I just fixed up my El Camino and now I have a decent car to take down the drag strip. So my question is how do you drag race one. I have the column shifter and not a floor shifter. I know it would be better, but I do not have it. Then launching is going to be hard in it self and I am not sure how to do that. Anyone help me out since I am totally lost. O man were to I begin:dontknow:

The BEST thing to do is SPEND SOME TIME AT THE TRACK !
Watch, listen, ask questions, and pay attention.
There is more to it than just getting in the Car and Going for it.
You've already taken the First Big Step ~~~ You asked !! That's a big plus.
It doesn't happen over night. Take your time, do it Right, and live to do it again.

Yeah, what Larry said. And have a few bucks handy when you break stuff.

Doug

few bucks? lol aint nuthin cheap. also bring a truck and trailer dont ever drive it to the track and then expect to drive it to work the next day... learned hard way not once but twice. heh

I have a good friend that we have turned his 12 second driver into a track star. He's running 10.40's now and I'll let you in on a little secrete he HATES when I tell people. He began with this motor shifting at 6600rpm. The car went 10.8 to 10.6 @ 126mph. The MPH didn't make sense dor a 3200 pound smallblock car. So I had him experiment. Told him,, do a longer burnout,, get it up in high gear and get more tire speed. It's loosing ET to the 60 and must be spinning downtrack"
I didn't know he was coming out of the waterbox in 2nd gear (bad, baD, BAD idea with a TH350) So he does as I asked, got 5000 in high gear for a 3 count and had some good tire smoke.......
Let me stop right there and explain something. Bracket racing is a race against the clock and consistancy wins every time. You will see bracket racers do a 'ritual' from startup in the staging lanes, to turnout at the top end of the track. EVERY detail is duplicated exactly the same way it was done last time, and the time before, and before. CONSISTANCY wins bracket races, NOT the quickest car...

OK back to Dana's story....
He comes out of the burnout in high gear (unlike he usually does with a 2nd gear only burnout) . Like a good bracket racer he does his ritual of pulling it down one gear, stages and launches the car. So did you pick up on what he did wrong??? Came out of a high gear burnout and pulled it down ONE gear. He launched wit the shifter in 2nd. The Hughes TH3050 he runs isn't a transbrake / manual valve body so the car launched in 1st, and as he was waiting for the shift light.... the automatic valve body did it's job and shifted to 2nd. All befuddled he slid the shifter up into 3rd,, but the trans didn't shift till it topped out in 2nd gear and auto shifted into 3rd.

He came back to the pit shaking his head in shame and explained the shifter position screwup and that the trans did automatic shifts and he really he did nothing but point the car down the track. I laughed and said,, "Oh well how bad was it? When he handed me the timeslip I about crapped my pants. The car ran 10.42 with letting the trans shift it's self. Dana said,, "take the driver out of the equation and the damn thing runs really good don't it!!!"
That's a really wierd quirk because the motor should make it's peak around 6600-6800 in that small block, and in drive it is shifting around 4800. But.... it proves that 'should' is not always a fact. In this case he was overpowering the little 9" slicks and tirespin is NOT acelerating the car. Giving up torque by shortshifting was allowing the car to launch and run the first 300 feet without spinning,,,, then it was just motoring the rest of the track in high gear.

Most street motors don't have much high end so don't get all crazy thinking you 'HAVE' to manually shift. Dana's story proves that 'sometimes' it's the right move to just put it in drive and see what happens!

Some time ago I put together a page of info for the first timer to the drag strip. Here's a link if you care to spend the time reading it.

http://www.small-block-chevy.com/First.html

I think a lot of folks think that because you're bringing your street car to the track that you need to drive it differently... basically what I tell folks who have never done it is to simply drive it as if you were just taking off from a stop getting on an open freeway... the major difference being that you stay in the gas until you get to the finish line as opposed to backing off once you get to the speed limit on the street.

It sounds like you have an automatic transmission. If so, then the column shift versus floor shift isn't going to get you any better times... If it's manual, then that's a different story.

For your first few runs, just pull up to the line, get staged and step on the gas when the light turns green. If you get too much tire spin, then be less aggressive when you take off. If you get no tire spin, then you can try power braking a little to get the engine into the power band so when the light goes green you just need to let off the brake... A little spin is ok, a light squeal is a pretty good indicator that you are just barely breaking traction... which I think is a good sign.

What ever you do, don't go nuts trying to drive the car like you have never done before... keep it simple and try to figure out how you can drive it better to impove the times. For the most part, your trap speeds will probably be pretty consistent regardless of times.. With the trap speed and weight of the car, you'll be able to figure out the approximate ET you car should be capable of. I think the majority of the impact of your ET comes from the launch / first 60 feet. So knowing what your car is capable of based on the MPH, will help you figure out how close to a good launch you are...

I hope that helps you...

So my question is how do you drag race one. I have the column shifter and not a floor shifter. I know it would be better, but I do not have it. Then launching is going to be hard in it self and I am not sure how to do that. Anyone help me out since I am totally lost. O man were to I begin:dontknow:Your kidding us right? When the light turns green...just floor it! Once your rolling, hold on for dear life and pray to God something doesn't happen all the way down the track...OK now I'm kidding...just go and have fun...you'll improve on any screw ups as you learn.

Your kidding us right? When the light turns green...just floor it! Once your rolling, hold on for dear life and pray to God something doesn't happen all the way down the track...OK now I'm kidding...just go and have fun...you'll improve on any screw ups as you learn.


Finally... Thank you for that. I guess that it's been in my blood since I can remeber. I remeber telling my "dad" as a tiny kid to race every car on the road. I use to love it when he punched it and he over reacted and made it seem like he was pulling 4 G's of force. With 2 hours driveing experience I tought my self how to slam through the gears on the column in my Lincolin. I figured out low speeds lower gear = more power woohoo and the addiction started.. 3 years later I bought a muscle cruck.

If you are running on street tires. Go around the waterbox and no burnout. Waste of tires because they are too hard of compound to get sticky from heat which is the idea behind the burnout.Plus you will carry water to the line in the tread thus making you lose traction on launch.
Your first runs are not going to be about how fast your Elky is but rather learning how to cut a decent light!
Have fun!:nanawrench:

Next time you go to the track dont wait on the green light. Stab the throttle when the last yellow light on the tree comes on. Your car will take that fraction of time before the tree turns green to react to the go pedal being mashed. When I first went drag racing in my ElCamino I was disappointed in my reaction times and I noticed the guys who were good at it would leave before I did because they knew there cars reaction time compared to driver reaction time. Try it and you will be surprised that this little tip will see your ET's improve. Good Luck:texas: