Need help understanding Drag Racing and Automatics

[WildHorse]

ou sound like the typical manual transmission fan who can't get past the fact they are outdated

They are most certainly not 'outdated'. There's plenty a manual can do that an auto simply cannot. I beat PLENTY of autos with my obsolete MT82. Just sayin.

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[obspsd]

Is this a thread for the longest posts?

 

[Fly2High]

Torch and Norm,

much appreciated write ups. Lots of great information. I really appreciate the time you guys took to respond with so much detail. I am sure it will change my understanding and appreciation for the sport and who knows, maybe join you.

Being in my late, very late 40's, I grew up around muscle cars. All the older brothers had them. By the time the late 80's came, they were all gone or destroyed. The cars we had to drive were light but had no power. Emissions and the early computer ignition systems ruined everything until we got to the mid to late 90's. By then, cars were too expensive to bu for what was no better performance than we had in the late 60's/early 70's.

Maybe that is why I wasn't exposed to drag racing. Had I been just a little older, like older brothers and cousins, I would have had first had experience of the era when we really hit big numbers and drag was king in America, especially in every town. not just at the strip.

Thank you gang.

 

[Norm Peterson]

Torch and Norm,

much appreciated write ups. Lots of great information. I really appreciate the time you guys took to respond with so much detail. I am sure it will change my understanding and appreciation for the sport and who knows, maybe join you.

Guess I'd better let you in on a little not-a-big-secret . . . I'm really a dyed-in-the-wool corner-carver. But I have picked up a few things here and there about drag racing over the years.

Torch and others are going to know way more than I about the nitty-gritty details of drag racing, and I guarantee you that lots of people here on M6G have far more direct experience at drag racing than I have or am ever likely to get.

You'd be about my son's age, and I can't say that he missed out on having the drag racing bug bite - it clearly influenced the kind of car he wanted to be driving. As I recall, big-block '70 Chevelles were always at the top of his list, and his interests were clearly more into big-power-engines and straight line running than mine.


Norm

 

[Shifting_Gears]

They are most certainly not 'outdated'. There's plenty a manual can do that an auto simply cannot. I beat PLENTY of autos with my obsolete MT82. Just sayin.

Clutch drops, maximum control over engine braking, no lift shifting!!!

 

[WildHorse]

Clutch drops, maximum control over engine braking, no lift shifting!!!

Yes Sir, if I wanna leave a 700 rpm, that's what I'll do, if I wanna leave at 5500 rpm on bias plies, that's what I'll do. No need for a $2000 suncoast convertor that makes daily driving an adventure in swearing. MANual is an art, and can beat auto's all day long. Just ask Pure Evil. HEAVY cars + point and shoot + no skill required get an auto by all means.

 

[Torched10]

Fair question, and one that the drag racing sanctioning bodies should be spending some time thinking about. Over on the road course side of the hobby, it is being required that certain new technologies be turned off. While the specific reason differs from what you're picturing here, there's precedent already for limiting the amount of technological driver assistance that should be permitted.



That'd be what bracket racing is for. Dial in a slower time than the driver whose car has a better launch control, and hope that you hit closer to your time than he does to his, without you breaking out and running faster than your dial-in. You're racing against the clock as much as you're racing the other driver.



You'd be in it for the thrill of beating the other driver. I suspect there's too little time and too much adrenaline flowing to pay attention to much else.



You're just going to have to try it. Best I can describe is that drag racing is louder, more brutal, and more intense for those few seconds. Different sensation entirely. Road course driving (and HPDE in particular) is somewhat more relaxed, and a driver's actions far more deliberately planned (most of the time, anyway).




Drag racing and the associated bragging rights have been the 800-lb gorilla in the car hobby for as long as I can remember. Acceleration statistics have been the primary measure of muscle car (and ponycar) goodness since the beginning. An awful lot of people will spend the money to start out nearer the top of the heap.


The CJ is a dedicated dragstrip car, quite a bit more extreme for its sport than the GT350R is for road course competition. You need to spend a little quality time trying to understand just what goes into just the launch and acceleration of a car before you can understand why serious drag machines look the way they do. Understanding ABS and stability control better may provide you with hints about why Ford's street-driven cars aren't going to look like the CJ.



You race a car, or drive it at a pace that looks a lot like racing, you're going to break stuff from time to time. Drag racing tends to be harder on drivetrain components, more so if you're running a stick-shift car.



In drag racing, you're going to want more power, or better tires, or better gearing, or a looser torque converter, or . . . any number of further tweaks.


Norm

Norm great post,I'm,sure very helpful.i can recall in my drag racing days having kind of a 6th sense feeling both of us were breaking out,and id take my foot off gas when I was leading and win the race,because I broke out less.

 

[Balr14]

They are most certainly not 'outdated'. There's plenty a manual can do that an auto simply cannot. I beat PLENTY of autos with my obsolete MT82. Just sayin.

Can you do it against an auto with the same mods?

I have driven manual transmissions for over 60 years. My BMW is manual. But, I'm not too stubborn to recognize that technology has changed things.

 

[WildHorse]

Can you do it against an auto with the same mods?

What like mod for mod against a A10? Mod for mod he's obviously making more horsepower. 435 stock vs 460 stock. Comes down to the driver.

 

[Norm Peterson]

They are most certainly not 'outdated'. There's plenty a manual can do that an auto simply cannot. I beat PLENTY of autos with my obsolete MT82. Just sayin.

I think it's a bit too early in this thread to be arguing about what can be accomplished at drag racing with a MT. At this point, OP is only trying to understand what the interest in automatics for drag racing is all about. Not whether driving a MT at that activity is something of a black art, or whether making it easier on yourself as a newbie to straight line racing takes away any of the fun.

In general, while the MT may not exactly be "outdated" in drag racing, it is certainly at a disadvantage. And for most people, the whole point of drag racing beyond "seeing what she'll do" is whether they'll have the advantage an eighth or a quarter of a mile down the track after the light goes green.


Norm

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