Racing the stripe if you have the lead

Your car needs to be consistent, and you need to be consistently good on the tree. If you’re dialed hot and the other guy has a decent light (and consistent car that they trust) they’re going to let you take stripe every time because they can see they’re not going to get there…so, you can tighten it up some, but mathematically they’ve probably already got you with a better package.

You need to get the car consistent and be consistent on the tree, which takes a lot of test passes to get to. Track your runs with weather conditions to get an idea of how those changes will effect your runs. You may benefit from dialing down a number or two so you can run it out the back until you get a feel for track position. Most people struggle to judge stripe when the discrepancy is more than 1-1.5 seconds.

Also, try looking to your side when you’re staged so you get an idea of what the cars should look like at the stripe and get as close to that as you can.