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     DRAGCAR RACE FORMAT

        Upon entering into an AmericanDRAGCAR  event, racers receive a tech sheet which must be filled out accurately and completely before proceeding to tech inspections.  During tech inspections each vehicle will be weighed with it's respective driver and assigned a category of competition according to the extent of the vehicle's modifications and the racer's technical data will be put into the DRAGCAR  indexing formula to produce a vehicle specific performance index which will designate their specific class.  Racers will be notified at this time of their minimum allowable weight for their class and will be afforded the opportunity to adjust their vehicle's weight in order to bump up or down a class if so desired.

        DRAGCAR  racing venues will then start off by giving racers two minimum (or three minimum if a 2-day event) rounds of qualifying to establish the field's qualifying order based on performances against their respective indexes.  The quickest run of the qualifying rounds for each racer will become that racer's official qualifying time.  The elapsed time furthest under any competitors respective index will become the Number 1 qualifying time and Numbers 2 through 32 will be in descending order correspondingly.
        The 32 qualifiers will then be placed on a competition ladder for first round pairings in this manner;

1 vs 3   2 vs 4
5 vs 7   6 vs 8
9 vs 11   10 vs 12
13 vs 15   14 vs 16
17 vs 19   18 vs 20
21 vs 23   22 vs 24
25 vs 27   26 vs 28
29 vs 31   30 vs 32

        Odd numbered qualifiers (1-31) will be placed on the left side of the ladder in descending order and even numbered qualifiers (2-32) will be placed on the right side of the ladder in descending order.      
        The reasoning behind this pairing order is to encourage lower field qualifiers to continue to compete in subsequent races with the possibility of earning some round money as well as accumulating race points rather than hopelessly throwing in the towel after only a few repeated bottom of the field qualifying performances.

        Note: Field sizes will be dependent upon that category total entry count.  Forty six entrants are required to allow for an 8 car qualified field, sixty two are required for a 16 car field, ninety cars entered are required for a 32 car qualified field, and 114 entries are required for a 64 car qualified field.

        All non-qualifiers and first round losers are automatically entered into
DragSport Eliminator  which re-indexes contestants according to their actual performance.

            All DRAGCAR  competitions will be held utilizing a five tenths full competition tree starting system.  Delay boxes are permitted and are incorporated into the formulated index to produce a four hundredths handicap.

All safety guidelines enforced by the hosting facility must be followed.

     DRAGCAR RACE RULES

DragStar/DragCar Eliminator Outline and Rules
These Eliminators  are run very similar to conventional Competition Eliminators in other popular drag racing venues.
Vehicles are assigned their Formulated Index according to the specifics provided on the tech sheets and qualify against these indexes.
Tech sheets must be fully and accurately completed before proceeding to tech inspection. Racers unable to provide full and accurate technical specifications required will only be eligible to enter DragSport Eliminator.
Racers must scale during tech inspection as well as after each Qualifying Round and winning elimination round. Racers are not required to scale qualifying attempts which they do not wish to have officially considered such as in cases where mechanical or conditional difficulties drastically impaired vehicle performance.
Upon scale in during tech, racers will be informed of their class, index, and minimum allowable weight for that class at the classification time and will be afforded the opportunity to adjust their weight in order to move up or down a class.
All AmericanDRAGCAR  classes and categories are run on a 5 tenths full countdown tree.
Deep staging is permitted.
Courtesy staging is not enforced.
Racers must adhere to class lane assignments and class qualifying schedules. Racers will not be permitted to randomly qualify outside of their class qualifying sessions. In instances where a racer has missed all of their qualifying sessions, they will be afforded one qualifying run after all scheduled class qualifying sessions have been completed.
Qualifying order is established according to the quickest in relation to respective indexes. Qualifying ties will be awarded to the first which had been run.
Racers will be laddered according to the DragStar/DragCar Eliminator  laddering system.
Eliminations are run with handicapped starts based off of the Formulated Indexes with the first to cross the finish line being the winner regardless of ET. Except in special circumstances, racers will not be in jeopardy of being re-indexed by running any amount under their DragStar/DragCar Eliminator  Formulated Indexes.
Bye runs and competition singles will only require that the racer be present with their vehicle in the staging lanes during the running of their Eliminator. Vehicles must be in race ready condition with no work being performed on it during this time. Racers do have the option of running out their bye run.
Re-run requests which are not at the order of the tower or AmericanDRAGCAR  will only be granted if both competitors involved agree and both are present to make the request to the race director.
 

