ok besides going around it....
i mean when the starting line is all greasy with that stuff, i get really bad launches. wondering how you guys launch on a "wet" track with street tires

for me last time i had to launch at a way low rpm and basically feather it.
it sucked. spinning your tires on that doesnt help unless you have slicks right?

 

If I cant avoid the water I just try to do a good burnout to dry them off.

 

maybe im out on a limb.. but going to the track w/o slicks seems like a complete waste of time. but anyway.. yeah, even if you go around the water box, spin the tires real quick to get all of the grease and debris off the tire. that "greasy" stuff is actually called traction compound and helps with launching.

 

Yes, that greasy stuff is actually VHT on the track. Mmmmm, VHT

Unless of course you're talking about the wet trails tracked from the rear of the car up to the starting line... that's water

To avoid the water I usually just drive on the outside of the cones marking the waterbox if I can. On street tires I literally do a QUICK chirp to scrape off any crud stuck to the outside. Literally about half a second to a second, just errrrch and you're done. Any more and the tires tend to get slippery. Last season I was down to pulling 2.2s 60' on tires with a treadwear of 480 so I think I had it down pretty good, if you want to know my credentials

BustaNutt, I'd have to agree... I used to be all about driving street tires on the track, blah blah blah... then my friend from the track lent me a set of 22X15X8 slicks. Wow. What a HUGE difference it made - not just because the times dropped immediately, but just in how much fun the car was to drive. Instead of worrying about spinning the tires, you get to worry about putting your foot to the floor. Slicks get from me!

 

Well, if you're at the track with just street tires. I can assume you'r at some bracket race, or test and tune. Where the most guys are running street tires, and decide to do a big burnout in the waterbox anyways. That's the problem. They are getting the launch area wet for everyone else.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hatchling &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If I cant avoid the water I just try to do a good burnout to dry them off.</TD></TR></TABLE>

thats exactly what your supposed to do...but not too much, just enough to dry them off.

 

Since everyone else has given you the correct answer already, avoid the water and lightly scuff the tires before you launch I just wanna say buy or borrow some slicks and play in the bleach box, have some fun, rip'em off the line!

 

yeah, i want to get slicks, but my project is pretty new and i have a lot to do before slicks

thanks for all the input...and yes it's at a test and tune
i only want to run maybe 5 times to get an idea at where im at with my new engine, just like i did with my old engine

its not going to be a track *****