Where Does Your Time Go? (Continued)

The season is young, with race nights enough remaining to fix the late-running shows that turn fans off. Here are three more show shortening ideas to try at your track.

PARADE LAPS... How many laps pass after your cars leave the pits before the green? If your starter can't throw the green after one lap, something needs to be fixed. Parade laps, wave laps, whatever you call them, waste time. Forty years ago, when the "big cars" came to town once a year, such laps were OK, but not in today's 100-car weekly shows. Three slow parade laps add up to 1-1/2-2 minutes on a quarter mile, more on bigger tracks. Except for special races, get rid of such laps. Your announcers will find another time to talk up drivers’ sponsors.

"MYSTERY LAPS"... That's what we call those unexplained slow laps before green, as though the cars were going round and round until the scorer gets out of the restroom. How many can you count in your next show and how much time do they consume?

CARS NOT IN LINE... Do your race fields come out of the pit lined up or as a mixed bag, left to find their own starting position once on the racing surface? Pre-stage your races in the pit. Paint lineup spots on the tarmac in the pit or in grassy pits put up numbered signs in your staging area, but have races enter the track lined up. That way they are ready to take the green after one lap.