these things?

Don't hit the wall.

cobra2798 said:

I dont mean to high jack this thread but I have to ask this. Ill be going to the track soon for the first time with this car. I had some track time in my cobra but that was on Nitto's so I didnt have to worry about hooking. My question is , ill be on street tires the first time out, is there any advantage to doing a burnout or dropping the pressure in street tires or am I wasting my time doing these things?

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I've tried it both ways and personally i never saw an advantage of lowering tire pressure on street tires. The tires are designed to have a full "footprint" and when you let the air out too much, then you lose that. I actually had a guy tell me to overinflate street tires once because he said they bite harder, but that didn't work well either. I just leave the backs where they're recommended and i do a good burnout, but like i said above don't melt the tires because they'll just get greasy and you'll defeat the purpose.

85_SS_302_Coupe said:

I've tried it both ways and personally i never saw an advantage of lowering tire pressure on street tires. The tires are designed to have a full "footprint" and when you let the air out too much, then you lose that. I actually had a guy tell me to overinflate street tires once because he said they bite harder, but that didn't work well either. I just leave the backs where they're recommended and i do a good burnout, but like i said above don't melt the tires because they'll just get greasy and you'll defeat the purpose.

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How much of a burnout do you recommend? Should you just spin them a few times to clean them off or should you get some smoke going? Have you found that you got better traction with a burnout?

cobra2798 said:

How much of a burnout do you recommend? Should you just spin them a few times to clean them off or should you get some smoke going? Have you found that you got better traction with a burnout?

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I go untill i see smoke, and the roll out from the box about 3-4 feet and do a quick 1st gear clutch drop to see how good they bite. Sometimes you pick up a bunch of crap out of the burnout box if you're really far back into the box and with street tires it's a little better if you pull up a little farther from the water than normal to where the box is a little smoother. You definately need to do more than just spin them a couple times, but it's not necessary to sit there for 30 seconds destroying your tires.

85_SS_302_Coupe said:

I go untill i see smoke, and the roll out from the box about 3-4 feet and do a quick 1st gear clutch drop to see how good they bite. Sometimes you pick up a bunch of crap out of the burnout box if you're really far back into the box and with street tires it's a little better if you pull up a little farther from the water than norman to where the box is a little smoother. You definately need to do more than just spin them a couple times, but it's not necessary to sit there for 30 seconds destroying your tires.

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Cool ill have to try this on some back roads before I go to the track, I know its different but at least I can get an idea.

cobra2798 said:

Cool ill have to try this on some back roads before I go to the track, I know its different but at least I can get an idea.

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Just look for the smoothest street you can find....that'll be closer to the surface of the track. Like for example, the burnout in my sig is on VERY rough street, basically just tar and gravel, and not only does it destroy your tires but you also hook a lot harder since the tires bite into the surface.

85_SS_302_coupe, what kind of times do you run? You have a lot of good info here and sound like a veteran racer. I almost feel like I dont have to come give my .02 cents anymore !

Best advice someone can give, is practice. Your going to learn LOTS from going down the trac a dozen times. Dont expect the world the first time out, and keep at it!

25thmustang said:

85_SS_302_coupe, what kind of times do you run? You have a lot of good info here and sound like a veteran racer. I almost feel like I dont have to come give my .02 cents anymore !

Best advice someone can give, is practice. Your going to learn LOTS from going down the trac a dozen times. Dont expect the world the first time out, and keep at it!

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LOL seriously? Ha! I wouldn't say i'm a veteran! You probably have more time on the track than i do...i just pay LOTS of attention and i've been driving since i was 13 so i know how to handle my car. Just like your view on Shallow staging....maybe it's my track or maybe i'm just wrong but for me it's always shown a bigger difference than .1. My car only runs low 14s, but then again it does still have stock '85 heads and cam and 250K miles lol.

I'd say realistically i've made less than 50 passes total. It's all about what you take from the experience and how serious you take it. For example, i've never raced on slicks so you've got me by a long shot there!

practice your launch, thats really where all your time is made or lost.

Cool to hear, and I do have a lot of passes (probably upwards of 200 or more now) but can say good advice doesnt always come from veterans (have gotten some bad advice from good racers). I could tell you everything to do when I was 14-15 years old and had never been down a drag strip. Im just glad to see good info coming out and not the normal garbage that some people post who have NO idea.

As far as deep and shallow staging. I ALWAYS try to shallow stage but have gone in deep once or twice. On my 12.56 run I shallowed staged the car because it was eliminations and I didnt care about reaction time. I ran the 12.56 and that was that. Next race wanted to go in deeper but not deep, and hit it too hard. Ended up deep staged (really deep actually) and ran my run. I spun hard and had a much worse 60', yet still went 12.62 with slightly higher mph. Other times going in deep has given me very similar times to going shallow, but you wont find me going in deep anymore. Im a kind of guy who just tickles the beams because I usually can react quick enough to not have issue!