If you are close to Irwindale, you need to check the calendar for California Speedway in Fontana. Most the SoCal 1/4mi tracks shut down, but CalSpeedway is back online.
The next Street Legal 1/4 mile drags are Feb 21. These are better than the SuperGas test-n-tunes unless you like a lot of noise.
Street Legal Drags - Auto Club Dragway
For those who don't know:
Your Elapsed Time starts when you break the beams, and ends when you break the beams. Your reaction time is not important for collecting data, and has no effect.
If you are AWD, you normally try to drive around the water pit. Most AWD cars will not go quicker by heating the tires, but you should probably drop to 32psi at the highest for traction.
There are two small light bulbs way up top on the "Tree". These are indicators for the 2 staging beams on the start line. As you roll your car forward slowly, you will hit the first beam. The top yellow light will light. Stop. If there is car in the second lane, wait for them to trip the top light on their side. This is manners. Not important except for competition, but get into this habit. Now creep REAL slow forward until the second light comes on. Don't go further than necessary. The further you roll into the lights, the worse your ET will be.
Now you have 2 lights lit, and your opponent will have get his 2 lights lit. Within 7 seconds or less normally, they will start the "Tree". There are 3 big amber lights, a green light, then a red light on the bottom. For Test And Tune, you use a Sportsman 500 tree. This means the lights will come on 0.500 seconds apart. You do not care at ALL about the first 2 ambers. Focus intently on the 3rd amber. Try to turn it on with your mind. Nothing exists except that light. The instant it lights, LAUNCH. Different cars launch differently, and I have not launched a Tesla yet, so I won't say what's best there.
Unless you "anticipate" the light (you looked at the other 2 ambers), your human reaction time plus the rollout distance before you leave the beams, will be just over 0.500 for most cars slower than 10.000 second in the quarter. So you will normally "Green Light". The R/T on your time slip is the error in your launch. Anything with a 0.5xx is very good for fun racing. Should you go under .500, the red light comes on, and in competition, you lose. HOWEVER, the R/T and Redlights do NOT affect your ET or MPH on the timeslip.
There is a second kind of light called Pro Tree. You write PRO with window marker on your windshield if you want to practice Pro Lights. Nothing changes for how you stage or focus on the tree. But all three amber lights come on at once, and the delay to Green is 0.400 seconds to stop redlights. I prefer this, but Test n Tune, it doesn't matter. Sportsman or Pro, either is good. Street Legal at Cal are Sportsman .500 tree.
Should the car start to oversteer, DO NOT chop the throttle violently or even think of hitting the brakes. Just gently countersteer like you'd steer a boat, and gently lift a bit until the tires hook. At that point, you've pooched the pass, just motor on down to the end at moderate throttle. This should not happen if you have Traction Control and Stability Control active. On most fast cars, you can get better ETs by disabling the Traction Control but don't disable the Stability Control. At least on the production cars I've tested, I've yet to see stability control increase your ET. It does not slow you down, that's an urban myth. Leave SC on, but turn TC off.
Not that it's important: I have about 5000? passes on bikes, cars, trucks all over the USA and have an NHRA Super Gas license, and have taught beginning drag racing classes. I also road race, desert race, autoX, and sled pull.
