My home track (Cayuga) has been doing some renovating recently. I was up there last night and noticed that they have installed a shield between the 3 yellow and the green lights on the tree, in essence blocking your view of your opponent lights if you are staged and ready to go. They never had that shield in place before. What's the deal with this? Why do some tracks have the shield and others don't?

 

Each track sets their own rules for using the shield. You mainly have a shield during an electronics class race. This prevents the faster car (launches second) from using their opponents lights with a crossover delay box.

Normally a high end crossover delay box can give you 3 hits at the tree. You take the first hit off your opponents top bulb. You take the second hit off your own top bulb. Finally to take a hit off the bottom bulb. The computer is told what both dial-ins are and calculates which hit is closest to perfect and launches the car's transbrake.

As far as I'm concerned I don't care what my opponents lights are doing. I only have to concentrate on my own. If I'm the slower car and get to launch first, a crossover delay box won't help. Once I launch, I just keep an eye on the win light to see if my opponent behind me has red lit or not. I don't want to break out after an easy win.

 

thanks for the explaination, but one thing on the shield with bracket racing. Part of the deal with bracket racing for me anyways is that when racing with another vehicle that is very close to your dial in or even a few seconds either way having the lights come down at different times means trying harder to focus only on your lights while also seeing what your opponent lights are doing. It's just one more thing to have to deal with to try to cut that perfect light, having the shield kinda takes away from that aspect of bracket racing where you really need to concentrate only on your lights while your opponent's light are counting down differently than your own.

I can see the usefulness of the shield for electronic classes when delay boxes are part of the equation but when it's mano e mano at the line and the drivers are doing the launching and not a computer or a delay box having the shield kinda takes away the real deal with bracket racing, trying to get that perfect reaction time while another set of lights is counting down, and of course also getting there first without breaking out of your dial in.