Just a thought here--although there certainly are exceptions (Mike Edwards' perfect lights and some teen lights) it seems to me that especially in the last several races, the overall reaction times in Pro Stock are noticeably slower? I see lots of .030s when the norm for those particular drivers are in the teens, and there sure seems to be more disastrous 3 digit reaction times lately. Am I just focusing too much on the reaction times that are "sub-standard" or does anyone else think that the rts for PS in the last two races have been slower, and if so, any ideas why?

PS & PSB Terry.

The 3 digit times in both categories was way out of wack..it seemed.

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--Medicated for your safety!!--

The bikes were what surprised me. With all of the past red lights I couldn't believe all of the real late reaction times. For a minute I thought they went back to light bulbs and had only 15 watt ones at that.

I don't think a lot of people realize how much clutch setup affects the reaction time. Sometimes to get off the starting line, you have to sacrifice those killer reaction times.

Just about every variable in the clutch (disc compound, static pressure, arm weight, starting line chip) can make a driver look like a hero or a bum.

And that's before we get to the suspension settings.

Many cars were spinning the tires. You can be the best leaver in the world, but a car that spins the tires hard like many were will make a great driver look average.

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Spinning the Tires
Pro Stock looks like Friday Night at the ProMod Races..Slip Sliding away..
Sorry Cheap Shot..

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No offense to the bike people, but the top tier bikes can afford to cut .100 lights or worse and still win. Perfect example was the semi's with Matt Smith. Smith was on a high 6.9 rocket ship and the guy he ran Hope had only been a 7.18 the round before. He only qualified with a 7.10. So why risk going red? Watch him leave and then hope you have the HP to drive around him. Same way with the Chip Ellis/Wes Wells match up in round 2. The fastest Wells had been was a 7.17 all weekend. No point in redlighting.

In the light of what Dan explained, that makes KJ, Jeggie, and DC look even more brilliant. Here are their reaction times for this race...
Jeggie : 0.033, 0.033, 0.035 (lost to KJ)
DC : 0.059, 0.024, 0.027, 0.016 (lost to KJ)
KJ : 0.031, 0.023, 0.025, 0.014

Those 3 teams put on a clinic on car setup and driver. I usually don't notice this kind of consistency (doesn't mean it's not there) but these guys blew me away for this race. They all had the setup and the driver was tuned in. Throw in that the starting line was probably different for them every round and this becomes even more sublime. Is it any wonder those were 3 of the top 4 at the race? These guys are good.

If you looked hard you could see that KJ was just trying to lob the car out there, rather than try to deal with the starting line. When the starting line is starting to go away you raise the wheelie bars and try to get as much weight on the rear tires. However, if you go too far you can easily wheelstand and shake the tires. As Dan pointed out, some of it's in the bellhousing, some in the suspension and some in the driver. It's a fine line and KJ made it work. I would say that he put on a class on how to deal with a race track that was going away.

Pat

Scott's correct in naming the racers that had a handle on a very difficult track. Not taking anything away from them, I wasn't surprised to see KJ end up in the winners' circle.

The Johnson clan has approached racing on a much different level from the competition for many years, and that experience in handling multiple variables came out last Sunday.

Back when the team I was working with was proud to be one of the first to service/baseline the clutch every pass, WJ was way beyond that with changing gear sets from round to round. That's just a small example.

Since those days, the elite PS racers have stepped up to that standard but they have considerably less data to use when making a decision.

Of course, it's easy to let that data overwhelm you into making bad decisions but I'd still rather have it available.

Though Greg Anderson has forced Pro Stock into the modern age in many ways, I'm still convinced the last advantage to be gained will be in a scientific, more accurate use of existing data.