DragSport Eliminator  Outline and Rules

DragSport Eliminator  is a cross between what is called Open Comp and Comp Eliminator in some other popular heads-up drag racing venues.
DragSport Eliminator  is open to all non-qualifiers and first round losers of DragStar/DragCar Eliminators  and may be run exclusively in instances where car counts fail to produce competitive qualified fields.
All AmericanDRAGCAR categories are run on a 5 tenths full countdown tree.
Deep staging is permitted.
Courtesy staging is not enforced.
Qualifying runs shall be made in full power all out to the finish line fashion.
Vehicles are assigned an Adjusted Index according to their qualifying performances.
Those not running electronic timers will have their qualifying ET's rounded to the nearest 5 hundredths for their Adjusted Index. Example: A 10.18 through 10.22 would be rounded to a 10.20 index.
Those who are running electronic timers will have their qualifying ET's rounded down to the next 5 hundredths for their Adjusted Index. Example: A 10.21 through 10.25 would be rounded to a 10.20 index.
Any racer feeling that their Adjusted Index is slower than what they will likely run in eliminations may request to have their Adjusted Index lowered by any amount in 5 hundredth increments. (.05, .10, .15, etc.) This request must be made before the start of First Round of eliminations during the time of index adjusting at the back of staging and driver must initial off on the Adjusted Index sheet to verify that they requested the new index given. This will only be an option before the start of First Round eliminations and once a racer opts to have their Adjusted Index set lower than the DragSport  standard, this index may not be raised for any reasons outside of correcting an organizational error.
Racers will be laddered for First Round as per the DragSport Eliminator  ladder. First round bye-runs will be awarded to the best qualifying position in relation to their DragSport Eliminator  Adjusted Index. Ties will go to the most recent run during qualifying.
DragSport  eliminations are run on a handicapped start based off of the indexes with the first to cross the finish line being the winner regardless of ET.
Round winners running under their index may be subject to subsequent round Re-Indexing in accordance with the Run-Under Re-Indexing Table.

Note: All Re-Indexing run-under calculations are based off of First Found Adjusted Indexes regardless of the number index re-adjustments. This means that running under a 5 hundredths re-adjusted index by 3 hundredths will be calculated as an 8 hundredths run-under, and the subsequent Re-Indexing will be accordingly.

Example: A racer with an Adjusted Index of 10.00 which has been Re-Indexed to 9.95 and now runs under the 9.95 Index by 3 hundredths will not be Re-Indexed as a 3 hundredths Run-Under but as an 8 hundredths Run-Under as the 3 under (9.95-9.92=.03)  9.92 is actually 8 hundredths under the First Round Adjusted Index of 10.00.

DragSport Eliminator  Run-Under Re-Indexing Table for Non-Electronics

Under
Run
Amount		 Re-
Index
Amount		   Under
Run
Amount		 Re-
Index
Amount
.001-.020 -.00   .161-.180 -.40
.021-.040 -.05   .181-.200 -.45
.041-.060 -.10   .201-.220 -.50
.061-.080 -.15   .221-.240 -.55
.081-.100 -.20   .241-.260 -.60
.101-.120 -.25   .261-.280 -.65
.121-.140 -.30   .281-.300 -.70
.141-.160 -.35   .301-.320 -.75

NOTE: Once a re-indexing run-under has occurred for a Non-Delay competing vehicle, the 2 hundredths cushion is removed and subsequent run-unders start immediately upon running under the Re-Adjusted Index.

DragSport Eliminator  Run-Under Re-Indexing Table for Electronics

Under
Run
Amount		 Re-
Index
Amount		   Under
Run
Amount		 Re-
Index
Amount
.001-.020 .05   .161-.180 .45
.021-.040 .10   .181-.200 .50
.041-.060 .15   .201-.220 .55
.061-.080 .20   .221-.240 .60
.081-.100 .25   .241-.260 .65
.101-.120 .30   .261-.280 .70
.121-.140 .35   .281-.300 .75
.141-.160 .40   .301-.320 .80

 

Racers who have been Re-Indexed by a quarter of a second or more through any number of Re-Indexing events and proceed to Run-Under such Re-Indexing will be subject to a "sandbagging" disqualification.
NOTE: Atmospheric conditions and total field run-under average will be taken into account before the final decision of any disqualification will be made.

