As you all know, we are racers, and we want to give everyone a little advice. As we watched the results from the first race of the season, we know that the LED's are faster, and are a big concern for all who attend NHRA National Events. Obviously, if you want to replace your current amber bulbs to 6 amber LED's will be quite costly, but if you are a full tree racer, there will only be the need to replace 3 of those. What you can do, is change one side of the tree, and have your practice tree set up for your side to come down first. That will give you the full advantage to practice on the new LED system, and save one half the money. If you are a "Pro Tree" racer, logically you would only have to change 1 bulb to the newer LED lamp, but you may feel more comfortable with 3. If all the tracks decide to change to the LED lights, and you are a "top bulb" bracket racer, again, you will only have to get 1 bulb………Just something to consider.

We would like to talk about the relation to the LED bulbs and our "Final Round" (2 or 3) Practice Tree table version Practice Tree. Our "Final Round" Practice Tree obviously utilizes miniature incandescent bulbs. These bulbs are small, and have a small filament. There is no heat time for this small filament to light, in turn, mimicking the same characteristics that the small LED bulbs can possess. This can be proven by comparing the amount of rollout used in our Final Round practice tree, and other manufacturers table or "pocket" practice trees. The rollout number will be virtually the same. Keep in mind, the most important aspect of practicing is to train your hand - eye coordination, teach you discipline, improve your consistency, and ultimately give you confidence.

Now, the Final Round 4 is the first Table top practice tree with “true” LED’s. What we mean by that is, we have researched and custom made, a larger diameter LED bulb (8MM), that can duplicate the brightness, and intensity of the LED bulbs seen at the track. The larger diameter also offers a better viewing angle, meaning you won’t have to be right on top of it to see it clearly. We know that everyone out there will not have a full sized tree, so we felt it was a necessity to match the LED’s (in a table top version tree) that NHRA, IHRA, and some bracket tracks use. You will actually pick up 3 hundredths in reaction time with these LED's (and have to add that to your rollout). That is compared to earlier models of our tree, and other manufacturer's models. If you price our LED's out you will see that it cost us quite a bit to put these in the Final Round IV, but, again, we felt it was a neccessity to match the LED's at the track.

I know it gets a little confusing when trying to decide which tree to buy, but you may want to check with your sanction, or your local track before you purchase a tree. Or, if you plan on getting a full tree, then you can get away with either table version, and buy the applicable bulbs for the full tree.

Can my Final Round 1, 2, or 3 be updated to the new LED's in the Final Round 4?
We have been asked this question quite frequently, and we feel the need to first of all tell you, NO, but more importantly why it can not be updated or converted. The previous version Final Round utilized a 52 pin microprocessor, and to allow for more features we needed to upgrade the microprocessor. We needed to install an 84 pin microprocessor for more memory. Also, we needed an entirely new circuitboard to accomodate the LED's. Please realize that years ago, when we designed the Final Round, it was impossible for us to anticipate the use for LED's. The earlier version circuitboards were not equipped to handle them.

We hope we were able to answer questions relating to this issue.

Thanks,
"The Racers"
Sam, Sal, Peter, & Rich.