I was under the impression radios can be in your car in the sportsman ranks as long as no one is tipping you off like "he broke, so let off" or such... But reading through the rulebook I don't see any restrictions on use of radios... Can anyone fill me in?

Also, are you allowed to listen to music during a run or would that be a safety hazzard?

thanks,
CJ Curtsinger

There is no prohibition that I know of to keep someone from radioing the driver to tell him his opponent broke - or had a lousy launch. A lot of Sportsman teams use in-car radios, for staging among other things.

My wife drives our top dragster and we use radios as a safety measure. From behind the car I can see things happening to her opponent and her faster than she can see/feel them. We have an agreement that if she hears me say anything during the course of a run she is to lift smoothly and abort the run.

She is in a much better position to do her own finish line driving so I have no involvement there.

It's hard for her to look back over her shoulder (because of a helmet cooling tube and somewhat because of the HANS) so I also tend to tell her where the cars are at the end of the track positioning for the turn off.

So for us it's mainly a stress reducer. Less uncertainty about what is going on.

I've found that my ears ring alot less wearing the headset more, and I can chat and cruise the staging lanes without being lost from my driver.

Although I took some heat when I purchased them, 3 or 4 of the families we regularly race with now use radios too.

I really don't think they could be used to give a good driver a competitive advantage, but they may be of some help to less experienced driver.