Preparation before races at dragstrip?

[nsxsupra]

Well, I know our car is meant to for the curves, however I not afraid to admit that I do enjoy straightline performance as much as I enjoy tossing the car around at the corners. After having my first experience at the dragstrip, I felt that as a driver I have a lot of room for improvement. The car is capable of very respectable #s even with street tires.

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For thoese with actual experience at the dragstrip, what kind of tire pressure do you run at the strip? I ran 35psi at the Irwindale, people at the track were suggesting running 22psi~25psi. I wasn't comfortable with that as I have a long drive home with same tires.
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What kind of helmets do you recommend?

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Question about water box? do you always burn out at the water box even with street tires?

There is no way to avoid the water box without getting the tires wet, so basicly the tires gets wet without a burn out, and there are left over debris/rubbers from other cars that did burn outs, not very good for traction. Should I just do a burn out anyway to heat up the tires and get the debris and water off the tire before launching?

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What are some of the performing street tire for the dragstrip? I like to avoid running slicks.

 

[VBNSX]

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For thoese with actual experience at the dragstrip, what kind of tire pressure do you run at the strip? I ran 35psi at the Irwindale, people at the track were suggesting running 22psi~25psi. I wasn't comfortable with that as I have a long drive home with same tires.
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What kind of helmets do you recommend?

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Question about water box? do you always burn out at the water box even with street tires?

There is no way to avoid the water box without getting the tires wet, so basicly the tires gets wet without a burn out, and there are left over debris/rubbers from other cars that did burn outs, not very good for traction. Should I just do a burn out anyway to heat up the tires and get the debris and water off the tire before launching?

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What are some of the performing street tire for the dragstrip? I like to avoid running slicks.

Run the 22-25 lbs.... then before you leave, just fill back up... at dragstrips there is usually a air tank somewhere. Even if there isn't one, you have one in your car..:smile:

Helmet - anything approved. All you're doing is watching the tree.

Avoid the waterbox if you're on street tires... doing a burnout with street tires in box will not help you. If you've ever been to a drag strip event you'll always notice that the people with street tires avoid the water as much as they can. Prior to the stage do a small burnout. Basically, you'll be cleaning off the tires for a nice launch.

Look at the nitto drag radial. Some people have done 'ok' with them.

good luck and have fun..

x

 

[nsxsupra]

Avoid the waterbox if you're on street tires... doing a burnout with street tires in box will not help you. If you've ever been to a drag strip event you'll always notice that the people with street tires avoid the water as much as they can. Prior to the stage do a small burnout. Basically, you'll be cleaning off the tires for a nice launch.

Look at the nitto drag radial. Some people have done 'ok' with them.

Thanks a lot for the info:smile:

I want to the track this Thursday at Irwindale speedway, unfortuantely the waterbox at this track was not avoidable, even if I tried one of the wheel will touch the water box. If this is the case, what would you do?

 

[John McCain Racing]

Thanks a lot for the info:smile:

I want to the track this Thursday at Irwindale speedway, unfortuantely the waterbox at this track was not avoidable, even if I tried one of the wheel will touch the water box. If this is the case, what would you do?

Times? Did you notice a difference in your 60 foot with the lower PSI in your rear tires?

 

[nsxsupra]

Times? Did you notice a difference in your 60 foot with the lower PSI in your rear tires?

I ran the time below at 35psi, only had one run at this tire pressure, due to the helmet requirement for cars running 8.5sec or less:

Reaction time .741
60' 2.008
330 5.462
MPH 87.8
1/8mile 8.217sec

Tire pressure on prior runs was 40~42psi hot, the best 60' I could manage was 2.182sec~2.362, it was really ugly on my very first run, the others are so so. The biggest problem I had was the traction, the unavoidable water box prior to the line and the debris/rubber left by the hot rods made the strip extremely slippery. Learned some valueable lesson from this first drag experience.

 

[DocL]

How much time did you waste waiting around to drive your car for only 8.217 seconds?

 

[nsxsupra]

How much time did you waste waiting around to drive your car for only 8.217 seconds?

1.5 hours:frown:

The experience and things I learned was priceless though. Besides people were super nice, nothing but nice words, something I didn't expect from hot rod and American Muscle car guys. I used the time in between runs and checked out many cars and snapped some pics:

http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73394

 

[Khajjathefang]

only thing I can add here is after your small burnout do a very small practice launch. nothing big, just enough to roll into the beams. helps further scrub the tires, nice n grippy

Good luck :biggrin:

 

[John McCain Racing]

Have you gotten back to test the lower psi in the rear tires?

 

[darknezz_ghost]

i'm running about 10-15 psi on my rear tires.. the front tires should be fully pressurized.. i usually just drop the clutch and do a small burnout.. no brakes or anything.. just a small warmup to heat up the tires..

as for helmet i just used one of my ARAI motorcycle helmet.. i think all it need is to be DOT approve..

i got kicked off the track last time i went to it because i didn't have a helmet.. the wait here in GA is alot faster and better than in CALI.. back in cali i waited over an hour just for one run and wait another hour for another run.. etc.. but here it's as soon as you're done with your run you can pretty much go back in line and wait about 5-10 minutes for another run.. you can get like 10 runs in 2 hours.. but not much people push there car that much.. they usually wait 15-20 minutes and let the car cool down and get another run again..