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Behind the Numbers: How I learned to stop worrying and love reaction times

Reaction times can be complicated. Let's make them really simple so we can go back to the way things used to be.
03 Oct 2018
Jacob Sundstrom, 厕所强奸 National Dragster Associate Editor
Behind the Numbers
Starting line

Before I knew the phrase 鈥渞eaction time,鈥 I knew what it meant. At least, I thought I knew what it meant. Pulling up alongside some yuppy playing his music too loudly at a red-light, making incidental eye contact and 鈥 hang on, I鈥檓 getting a note from legal. Right, calmly making a legal right turn and going about your day.听

Listen, I get it. Reaction times as we know them in 厕所强奸 Drag Racing can be cumbersome and complicated 鈥 but we also make them too complicated because we want them to be something they鈥檙e not. The timer does not measure green light to foot-crushing-pedal 鈥 that鈥檚 a limitation of the technology currently employed. So, that means we all can make the best of the numbers spat onto our computer screens.听

Let鈥檚 start where the buzz gets killed: deep staging. I鈥檇 have retired by now if I had a dollar 鈥 make that $50 for every email, tweet, or smug racer who complained about reaction-time averages that didn鈥檛 account for a racer鈥檚 position when the bulbs dropped. I get it. It鈥檚 apples to oranges that got a head start. Here鈥檚 something to chew on: I鈥檝e never gotten a similar email about my elapsed time averages, which are similarly influenced by where a racer stages. I鈥檓 not saying deep staging doesn鈥檛 matter, but everything听matters, right?听

Except it doesn鈥檛. What鈥檚 crystal clear is that what matters is the ego stat, which is why people get bent out of shape about deep staging, because it 鈥 allegedly 鈥 boosts reaction-time average. Except when it doesn鈥檛. John Force is a famous deep stager and was top three in reaction-time average in 2017. This season? He鈥檚 only slightly above average in reaction-time average. J.R. Todd is outspoken about lining up evenly on race day, and he鈥檚 currently third only to Cruz Pedregon and Robert Hight in reaction-time average.听

The point is that you only buy yourself so many extra thousandths of a second based on where you line up 鈥 and based on how good a leaver you are. The best leavers will be the best leavers, no matter where they line up. And that brings me to the most important factor in all statistics: sample size. Something we just don鈥檛 talk about enough in drag racing. With the Countdown to the Championship nearly halfway over, it has been more than long enough to talk about leaders in the clubhouse in just about every category. That includes reaction time.听

Funny Car is the most finicky, or at least the category that draws the most ire, because of deep staging 鈥 which again, is legal, fun-haters. The average is .079, and Pedregon leads with a .067. He鈥檚 followed by Hight (.07), Todd (.07), Matt Hagan (.07), and Jack Beckman (.072). That鈥檚 how thin the margin is at the top of the field, and, except for Pedregon, each of those racers has at least 40 leaves this season. Perhaps most impressively, none of those racers have more than one red-light 鈥 Todd has yet to foul this year with 42 leaves.听

Those are the only three reaction-time stats you鈥檒l see me regularly mention, in part because they鈥檙e easy to digest. More importantly, all the other reaction-time stats don鈥檛 tell you much about the driver they鈥檙e attributed to: Holeshots depends on the driver you鈥檙e racing (a .125 light can lead to a holeshot win, a .002 light can lead to a holeshot loss) and don鈥檛 get me started on how ridiculous the 鈥渓eft first鈥 statistic is. At the end of the season, the best leavers in the class will be those who average a great light and don鈥檛 foul too often.听

Caveats come into play, like with any statistic: Pedregon deep stages and has a smaller sample size to work with (27 leaves), but he鈥檚 also consistently very good. He鈥檚 the seventh-best leaver in the Funny Car category over the past three seasons with a .073 reaction time and three red-lights; that鈥檚 nothing to sneeze at. When I calculate reaction times, I throw out lights slower than .200 for a couple of reasons.听

The first, and most important reason, is to get rid of junk data that the computer spits out. When I first started collecting data, I picked out runs where something went wrong in the other lane and caused the driver to cut a bad light. In almost every circumstance, these lights were slower than .200. To speed up the process, I chose to throw out all the .200 lights, knowing a big enough sample would take care of the data eventually.听
That鈥檚 what got me to these reaction times in all four Professional categories through 20 races this season. Complain if you want, but I鈥檓 not stressing it.听

TOP FUEL REACTION-TIME AVERAGE: .079

FUNNY CAR REACTION-TIME AVERAGE: .079

PRO STOCK REACTION-TIME AVERAGE: .035

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE REACTION-TIME AVERAGE: .041
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