Tripping the staging light

gmantheman

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When lined up at the staging lane, will I get a red light if I trip both sets of staging lights? Sometimes when I try to keep my car from moving too much at the staging lines while keeping the RPM around 2500-3000 my car will move slightly moving causing on set of staging lights to trip. I actually lost a race because of this. I had the better time, but lost the race. When I was lined up, I tried holding my car at 2500 RPMs and the car moved fwd a little causing one set of lights to trip, so when I let of and put the car in reverse as soon as I put it back in 1st the light was green and the other driver was already past the tree.
 

don_w

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Yes... rolling through both beams before the green light causes a red.

Your sig says "Hurst sifter", so I'm assuming you have a manual trans. Sounds like you need to keep your foot on the brake when staged. Some tracks have a slight downhill gradient and a car will roll just due to gravity unless you are on the brake. Problem is... you have three pedals and two feet. :whistling:

On the other hand, if you have an auto trans, it sounds like your overpowering the torque converter. The brakes will only hold so much. You need to launch at a lower rpm.
 
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US-1

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Without a set of line locks you will need to use the foot brake or the emergency brake to keep the car from creeping too far forward out of the beams. A friend of mine who races a stick car in FFW and NMRA said, "One click on the e-brake for staging." Just keep your right hand on the release button so you can release the e-brake as you dump the clutch.
 

gmantheman

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Yes... rolling through both beams before the green light causes a red.

Your sig says "Hurst sifter", so I'm assuming you have a manual trans. Sounds like you need to keep your foot on the brake when staged. Some tracks have a slight downhill gradient and a car will roll just due to gravity unless you are on the brake. Problem is... you have three pedals and two feet. :whistling:

On the other hand, if you have an auto trans, it sounds like your overpowering the torque converter. The brakes will only hold so much. You need to launch at a lower rpm.
Yep. I have a manual.
 

gmantheman

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Yes... rolling through both beams before the green light causes a red.

Your sig says "Hurst sifter", so I'm assuming you have a manual trans. Sounds like you need to keep your foot on the brake when staged. Some tracks have a slight downhill gradient and a car will roll just due to gravity unless you are on the brake. Problem is... you have three pedals and two feet. :whistling:

On the other hand, if you have an auto trans, it sounds like your overpowering the torque converter. The brakes will only hold so much. You need to launch at a lower rpm.

Without a set of line locks you will need to use the foot brake or the emergency brake to keep the car from creeping too far forward out of the beams. A friend of mine who races a stick car in FFW and NMRA said, "One click on the e-brake for staging." Just keep your right hand on the release button so you can release the e-brake as you dump the clutch.
Thanks for the info about the e-brake. Next time I will try that;however, it might get a little used to...remembering to release the ebrake. With my cat like reflexes, it shouldn't be a problem releasing the ebrake while modulating the clutch and go-peddle.
 

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