Except in cases of bye-runs and competition singles, (a red lighting opponent does not constitute a competition single) a racer winning a round while running under their index in an amount which warrants Re-Indexing for the following round will also forfeit the round points to the eliminated opponent.

In addition to the round points penalty for racers winning their Final Round races while running under their index sufficiently to incur a Run-Under penalty, Final Round Run-Unders in excess of 4 hundredths for Non-Electronic cars and in excess of 2 hundredths for Electronic cars and cars having already incurred Run-Under penalties, will initiate a 50/50 split of the Winner/Runner-Up purse between the Winner and Runner-Up position racers and forfeit the race win points to the runner-up (Judicator) finisher as well.

Any racer having been defeated  by another racer solely due to them running under their adjusted index will receive the Fair Competition Free Entry Return for the next race.

Bye-runs and competition single runs will only require that the competitor be present with their vehicle in the staging lanes during the running of their Eliminator  in race ready condition having no work being performed to the vehicle.
Racers do have the option of running out their bye run. Racers wishing to run out their bye-run or competition single may do so without threat of run-under penalties. Any racer running under their index on a bye-run shall only be Re-Indexed in the same manner as a qualifying round without any points or Re-Indexing penalties.
Re-run requests which are not at the order of the tower or AmericanDRAGCAR will only be granted in instances where both competitors involved agree and are both present to make the request to the race director.
In the event of a re-run, racer's may be Re-Indexed without penalty before the re-run according to the thrown out run's performances.

DRAGCAR PROTEST PROCEDURES

        While DRAGCAR  does not currently mandate post race teardowns on a regular basis, reasonable suspicion inspections and racer initiated protest procedures may be executed.
        Any racer (car owner or driver) wishing to do so may initiate a protest of any other racer competing in their category provided that the racer being protested is in fact running further under their respective index than the racer wishing to initiate the protest.

There are two levels of vehicle inspections:
        A Primary "Level 1" Inspection consists of a visual inspection, scale weight, fuel check, throttle bore measurement, gross intake valve lift, and engine displacement pumping.
        A Full "Level 2" Inspection will also include removing one head for actual intake valve, bore, and stroke measurements.

The fees for initiating a racer protest are as follows:
        Level 1 - $150
        Level 2 - $300
Note: 100 percent of the racer protest fee goes to/back to the racers.
AmericanDRAGCAR  does not retain any percentage of a racer's protest fee.

        Any racer refusing to comply with the protest inspection will forfeit all season qualifying and race points accumulated as well as 66 percent of all monies awarded at the event of the protest filing, and the protesting racer shall be refunded the full protest fee.

        In the event that the protested racer's vehicle is found to be correct as claimed on their technical data sheet, that racer shall receive the full protest fee as compensation for parts and labor.  Said racer's protested vehicle shall also be exempt from any future protests for a period of 6 consecutive months so long as his/her under index performance does not exceed that of any single quickest run during the event at the time of protest by over 1/2 of one percent of that racer's current index.

        Example: Protested racer's index during the event at which he/she was protested was 11.10 and their best posted E.T. during the event was 10.697.

11.10 - 10.697 = Under Index Performance .403
11.10 x .005 = .0555 (round this to .056)
.403 + .056 = .459
11.10 - .459 = 10.641

        This protested vehicle is exempt from protests unless it's under index performance exceeds .459 seconds, meaning that if while still running on an 11.10 index at a subsequent event during this 6 month period and it runs as quick as 10.641, no racer initiated protests will be executed on this vehicle.
        The 1/2 of one percent padding is merely to account for changes in atmospheric conditions that may lead to better performances at later events.

        NOTE: Considerable atmospheric conditional changes will be taken into consideration in any event that this may have had an impact on performances being better than those allowed for in the protest policies stated here.

        In the event that the protested racer is found to be racing an incorrectly claimed vehicle, that racer shall forfeit all qualifying and race points awarded at the event in which the protest took place as well as 33 percent of all monies awarded at this event.  Their vehicle index will be corrected according to the inspection data and their under index performance will be established based on the corrected index.  This racer's vehicle will now be exempt from any future protests for a period of 6 months as long as their under index performance does not exceed that of any single quickest run during the event at the time of protest by over 1/2 of one percent of that racer's current true found index.  The racer initiating the protest will be refunded the full protest fee in this instance as well.

 

 

AmericanDRAGCAR
P.O. Box 14976
Phoenix, Arizona 85063
602-741-7809
Growler@USDRAGCAR.com

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