Drag racing is the best, most competitive sport there is today, in my opinion. You don’t have to be the strongest, toughest man or woman to be the best. Today this sport is dominated by all kinds of people- young and old. In this article, I will explain the details of racing itself, the history, and rules of this sport. Hopefully by the end of this paper, you will have a better knowledge of drag racing. Drag racing is a competition to see who can go ¼ , or 1/8 mile the quickest. All types of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and even four wheeled quads compete in this sport..
 
The full length of the drag strip extends after the race length, to provide the cars with enough stopping distance, a pit turnoff road, and an emergency sand-box stop. Drag racing began in the United States, and sees the most fan base in this country to this day. Drag racing is also popular in New Zealand, Japan, Australia, Mexico, the Caribbean, Greece, England, Malta, South Africa and most European area countries. The origins of drag racing lie in illegal street racing, early in the United States. Just like at a stoplight, cars line up, and wait for the green light to signal the start. During the 1930s, hot rod enthusiasts began to race on dry lake beds here in Southern California.
 
By the early 1940s, people had made numerous attempts to make this sport nationally recognized, and controlled. The first drag strip to open was located on a Santa Ana airfield. It opened in the 1950s, with few safety regulations and concern for spectators. The sport of drag racing took off in SoCal. Soon after the first track opened, Hot Rod magazine published their first issue. Wally Parks, it’s editor, began promoting safety and rule standardization. Hot Rod sponsored safety tours that would help spread awareness throughout the country. The NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) was founded as a national sanctioning body that Parks would lead after leaving Hot Rod Magazine. The first NHRA contests were staged between modified, and upgraded street cars, but over time racers’ innovations and will to go faster led to the creation of new classes, and tougher regulations. Most drag racing involves two cars racing each other to the end of the measured distance. The elapsed time from the light turning green to the car's front end passing through the "traps" at the end of the measured distance of track determines the winner; this is the "E.T." or elapsed time.
 
To get a good reaction time, you must leave on the last yellow light of the “tree.” The tree is a set of lights with two sides. Right refers to the right lane, left refers to the left lane. The first set of lights on the tree signals your pre-stage. This means you are within inches of being fully staged. The second set of double lights directly under the pre-stage lights indicate a fully staged, ready to run race. After these first two sets of lights com three individual yellow lights that come on in order from top to bottom, indicating the amount of time you have before the green light to go comes on. Leaving on the 3rd, and last yellow light, if done correctly will get you close to a perfect E.T., which is most often a .000, but also can be .500. Most pro-level classes will waive the 3- intermittent yellow light tree for a tree in which all three yellow lights come on at once.
 
The term "red-light" refers to when one or both of the cars have passed the starting line before the green light has gone on. If both cars red-light, only the first car to cross the line is disqualified. The driver who gets a good lead at the start of the race is said to have gotten the "holeshot". After the race, the driver's reaction time and the car's top speed, along with the time taken to reach 60, and 1000 feet are recorded, in addition to the e.t., on the "timeslip". The car that crosses the finish line first wins. A competitor's car can blow an engine or drive train part down the drag strip and coast to the end at a relatively lower top speed than the competitor, and still win with a lower elapsed time. This is called heads-up drag racing, and is used in all professional classes.
 
In Eliminator type drag racing, the losing car and driver are removed from the contest, and the winner goes on to race other winners, until there is only one is left. There are some times where there are three cars remaining, and in this case one car is either chosen at random or the car with the fastest elapsed time gets a "bye run" where his or her car goes down the track by itself and then will race the winner of the other two for the title. In most Eliminator formats, the bye runs take place only in the first round. Drivers will sometimes take it easy on the car during the bye run, and other times they will go all-out and give the spectators as much of a show as they can. There are over 200 different classes in drag racing. Each has different requirements and restrictions on things like engine size, weight, body style, modifications.
 
The five most common NHRA racing classes are: Top Fuel Dragster (Fastest cars in the NHRA), Top Alcohol and Top Gas Dragster, Top Fuel Funny Car, Pro Modified, and Pro Stock. Some of the engine restrictions on these cars limit supercharged and blown engines to 527 cubic inches. Cars running only nitrous oxide instead of turbo and superchargers can have up to 740 cubic inch motors. Pro Stock cars must resemble stock cars, and have engines no larger than 500 cubic inches. To allow different drag cars to race against each other, some competitions are raced on a handicap-type basis, that delays the faster cars’ start on the line long enough for the slower car to move out and be at an equal competition level as the other. This is bracket racing.
 
A dial-in time is required to be posted on the car (Usually written in white shoe polish on three or four windows, or posted on the car with professional white vinyl stickers), which is an estimation by the driver of how long he thinks it will take for his car to reach the finish line. The slower car gets a head start that equals the difference in the two dial-ins, so that if both cars run perfectly, they would cross the finish line dead even. If either of the cars goes faster than the dial-in time, they have broken out, leading to an automatic disqualification. If both cars break out, the car that has broken out by the smallest amount wins. This is known as a double “break-out”, and is one of the most exciting things to watch in drag racing.
 
The intention of bracket racing is for all cars to be on an equal playing field, regardless of how much money has been invested into them. In this article I have talked about the two most common types of drag racing, bracket, and heads up. All kinds of cars are raced by all kins of people. I like bracket racing street cars the most. They may not be the fastest to watch, but when you are behind the wheel it sure is fun. I have put about $15,000 into my car, and that is a large amount for someone on an 18 year old’s income. You don’t have to have a super fast car to race, and have fun. All it takes is a small amount of courage, and some knowledge of the sport. Thanks for reading.