Funny Car driver Jim Campbell, whose Jim Dunn Racing team doesn’t participate in testing, has no problem at all with using a practice Christmas tree to work toward cutting consistently quick starting lights. It’s a tool he uses, for sure. But he cautioned that it’s not necessarily realistic preparation for competition. 

The missing element, he said, is the human drama. 

“Practicing on a practice tree is nothing. That's just a mechanism to get your hand-eye coordination. There's not 10,000 other things going on. 

“Once you get the butterflies – and I don't care who you are, when you're in that car first couple runs, you want to make sure you do good and make sure I don't squeeze the throttle,” he said. “So if I just push it a little bit, then you wind up screwing up the throttle, trying to cut a good light. 

“It is human drama, the adrenaline, the butterflies, I want to win, let's go, let's have everything go right . . .  versus watching Seinfeld, going . . . [button motion].

Pilots get the simulator, which is a little more realistic. Once this car is lit and everything is going on around you, and you're doing this stuff, it's much [different] than sitting here and just going. . . [click . . . click . . . click]. You got anxieties: Which way are you going to point the car? Am I straight? Did I drop a hole at the hit? All the things that are going through your head of ‘what I'm going to do in case this happens’ in a short amount of time. 

“And then you can only do about 15 or 20 practice hits, because if you are cutting .040 or .050 lights, that's great. But then once you start doing that, then you start going for stuff that you shouldn't, like, ‘I'll see if I can get a .020 light.’ There's no roll-in. So again, there's another factor,” he said. “On a practice tree, yeah, it's going to be .040, but you don't know the roll-in and I can take that .040. That's still going to stay that way. But if I want to make a better light, I would have rolled it in three inches instead of one inch.” 

Qualifying passes come without consequence for a red-light, but of course, race-day runs with a red bulb on the Christmas tree mean a frustrating automatic exit. Campbell said, “On qualifying, my main thing is to make sure this thing stays straight. If I cut a .120 light, I don't want to do that on race day, but at the same time, I want to try to get better on my lights. 

“You get more amped up on race day. I mean, you do on qualifying, but race day is race day. You’re racing for the money. It's whoever turns the win light on first. This is just a matter of keeping straight, getting it down. If I didn't have a great light, it's not going to hurt me. If I have a good light, it makes me more consistent. Guys like JR [Todd], they're great on the tree. They're great on the tree all the time.” 

Campbell said he had just one red-light foul last season. So that isn’t an overwhelming concern. But he said in order to earn more round-wins, both the car and the driver need to be spot-on: “That's not up to me as the driver, but it's really up to the crew chief of the car of how they have it set up. I just got to be a robot inside, try to stay focused. That's what I'm working on most. It's just all about focus for me, just keep doing the same thing over and over and over. I get in the car the same way; everything is the same thing. My problem is, I have ADD, ADHD. 

“It's just a mentality thing. I've been doing it long enough now to where I've got it down pretty good,” he said. “I try to roll it in shallow. You accidentally roll it in an inch farther sometimes. We're all human. It's just like when somebody double bulbs somebody. Did you intend to do it? Did you not?” 

Tire shake is another sensation for a driver that fans in the stands or watching via TV don’t feel – but always are curious about. 

“What does tire shake feel like? How do I know I'm getting tire shake?” people ask. 

Campbell said, “Oh, it's nothing really brilliant. There's no magic hand that comes down and says, ‘Listen, the car’s shaking.” If you really want to know what tire shake is, be super, super nice to your local Lowe's, Home Depot, Menards, wherever you go. [The clerk will let you] take your head and stick it in the paint shaker and then put your finger on the switch. I guarantee you at some point, you'll flip that switch off.” 

He said a more helpful instrument than a practice tree might be a simulator: “So if they could make a simulator that would shake you, it would be great, especially to practice for things like tire shake. If you're going to pedal the car, because tire shake is a quick slap, to where if it’s spinning the tires, you may have to squeeze into it because you have to let the tires quit spinning. So if they can make a simulator like that, we’d maybe blow up less cars.” 

Practice trees, tire shake, pedaling the car . . . They’re all part of the unpredictable sport that Campbell, of Huntington Beach, Calif., is diving into for his seventh season. He’s hoping to make the Countdown to the Championship for the second straight year. 

His inaugural Countdown appearance came with some criticism, not aimed at him but rather for the sanctioning body’s rule change that allowed non-top-10 drivers into the chase if they compete at every event on the schedule. Campbell qualified legitimately and earned his first top-10 finish, despite a 3-19 elimination-round record. 

Incidentally, all three of those round-wins came here at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, two in the delayed Winternationals last summer and one in the Finals in November, when he knocked out three-time class champion Robert Hight in the opening round. Campbell said that victory justified his inclusion in the Countdown.   

“When I went out and beat Robert in Round 1, that made it feel much better for me, much more satisfying. I don't ever want to be given anything,” he said. “We earned it by going to every race. We followed the rules. We did good at Pomona at the Winternationals. So, in that aspect, I'm just happy to be back and see if we can do better.”