Driving technique to save a crossed up racecar on slicks?

I've seen a whole lot of videos on the internet with drag race cars getting crossed up to the point of being out of control. It seems they are trying to correct by turning into the skid, but then it whips around the other way, and gyrates back and forth more each time until they lose it. Sometimes the slicks fold under and grab then the car rolls. Sometimes the slicks grab and drive them into the wall. I've seen guys loop it and continue straight down the track, as well as a couple videos where they blip the throttle on and off as they are correcting and somehow that seems to help them save it.

So what are the best driving techniques to try and keep it shiny side up and away from the wall if a guy would find himself in that circumstance?

Never, ever get back in the throttle, and pull the chute...

Very little steering input. And give it time to show you what it wants

Short wheelbase cars are generally the worst. The ackerman angle toes the front tires out more and more In a correction as the wheelbase shortens. My dart has no ackerman built into it. Stays dead parallel lock to lock. Recovers very, very well. But it is a be it ch to push around a corner!

You gotta know when to lift and live for another day.

Its like driving on ice - always use the least amount of steering input as possible.

The more you overdrive the worse things get.

When I went to the Frank Hawley Drag racing school, he said "If you get out of the groove lift. If you lift, the pass is over." I think that is very safe advise. But still, I'm curious why some guys blip the throttle.

I agree with the above, out of the gas and as little steering input as possible.

I ran into some crap in the traps a few weeks ago at TNT and was potentially saved by the rev limiter. It spun the tires from 127-135 instantly and all I felt was a little wiggle. This may have been different if it happened somewhere down track where the delta from my RPM to the limiter was greater than just a couple of hundred RPM. It has made me want to get traction control working, I have the sensors in place just haven't set the software side up.

Actual seat time is your friend, don't over correct
Gentle on the corrections, especially after the first hundred feet
I've been sideways more than once past the 330 clocks in someone else's guuk, tranny oil, rear end grease and or motor oil or coolant that the starter didn't see happen until I got sideways in it, NOT GOOD
Be safe, live longer

My car is very short.. I only lost control twice.. once when I blew a front tire and I ended up in the other lane
and the other time I broke a tie rod end... all I can say is if you loose control,no matter the reason your
pass is DONE.. never get back on it.. and your car better be set up right so you dont loose control

Yep, if people quit imitating the dumb-assary they see on street outlaws of sawing the wheel back and forth and trying to save every bad pass when there opponent is 20 car lengths ahead less wrecks would happen. If thinks aren't going well abort.

That is dead on. The folly of staying in it when you are out of the groove, out of shape, and have zero hope of winning.

I totally agree on lifting at the slightest hint of trouble. If you can feel something at all the run is junk. So i tell myself before every pass to keep this in mind!

very interesting. I've never heard of doing that before. Did you design it or modify it for that purpose?

Back in 1973 -74 my first "race" car and i was told: If the car gets upset, lift , race over, don't get back in it !- this aint dirt track racing boy!
I reckon thats still good advice looking at the thread and, it never failed me.
These cars aren't set up for recovery when out of shape and pushing a slick under the rim is not a nice day.

My rule was give it a little correction, if it doesn't respond, lift, it's over and never, ever get back in it.

I've had a few scary runs. Didn't understand why it was pulling left so hard. Decided to lift. Went to put my both my hands on the wheel. That's when I realized that my right hand had been resting on the line lock button. Decide to make a very slight correction in the midst of making a HARD left at the 1/8. Like a up on the right side tires only left. Figured it was better to scrape the left wall than go nose in if it over corrected. All this goes thru your head in milliseconds. It straightened right out and hit nothing. Last year just pass the traps when I hit the brakes (149mph) the car twitched sideways. I immediately released the brake and made a very gentle steering input. Found out after the car ahead of me blew the trans line off. He lost 7 qts of trans fluid. Gentle minimal and smooth are the keys. Not to mention lifting if its not in the groove. Trust me I've lifted and aborted plenty of runs.
Doug

Interesting replies. My suspicion is the mentioned "overcorrection", might be really be initially a case of a "too slow correction" and over correcting is the second mistake..

