The Tree

The first yellow bulb lights up, and creeping forward the second bulb goes on, now I’m staged I look over and see the opponent is also staged. and for a split second, there is a moment when you are so focused on watching the tree drop you feel like you are in 3rd person. The first yellow lights up, and I slowly hold the sled rpms at 1500 while squeezing the break harder. The second yellow lights up, and it’s time I wait for a split second, dump the break, give it full gas, and see the opponent win light go on. I got a red light, a .496 to be exact. I remember this exact moment because it was the finals in a money bash with over 64 sleds, and being the final races we had to beat everyone, and now that we made it to the top two this was it, the races I had to win for the prize and the same goes for him. It was all or nothing, winner takes all. I red light, and lose the pot in the blink of an eye, all because I went .003 seconds too early.

Knowing racing you may understand these concepts but if you don’t, bracket racing all starts at the tree. you set the time that you think it will take you to get to the end and the person that gets the closest to their time wins. The better the light you get the more room you have to win it on the other end of the track, you will be ahead of the person you are racing. the tree is the most important part and it can make or break a race. the two double yellow bubbles staggered on top of each other are the staging lights and the are three vertical yellow lights going down under that, the 4th light is green and under that is the red. to time it perfectly you want to go off the second the 3rd yellow goes on, you almost have to anticipate It. The reason “I red lit” is because I had gone too early I anticipated that the light would turn yellow from memories of the tree’s speed. I had been .003 seconds too early, that’s faster than a blink of an eye. I was that close to being the winner but I red-lit pushing the tree too hard.

It had felt like I had wasted all my time and effort to get where I was and lost at this moment, beating racers round after round to get to the finals. A red light, an automatic win for the opponent. I didn’t even wanna go down the rest of the track and come back. I was furious that I jumped the gun. I was pushing myself to be perfect cause I knew who I was going up against wasn’t there to joke around and they were going to cut a good light. so I wanted to cut a better one. a .500 to be exact. I could have easily backed off the tree and got a .550 but then it leaves room for the opponent to get me on the back end. So I decided to push the tree and with the risk, I messed up, go big or go home to be exact, and I went home this time. but I have learned a lot from that and I feel a lot less tense under pressure ever since. I learned a lot about racing from this event, it made me a better races to face adversity like that and it made it so I am more comfortable in situations like this if it ever happens again and I won’t be afraid to push the tree again in money on the line situations because I have practiced on the tree since and feel comfortable with my ability to succeed. My biggest takeaway from this happening to me is even when you give it everything you have and try the best that you can winning isn’t guaranteed.

“Drag Racing” by Cajie is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

“Meltdown Drags” by chumlee10 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.