i have read about shallow staging and was wondering how i go about doing this?

 

Roll in and trip the first staging light, then move foward as slow as possible until you trip the second staging light. Then you are shallow staged.

 

thats what i thought, and have been doing. what is supposed to be good about this?

 

I honestly do not know why other people do it, but I do it because I feel like I have a lower chance of red lighting.

 

The advantage of shallow staging is that you get ~6" roll out before the clocks start. While it seems like a minimal distance, it can be benefical because you basically get a rolling start and can potentially lower your ET and add mph.

The disadvantage is a slightly slower reaction time.

 

next time i think i am going to pull through the stage and back up, so i stage the back of my wheels. hopefully this will help my r/t. i dont know though, guess ill have to try it.

 

Shallow staging is what most people do. Maybe you are thinking of deep staging, which is rarer (at least that I've seen). That's the opposite of shallow (normal) staging, to be able to cut more consistent reaction times. I've only deep staged twice, but both of those runs were significantly slower than the other runs I made that day (.1s and 1mph if my memory serves me). I don't know if that was just coincidence or entirely the result of my shallow stage, but I elected not to do it again based on what my timeslips said.

 

Yeap, and if you keep moving forward, the first amber will turn off; then you would be deep staged.

The more shallow you stage, the more "rollout" you will have, or the more room you will have to accelerate before your ET starts. If you want the fastest time possible, then shallow stage as much as possible. If the 2nd amber bulb flickers ON, then you are as shallow as you can get. I always do this when bracket racing. It's the only way that I know where I am in the staging area unless I deep stage.

Most of the time, the only people that deep stage are people that have a VERY slow car. They probably usually race a very fast car (during normal season races) and have to shallow stage. But when it's a very slow car (special street class bracket races; sometimes they race their wife's car), then some of them would deep stage, so that they won't have to make a drastic change to their reaction time technique. That's the only reason I think people might deep stage.