Another aspect not yet mentioned, if you want to reduce traction on the rear axle, lifting should do the trick, as all rear weight transfer goes away. With a rear weight biased car, that should increase the pucker factor.

I do agree on the Kenny Rogers thinking.

Please note, I am not a drag racer.

In road racing, keeping your foot in it, which sometimes is the opposite of what you normal survival instincts are, is the right thing, and drive out of the skid.

Mopar Muscle magazine ran a feature on a guy with a Challenger a while back, he raced in one of the "stock appearing" classes.
Reading the story, i discovered he'd hit the wall not once, but twice at the strip.
Reading the story further, I discovered he had a spool in the rear. I believe a spool can be a factor in many of these wall-banging events.
And I agree, assume the run is over, let off the gas and slow down as smoothly as possible.

That was Tom Cannon. If I remember right the first time he scraped the wall his crankshaft threw a chunk of Mallory metal out through the pan. The other one I think he drove over some antifreeze on the track from a previous car that the track workers had not noticed.

I found that driving my 750 horse stock appearing F.A.S.T. car on g70 14's with a spool is like dirt tracking. You just steer the right direction, lift a little bit if needed to try and help the tires catch up. The tires are so stiff, and you have so little traction, they're not going to catch and drive you into the wall or fold under and roll you. I think it is a lot safer than slicks.

Yeah street tires can be driven by getting on and off the throttle and using a little countersteer. With big slicks it is probably best to just lift and let the car settle down. I did see a wild video where a drag car got up on the guard rail and the driver blipped the throttle and got the car back on the track. Not recommended but it worked.

My first attempt a building a rack front steer i had drum brakes. That forced me to narrow the rack too much. I discovered how much it helped when i got out of control in the traps at 135 mph. When i redid the chassis in 1996 i oppted to leave it that way and it saved my butt twice more. Seriously crossed up at high speed but responded instantly to
counter steer.

Blipping the throttle;e after crossing it up is what I call trying to be a hero......It very rarely works out, and in 90% of the cases IS what actually wrecked the car......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9A5Z_eDtAw&t=253s

Having been there done that on a few occasions I believe the circumstances dictate the actions. Certainly getting out of it when its doing something stupid is the right strategy, but NOT getting back in it is sometimes what needs to happen. Say for instance as happened to me in Tucson last year. 1000' or so the car makes a hard left hand turn and I find myself staring into the other wall and pointed at the lane. Racing in Top Comp against a dragster dialed at 6.20 going 220 or so. I decided once the dust settled, and yes the chutes were already out that maybe a slight course correction was a good idea. Slight steering input to get it at least pointed more down track and a quick blip on the throttle got me out of her lane and only took out one cone. Would I suggest this strategy to others HELL NO. But it worked for me in the moment. As I say each situation requires its own correction. Many times no correction is the best way to go, just let it settle down and ride it out. In my case after the run my opponent had NO IDEA what had happened and said she never saw a thing. But with her ISC padding in the cage she likely could not see anything that was not directly in front of her, so could have gotten really ugly had I stayed on my trajectory. I have had a throttle hang up, lost a tire, gotten into oil and each situation requires its own resolution. The main thing is dont panic...

back in the early 70's we had a saying around here : "it's not nice to show God your mufflers !"
this came about when a buddy of mine crashed the "community shared" 1970 newyorker i owned at the time.
off to my junkyard it went.........

Well I come mighty close . Almost rolled her a couple of times , but I’ve been quick enough to stay out of this graveyard

Biggest thing ive noticed when watching is how pour set up some chassis are, and how little knowledge the guy has running it.... If you are unsure of anything, please take it into someone who knows chassis, shocks, and weight basis. Your not only risking your [censored], your risking the guy in the other lanes [censored] too!