How do people typically warm their engine up before a drag race? Drive circles around their pit area? Idle the engine in the pit box before the race? The engine coolant has to warm up to operating temp, as well as the oil and have it lubricate all parts of the engine in order to race safely. How much time is needed and how do you know when the car is ready?

What would happen if the car was sitting for hours parked, cold started, and then sent down the drag strip?

 

It's not going to be good for the motor. But, generally waiting in the lanes brings my motor up to temp for me.

 

Oh so you wait in line like at Cedar Point to drag race, only you are sitting in your car that will be the ride. How long are the waits? Can you wait in line with a friend and race them?

 

I went to a 1/8 mile in florida and the cars have to wait for the people to burnout/line up/go down the track. and yea where I went the two cars lined up next to eachother when waiting

 

ALl of that depends. THe waits can just be a minute or two or a few hours. It depends on the track and event ect.. Generally you can finagle racing against a friend if you ask the guys in the staging lanes. But on occasion if special events are happening you may not get a turn to race your freind.

 

the track i go to generally lets you race anyone you want in qualifiers. waiting on sport compact days is about 15-20 minutes and about 1-2 hours on bracket race days. i'm usually more worried about keeping my car cool rather than warming it up, being that track temps can get pretty hot, and being at WOT from 0-92ish.

 

Do you turn the temperature knob all the way to red and turn the fan on max to help cool the engine? That's what you do when your engine is overheating. That won't cause any condensation that could drip on the track right? The air conditioning (cool) will cause condensation and is not for track use because it will drip water.

 

not enough to count <-the few drops of water that is

 

I dont know what tracks you run on but 1 drip near the starting line where I race at will get you put off the track. 1 drop may not affect cars doing 80 or so it will affect cars that are doing 150 or so.

IF YOU ARE AT THE RACE TRACK TURN YOUR A/C OFF!!!! IF ITS HOT THEN ROLL YOUR WINDOW DOWN AND IF THATS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU THEN WELL:

"IF YOU CANT STAND THE HEAT STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN (AND OFF THE RACE TRACK)"

 

For heating just let it warm up while your in line and for cooling I just let the car sit open the hood and I have a switch to turn my fans on manualy so that does the trick

 

Typically in a daily driver that you are going to run, if you drove it to the track and don't have to wait more than an hour before or inbetween your runs you will be fine. Just run the car while waiting to make sure the engine is up to operating tempurature and you will be fine. If you have to wait more than an hour your transmission could start to cool off considerably so if you can (if the waits aren't too long and you can drive the car for a few and come back) take the drive for a 5 minute drive to warm the transmission back up. If the waits in line are too long and you can't do anything then just bite the bullet and run it. As long as you aren't sitting for 2 or 3 hours between runs the transmission should stay warm enough that you shouldn't have to really worry.