How to determine the proper rollout for your Practice Tree
FOR FULL TREE RACERS
This is the most popular question asked by our customers, and the answer is easier than you think. (NO measuring of front tires, and NO weight calculations). Let's first assume you are racing on a .500 (5 tenths) Full Tree, and reacting to the bottom amber. The rollout to begin with would be about .325. The way we arrived at that number was because almost everyone we tested with could react to the bottom amber on the .500 Full Tree, and have a decent reaction time with this rollout. If you try to practice with no rollout you should come up with a reaction time between .160 and .190 : from that we can take an average of .175, so:
.500 (Actual Reaction Time)
-.175 (Human Reaction Time)
.325 (Roll Out)
The correct way to practice is to react as soon as you see the bottom amber go on. It MUST be a reflex, because if it isn't, you will never be consistent. If you use a number in the rollout based on the weight of your car you will be using a number which may demand that you learn to leave just before or after the last amber is lit. Trying to learn that, will be virtually impossible and very inconsistent. So, if you practice at .325 (or between .300 and .340), and get your reaction times in the consistent .510 to .530 range, you have reached the goal with the practice tree.
APPLYING THE ROLLOUT NUMBER TO YOUR CAR
Now that you have trained your mind to react to the amber, and not anticipate or "sit" on it, the next step would be to get your car to work with you. The way you can do that is to make a couple of time trials, and figure out your average reaction time in your car. If you are certain you are reacting to the last amber, exactly the same way as your practice tree, and you are only able to produce a consistent .625 average - your next step would be to make the car bring your consistent average down! For example, raise your launch RPM, or stage deeper to bring your reaction time to a competitive level. (This is the reason you see many of the street driven or slower vehicles deep staging). You see, once your mind is trained to be consistent, you can make the car do the rest. You and your car must compliment each other to produce the results you are looking for. Keep in mind, if you're average reaction time in your car is a red light, you may have to work in the opposite direction. For example, decreasing the front tire pressure, (a safe amount), or decreasing your launch RPM, or simplest of all, add some numbers in the delay box, if legal in your class.
DELAY BOX RACERS
If you are using a delay box to react off the top yellow, it will require ading 1 second to the delay box. Since your rollout is established at .325 (or whatever it may be),you will practice with 1.000 in the delay box, and .325 in the rollout. The reason for adding 1.000 is because each amber takes .500 (5 tenths of a second, or 1/2 second) until proceeding to the next. We need to delay the reaction time for the total of 1 second (2 ambers).
FOR PRO TREE RACERS
For Pro Tree, or .400 (4 tenths) racers, it is very simple. Practice with no rollout on the .400 (Pro tree), and you will arrive at about a .175 human reaction time, and you will be able to figure your rollout out from:
.400 (Actual reaction Time)
-.175 (Human Reaction Time)
.225 (Roll Out)
For you Pro Tree racers, there are many different converters, transbrake buttons, smaller front tires, and suspension adjustments that can help your car react faster. Many Pro-Tree racers can't redlight, which is not good, because you can get to a track where the rollout is long or the sun is bright on the tree - and you will be fairly late!! It's kind of a trial and error situation. You should get your car setup so you are capable of redlighting, so you can just add some numbers to the delay box to put you where you want to be.
