[woodcote]

Thanks Anthony - yes, the strip is pretty flat. It's one of the reasons I chose the new Micro Scalextric track - it is very smooth, made from rigid plastic and very good connectors. Traditional HO track can be a bit 'lumpy' at the joins and the rails always 'click' as the cars go over the joins. The shelf isn't perfectly flat, but not far off. The Micro track deals with any slight variation very well. It is also pretty straight, despite the bulge in the wall - although I want to tweak the track a liitle so it is 100% dead straight.

Jeremy - RT is reaction time, with Drag Basic 0.500 of a second is when the green light illuminates (in real life it is 0.0000). Before that a foul start (red light) is awarded. The time after 0.500 is the reaction of me pressing the button, power going to the lane and each car crossing the start sensor. Any difference between the RT of the two cars in one run is purely the different characteristics of the car making that first movement. ET is elapsed time - the time between the start line and finish line sensors being triggered. It's the time a car takes to travel 7 feet. In the eliminator, the winner is the car that crosses the finish line first (and doesn't make a foul start) - so the winner can record a slower ET because of a quicker RT making up the difference. That is termed a 'holeshot' win.

One of my thoughts yesterday is that a drag racing glossary would be handy. There's this: www.nhra.com/nhra-101/nhra-glossary - but I might do a more compact version. The entire NHRA 101 section is worth reading.