V1.4 10 March 2008
This is a work in progress, and it has been a very long time coming. I intend on working on it for the next little while, dumping as much of my brain and hard-earned knowledge into the public record. It is, however, NOT public domain; I reserve the copyright for myself. You may NOT duplicate this elsewhere without my express permission - and this is the age of Google, folks, I WILL find you if you post it elsewhere. Otherwise, read and enjoy, and put this all to good use. Go fast!. DG
Before I started autocrossing, I was a drag racer; specifically, I was a bracket racer.
The keys to bracket racing success are consistancy, predictability, and deviousness. You need to be able to predict how quickly your car will cover the quarter mile to a high level of precision. You need to be able to consistantly cut very quick lights (my drag racing average was .514) and you need to be devious enough to figure out how to throw the other guy off his game. (see: sandbagging)
When I came over to ProSolo and discovered that they were using a drag racing tree, I was a happy camper, becauase that was a skill I already had in spades. I was astounded, however, to find that the majority of my competitors did not have the same skill. Despite running off a tree for a dozen events a year, most weren't at the level of a decent local track weekend bracket racer. It wasn't considered important.
Then I introduced launch control on my car - and there's no way to hide it. Launch control as a two-step rev limiter, connected to the clutch pedal. When the clutch pedal is out, the rev limit is the normal rev limit provided by your engine builder. When the clutch pedal is in, the rev limit is set to whatever maximum engine RPM the drive tires can stand at launch.
You pull up to the lights, engage the clutch (activating the lower rev limit) and floor the throttle. The rev limiter keeps the engine RPM at exactly the ideal revs for launching, and the driver concentrates on the lights and the first corner. Launching is no longer an issue; just dump the clutch and go.
Oh, and if you have a turbo car, you build boost at the line. My car would build 10 PSI at the lights.
My particular combination of launch control, AWD, and a spooled-up turbo meant that no car in the sport was faster to the first turn than mine. The car would cut 1.5 second sixty foot times, go 0-60 in 3.2 seconds, and would have as much as a three car length lead at the end of the first straight. And it was EASY. I never had to worry about lauching the car - at most, I might have to tweak the launch RPM up or down 100 RPM.
And devious - all that popping and banging on the line was distracting (and to some, intimidating). I know for a fact that I distracted/frightened some competitiors into screwing up their own launches.
There was absolutely no downside to this setup and it paid huge dividends. Yet amazingly (even though it was impossible to hide) almost nobody ever copied it. Go figure.
