Yup, newb question.

What is DA.

Is that the altitude at which the track is located.

The track near my house is 600ft above sea level. So does that mean DA is 600ft?

Please dont laugh

 

density altitude.


lots of info on it if you do a search for drag racing and density altitude.

lots of charts and tables for you to follow..

BUT, you cant run it if you dont run it so dont do the math and say thats what you would have ran.

you can though, see the DA and know if your car is faster or not

have fun!!

 

Or double adjustable. But you are obviously looking for density altitude. There's one other thing I can think of when I hear DA..... lol

 

district attorney ??

 

VERY close

 

Dumb A$$ !!

 

It is the Density Altitude, as Jeremy stated above.

The factors that make up the DA are Altitude, Temperature, Humidity, and Barometric Pressure.

A lot of people like to correct their times to sea level, to get an idea of what they could have run given better conditions.

 

Density Altitude Calculator:

http://www.modulardepot.com/density2.php

The calculator should be self-explanatory and answer your question.

Plug in the info from your local weather (http://www.wunderground.com/) and it will calculate the DA's for you.

PS. The website I gave you has a history of previous weather conditions for any place, any time.

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Density Altitude is valuable for bracket racers. Racers estimate dial-in for each race, and want to know if DA is rising or falling during the day.

For example, I might begin the day running 13.5X seconds, and end the day running 13.6X seconds because of changing DA.

 

interesting

thanks for the help guys

 

So, I figured my DA when I was at the track was 2557 Feet.

Question
-Is that high or average or low?

 

There are 4 factors at work here, and an infinite number of combinations. There is no average.

If you are a weekend racer, your times will vary because of conditions. With practice, you should see an improving trend in ET.

DA is an important number for racers, but insignificant compared to practice, and honing your skills.

 

For the weekend racers, DA is mostly useful to cheer you up. Especially after you see some of the east coast peeps in MD & NJ post up their really nice times while you scratch your head wondering why your best was only a 14-15 second run.

My best stock time ('04) was a 14.8. I thought something was wrong with my car until learning just how crappy it is running at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (DA for that particular day was 5500-6000 feet).

 

Does it mean Dumb A$$?

jk of course

 

Yet some anti-DA people will run around and claim your car isn't capable of running anything better and adjusting/accounting for DA shouldn't count.

Even though if you physically take your car to New Jersey and run at sea level you will run in the neighborhood of the DA calculated time that matches the DA at that location.

 

Actually, Density altitude is important for a naturally aspirated (non-turbo) car trying to get good times because it can affect the amount of hp the engine is able to produce. I fly airplanes and this is an important consideration, mostly during the summer months when the temperature is higher and especially at higher altitudes. As the altitude and temperature go up the performance tends to decrease. Therefore a car running a drag race at 8000ft at 90 degrees will not put out as much power as a car running the same exact distance at sea level on a standard day (59 degrees F/15C). Hence you will tend to see higher times for those cars running in say states like Colorado versus those at sea level otherwise. Its an interesting comparison because at higher altitude the air is less dense so its easier to move faster but at the same time it takes more molecules to fill the combustion chamber and make hp (if that sorta makes sense).
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