Pro Tree- How do you deal with it?

Posted By: 340B5

Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/22/09 02:34 PM

Ran a couple index races on a pro tree light this year and it seemed I was late more often than not.

The last pass, I decided to take a shot at the tree, staging only slightly deep, but limiting myself by thinking "click-bang" when both cars were staged. I guess I got a little anxious and just went bang, and of course red.

So my question is what methods do others use, and what is the standard(if any) delay between the starter pushing the button and the light.

Posted By: Dodgem

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/22/09 03:34 PM

Foot brake or tranz brake?

Posted By: nhramark

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/22/09 03:34 PM

Shorter front tires at max air pressure.
Limit front end travel.
Higher launch rpm.
If trans brake, use fastest button you can get.
When you stage, be amped up and don't think about or look at anything but that tree.

Posted By: 4404dart

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/22/09 04:03 PM

Quote:

Shorter front tires at max air pressure.
Limit front end travel.
Higher launch rpm.
If trans brake, use fastest button you can get.
When you stage, be amped up and don't think about or look at anything but that tree.

X2. I had my first heads up final a couple weeks ago, and wanted it bad! .026 light and the win.
Usually 2 seconds from when the starter sees both staged, but I wouldn't sit there and count, just concentrate, like is mentioned above. If your good you can also bump in further, but be careful and expect a slight loss in ET.

Posted By: Slingshot383

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/22/09 04:07 PM

Depends on how quick your car reacts. This year starters are a little slower on hitting the button, making it harder to take a shot at the tree and get a green light. At KCIR 2 weeks ago, I had to reds in qualifying, and I saw the yellows flash before I let the button fly. A friend who was on the line said that the altered picked the tires out of the beam on the second pass.

Posted By: cgall

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/22/09 04:19 PM

I think the autostart is set around 2.5 seconds, it will vary +/- 0.1 to deter cheating.

A manually thrown starter switch is totally up to the individual starter, years ago when I was running S/ST, some whiner accused our starter of collaborating with me, as I was getting good lights on the .500 pro tree off the footbrake.

As was said before, being totally focused after lighting the 2nd stage bulb is the key. Go to TNT and get as many hits as you can. After 8-10 hits staging shallow, try rolling in a few inches. A practice tree is a good tool, also.

Posted By: 340B5

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/22/09 04:23 PM

Foot braking on this; I have an 8 3/4, so I don't want any explosions. I need to limit myself somehow so I might stick to the click-bang method, but yeah too much thinking can get you in trouble at that point. Trans brakes are allowed, but no delay boxes. The t-brakes are hard to beat, but at least the car goes home in one piece. Thanks for the tips.

Posted By: 340B5

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/22/09 04:32 PM

Practice tree might be a good idea! At least there's a T&T the day before the next index race.

Posted By: rickstershemi

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/22/09 07:46 PM

I can only imagine foot braking a .400 tree as being extremely difficult

Rickster

Posted By: Quicktree

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/22/09 07:58 PM

Quote:

I can only imagine foot braking a .400 tree as being extremely difficult

Rickster

exactly, with a low hp heavy car forget it.

Posted By: 383man

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/22/09 10:40 PM

I ran on a .400 Pro Tree last year and I staged as I would on a full tree shallow staging. No matter how hard I tried with my 3700 lb full body mid 11 car the best I could do was 1.010. There was another guy there running a 63 Ply wagon running about the same mid 11's as me and he wins alot as he deeps stage to cut a good lite. He looses about a tenth off his et doing that but its works fine as the group he runs with dails on the 1/2 second. I was just there playing around but foot braking a very mild mid 11 leaf spring car is very hard to get a lite on a .400 Pro Tree without deep staging. And I dont think all the groups let you deep stage. Ron

Posted By: dartman366

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/23/09 12:05 AM

Quote:

Quote:

Shorter front tires at max air pressure.
Limit front end travel.
Higher launch rpm.
If trans brake, use fastest button you can get.
When you stage, be amped up and don't think about or look at anything but that tree.

X2. I had my first heads up final a couple weeks ago, and wanted it bad! .026 light and the win.
Usually 2 seconds from when the starter sees both staged, but I wouldn't sit there and count, just concentrate, like is mentioned above. If your good you can also bump in further, but be careful and expect a slight loss in ET.

X3 I havent done any of the above except the concentrate on the tree, my reaction ranged from .074 to a .095 with no changes to the car, I am sure it would be much tighter if I did the thing's on the list.

Posted By: Dragula

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/23/09 12:11 AM

Ran pro tree last weekend for the first time. I was an avid bracket racer for years, and I already knew about the tire pressure and such. I kept hitting .520 lights on the tree just bumping the car in with the tire pressure about as high as I would go, then I started staging a little deeper, and finally got a .499 and then 1st round a .480 light. Tires were about half way in, but not deep staged. So .480 off the foot brake first time out, not so bad.

Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/23/09 02:30 AM

.

Practice tree did wonders for me. I know guys have all kind of opinions.
My 2 cents, and once you get it down, you will understand what I mean.
You must train your eye to talk directly to your thumb, toe, bicep, whatever you need to move.
I mean literally bypass your brain, because if your eye tells your brain to move your thumb, it's too late.
It's amazing how much I learned with a cheap $100 practice tree.
I went from high high .400's to being able to red light once in awhile. Good luck.

.

Posted By: rebel

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/23/09 05:38 AM

down our way the starter has been given a wind up about releasing the tree too slow so now as soon as both lanes have staged he drops his thumb. i use this to my advantage by staging first & going in deep(2xapplications of the brake button does this nicely for me) as soon as i see the opposition roll into stage i floor it. my 512 hard on the limiter is enough for the starter to drop his thumb & i'm gone. my opposition barely has time to get on the limiter before the orange lights are on so i've usually holeshot them. my button only requires 0.020 movement to release & my brake(A&A Ultimate brake) don't need any rpm to set so i can lock in the brake on idle. a few months back we had a thread on here about locking in brakes & some racers have to rev the engine to get the brake to lock. for the life of me i can't understand how you can win a race having to do that. must be all about line press. anyway thats my startline stratagy, works for me most times.

Posted By: 340B5

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/23/09 01:25 PM

Quote:

.

Practice tree did wonders for me. I know guys have all kind of opinions.
My 2 cents, and once you get it down, you will understand what I mean.
You must train your eye to talk directly to your thumb, toe, bicep, whatever you need to move.
I mean literally bypass your brain, because if your eye tells your brain to move your thumb, it's too late.
It's amazing how much I learned with a cheap $100 practice tree.
I went from high high .400's to being able to red light once in awhile. Good luck.

.

I like the sound of that. It needs to be more instinct than a command from the brain. I just came back from the garage, and looking at all the timeslips, there were a couple .150, a .250,.285 and a couple .500ish. What is considered a good pro-tree light considering one waits to see yellow?

Posted By: Anonymous

Post deleted by Defbob - 09/23/09 01:32 PM

Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Pro Tree- How do you deal with it? - 09/23/09 08:34 PM

.

That's what I was trying to get across. You can not wait for the light hitting your eye to filter through the whole chain of command.
Some guy's might have a faster hand eye connection than me, but once I got my brain & muscles bypassed, I got .08-.09 quicker on a pro tree.
This from a guy that would red light a bunch of a full tree, leaving on the flash of the bottom bulb.

If you don't know what a good light is, I would suggest you look at a national dragster sportsman edition.
Those guys are frigging amazing. When I tried to run S/G I always got the .408, .406 guys next to me.
I never had a chance with my small tire tank.

.