About the 890 & 990 Index in NHRA Racing

Video Transcript

"TINA STULL: Hi, I'm Tina Stull and I drive the Top Dragster for Interstate Batteries. On behalf of Expert Village, today, we're going to talk about the basics of racing. Okay, so what's the heck is an 890 index or a 990 index? It's pretty simple. It's--890 is referring to 8.9 seconds; 990 would be 9.9 seconds. So what that means is that from the start line to the finish line, you need to run in super comp 8.9 seconds. If you ran faster than that, it's called breaking out, and that means a loss. If you run faster in the super gas of a 990, it would be breaking out. So you know, people say, "Well, why would you just set it up to go a lot slower, make sure you don't break out?" Well, you also look at--once you're going 890, if your partner or the person in the other lane goes a perfect 890 and you go in 892, or 8.92 seconds, you're going to lose because they got there first. So you try to dial as close as you can to the 890, and then make sure you have a good reaction time and that's how you go for the win."