Your car. Your air.
Your dial.
HPDash Racer is a drag-racing logbook that learns your car — log your passes by hand or scan your timeslips, and it predicts your dial from the real air measured right where you're parked, then shows its work with your runs plotted and an honest data grade. Connect a Dragy GPS box and it also measures your runs live and saves a branded timeslip for each one. This guide walks every screen, feature, and number.
Quick start — your first five minutes
- Add your car. Go to GARAGE → New car name → ADD, and pick the fuel/induction type (NA gasNA alcoholBoostedNitrous). This sets how the math expects your car to react to air.
- Log a few passes. On LOG RUN, pick the car, the distance (1/81/4), type your ET (and MPH, 60-ft if you have them), and hit SAVE RUN — the app stamps the air on every pass automatically. Got a stack of old timeslips or Dragy screenshots? Snap a photo — even your whole camera roll at once and it reads them in (see Logging a run).
- Read your dial. Back on AIR, once you've logged a handful of clean runs the app fits a line to your car and shows PREDICTED ET + YOUR DIAL for tonight's air, with a data grade and a ± window.
- (Optional) Connect a Dragy. On LOG RUN tap CONNECT DRAGY, pair your box, and it measures every run live — 0-60, rolls, 60-ft, ETs, trap — and compares each pass to its prediction in real time.
The four tabs
Everything lives under four tabs across the bottom. Here's the whole app at a glance.
| Tab | What it's for |
|---|---|
| AIR | The cockpit. Live density altitude, air density, grains, SAE power, the barometer, weather station, the air-at-round-time projection, and your predicted ET + dial. |
| LOG RUN | Log a pass — live off a Dragy, by hand from a timeslip, or backdated from a photo. Also where you pick the car & round and the timeslip source. |
| RUNS | Your logbook. Every pass listed; edit dates/locations/telemetry, delete, export/import CSV, backfill old air. |
| GARAGE | Cars (and their setups/epochs), tracks & venues, per-car Dragy logging preferences, and About/subscription. |
Top-right of every screen: LANES flips a bright high-contrast "sunlight" theme for midday staging lanes — it's app chrome, not air data.
AIR — the cockpit
The AIR tab is your glance-and-go screen. The big number up top is Density Altitude — the single figure that tells you how "thin" the air is. Higher DA = thinner air = slower car.
Density Altitude
The hero number, in feet. A trend chip reads ▼ DA FALLING (better air), → DA STEADY, or ▲ DA RISING, with the pressure trend in hPa/hr.
Air density · Grains · SAE power
A three-up row: AIR DENSITY (% of standard), GRAINS (the racer humidity gauge), and SAE POWER (% of SAE-standard power your combo makes right now).
Air at round time
+30 MIN / +60 MIN rows project the air ahead off the NWS hourly forecast + your barometer trend, each with the Δ feet and Δ ET. Write your dial now for a run that happens later.
The air, sourced
Station pressure, air temp, dewpoint, air density and the SAE J1349 CF — each tagged with where it came from: MEASURED STATION MANUAL FORECAST.
The barometer — and how to calibrate it›
Your phone's barometer reads the true air pressure at your exact spot — the one input weather apps only guess. That's the app's edge. The BAROMETER panel shows the raw reading and your offset, with CALIBRATE, ZERO, and REFRESH buttons.
One tap on CALIBRATE sets your offset so the barometer agrees with the station's true pressure for your elevation. No barometer in your phone? The app falls back to NWS station pressure or your manual entry automatically.
Weather station & manual air›
The station board shows the nearest reporting station (e.g. STATION KMFR), how many minutes ago it
reported, and lets you PIN a station to give it first look. A pin with a stale observation is skipped
automatically — the app never feeds you stale air. Auto-select otherwise picks the nearest fresh, complete station.
MANUAL AIR lets you type your own trackside temp, dewpoint, and pressure. Manual always wins — your thermometer at the line beats a station miles away.
LOG RUN — recording a pass
Log it your way — the app stamps tonight's air on every pass automatically, however it gets in.
① Type it in
Punch your ET (and MPH, 60-ft, dial…) straight off the timeslip. Fastest between rounds — and it works offline in a dead-zone staging lane.
② Snap a photo
Photograph a printed track slip or a Dragy screenshot and the app reads the numbers in for you. Batch-import your whole camera roll at once.
③ Live off a Dragy
Optional add-on: connect a Dragy box and it measures the pass live — see Live Dragy.
Car & Round, and the timeslip fields›
Pick the car, the track (or none for a private event), the distance 1/81/4, and the round kind TTQE (which auto-labels TT1, Q2, E3…).
Under TIMESLIP, choose the source — Track Dragy GPS box — then fill what you have: Dial ET MPH 60' RT. Add a Lane (L/R) and a Label if you want.
DATA GOOD THRU tells the app how far down track this pass is trustworthy — FULL PASS TO THE 1/8 TO THE 330' TO THE 60' BAD PASS. Killed it at the stripe or hurt parts? Mark where it went bad and the top-end never pollutes your prediction line. No clocks at a no-prep? Log the round with just WIN / LOSS — the air still gets stamped.
Snap a photo — one slip, or your whole camera roll›
The fastest way to load a whole season of history. Tap SCAN SLIP (or share images straight to HPDash Racer) and the app reads the numbers off the picture and pre-fills the form for your review — nothing auto-saves, you eyeball it first. It reads both a printed track timeslip and a Dragy screenshot, and figures out which is which for you.
