Christmas tree (drag racing)

When drivers are preparing to race, they move the vehicle and interrupt light beams 7 in (180 mm) behind the starting line.

Once pre-staged, drivers roll up an additional 7 in (180 mm) and interrupt the second beam, ensuring the front wheels stay behind the starting line, activating the bottom half of the blue lights or the lower two small amber bulbs, labelled "Stage".

If both drivers leave before the tree is activated (two red lights showing), the steward at the start line and video evidence will be used to determine a winner.

If evidence shows one car caused the other to leave before the tree is activated, the first car is disqualified automatically, and all boundary line violations are ignored since the race did not legally begin and the first offender causes the second driver to be credited with an automatic competition single.

The flagman (or starter) would stand a few feet ahead of the slower car, which caused a serious safety issue.

Dragtronics owner and NHRA Division 1 Director Lew Bond also helped with the development of the Christmas Tree, which was debuted by Chrondek at the 1963 U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Indiana.

[5][7] He created the first Christmas Tree sometime in the late 1950s and sold the rights a few years later to Chrondek Corporation for mass production.

[5] The Christmas Tree has changed three times since its original debut in 1963 for the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

[8] NHRA introduced another significant change to the Tree, switching to LEDs instead of incandescent bulbs, at Pomona in 2003.

[8] This saved changing as many as twenty bulbs at a meet due to filaments being broken by the vibration from exhausts of Top Fuel cars.

Two weeks later at Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown, Texas, the current standard Christmas Tree was adopted, with only two blue bulbs for the two lanes.

[9] Many divisional tracks for both the NHRA and IHRA also use CompuLink, but current timing system manufacturers of similar operations including Accutime, TSI, PortaTree and RaceAmerica among others can be seen at various drag strips throughout the world so long as these timing systems comply to rules and regulations set forth by the respective drag racing organizations for which they are members.

[11][12] Most drag racing time scoreboards currently seen at the tracks are provided by Daktronics, RaceAmerica or Accutime.