I looked around, asked around...

I know this is a vague crappy question but...

But lets say you give someone a 3 car headstart from a dig... how much time you giving up?

Lets say you both trap around 100mph... you beat him by 2-3 cars... how much slower is the losing car?

 

at around 100mph trap, 1mph or .1 sec is close to a carlength

 

I would guess about 3 tenths

 

Well...two ways to look at this.

Let's say your sitting there and your bud takes off. You are not going to go yourself until he is 3 car lengths ahead of you. Now if his car hooks decent, let's say a 2.0 second 60'...3 car lengths is equal to 60' for simplicity...you just gave him a full 2 second head start.

Now if you mark off 3 car lengths from where you will start, he will start roughly 60' feet ahead of you. If your car traps 100 mph, simple math puts you at a 4/10 tenths disadvantage is you both run similar times.

 

At the strip, on a winning timeslip, you'll see MOV at the bottom. As long as neither car fouled, this Margin Of Victory can be calculated to find out how much you won or lost by in feet and inches.

Distance in feet is 1.466 x MOV x loser MPH. Of course if the loser was on the brakes at the finish line to keep from breaking out, the numbers don't calculate the same.

My last timeslip with a WIN and MOV

1.466 x .0362 X 92.86
I won by just under 5 feet (a fender length). I've won and lost closer races.

I know it's not the info you wanted but it still might help.