- Pick every screenshot at once. Select your whole stack — detail slips and your Dragy history-list screenshots — in one go. The app reads each one right on your phone.
- It sorts them out. Detail slips become runs; the history list supplies the dates the detail cards leave off; a two-lane track slip lets you pick your lane so the opponent's column never imports.
- Review the batch, then save. Everything lands in a review sheet — check the numbers, then commit. Backdated runs fetch the real air for that exact moment automatically, up to ~a week back.
Full slip + setup details›
Expand FILL IN THE PITS to capture 330' / 660' / 660 MPH / 1000', launch RPM, tire PSI, box delay, throttle-stop timer, and wind (head/tail/cross) plus free-text notes. Optional — the prediction only needs the ET and an air stamp — but it's all there when you want a complete logbook.
Live Dragy measurement
Connect a Dragy GPS box and Racer measures every run for you — then compares each pass to its own prediction in real time. Works with both the DRG69 and the DRG70 "Pro"; the app auto-detects which you have.
What it measures & the live readout›
The status line reads CONNECTED / SEARCHING / RECONNECTING, with a live MPH, satellite count, and a GPS-readiness word: GPS READY, GPS WEAK, or ACQUIRING. It won't log a phantom run indoors — it waits for a real, stable fix.
SPEED RUNS time whenever you accelerate through a band, from a stop or a roll: 0-60, 0-100, 40-100, 60-130, 100-150 (turn on 0-30 per car for slower cars). Best pull is shown. A completed LAST RUN gives you the splits — 0-60, 60 ft, 330 ft, 1/8 @ trap, 1000 ft, 1/4 @ trap — with a vs predicted delta so you see how close the app was.
The HPDash timeslip & validity›
Every measured run is saved as a browsable timeslip with a Dragy-style triple chart — SPEED ELEV G-FORCE — plus peak MPH, peak g, and the full splits. The TIMESLIPS list is collapsible with per-kind filters and a best-first toggle so your best 1/8 is always one tap away.
The app auto-flags a run INVALID (and keeps it out of your prediction unless you override) for any of:
| Flag | Why |
|---|---|
| Low satellites | Fewer than 6 sats at any point — the fix isn't solid enough to trust. |
| Grade > 1.0% | The course sloped more than ~1% — gravity helped or hurt the number (the same cutoff Dragy uses). |
| Data loss mid-run | The Bluetooth link dropped inside the pass, so part of the run is missing. |
Open the timeslip to see the reason and tap MARK VALID / MARK INVALID to override, or USE AUTO to go back.
Only log the runs that matter (per-car)›
In GARAGE → your car → DRAGY LOGGING you set, per car: save a distance run to history only if it reaches Any pull / 1/8+ only / 1/4 only, and which speed intervals to measure. That keeps a 9-second car from logging a 0-30 on every pull-away, while a slower car can turn 0-30 on.
RUNS — your logbook
Every pass, newest first, each showing its label, car, ET, MPH, dial, distance, venue, and DA — plus flag tags like WIN DRAGY BAD PASS.
- Edit anything (✎) — fix the date/time (which unlocks the air), the label, round kind, W/L, the slip numbers (ET/MPH/60'/RT), how far the data is good, and the venue. Changing the moment nudges you to REFRESH AIR rather than silently rewriting the stamp.
- Delete is two-tap (
✕thenSURE?) so nothing goes by accident. - EXPORT CSV / IMPORT CSV / RESTORE BACKUP — export your whole logbook to a file you own, import rows to a car, or rebuild everything from a backup CSV.
- BACKFILL AIR reconstructs the weather for old runs from archived airport data — you don't need to have written it down.
GARAGE — cars, setups & tracks
Cars & setups (epochs)›
Each car shows its type, run count, and current setup. Change the converter, gear, tire, tune, or weight? Tap SETUP CHANGED — the prediction line restarts for that car, because a changed combo is a different car to the math. Old setups live under SETUPS; reactivate one with USE and its runs come back into the line. VALIDATE LINE replays your history walk-forward and tells you how close the prediction has actually been.
Tracks & venues›
Type to search the US strip catalog, or name a custom venue (it takes your current GPS when you're locked, or you can DROP PIN anywhere on Android). Each track remembers its distance, coordinates, and elevation for the best-possible air.
About & subscription›
Shows the app version, links to hpdash.com, Privacy, Terms, and the open-source licenses, and — if you're subscribed — a MANAGE SUBSCRIPTION link. Your timeslip images are read on the phone and never leave it; your logbook is yours and exportable any time.
How the prediction works
This is the heart of the app, and it's built to never bluff. Three things to understand:
Fitted to your car
Every prediction is a regression over your own logged runs — per car, per setup, per distance (1/8 and 1/4 kept separate). Not a generic chart. With just a few runs a car-type prior carries the slope; your data takes over as you log a wider spread of air.
It shows a grade
A DATA GRADE of A–D rates the data behind the prediction — run count, air spread, scatter — not the car. More clean runs across more varied air = a higher grade.
It shows a ± window
Every prediction ships a ± seconds range. If tonight's air is outside anything you've logged, it says EXTRAPOLATING and widens the window — it tells you flat-out when it's guessing.
| Grade | Roughly means |
|---|---|
| A | Plenty of clean runs across a real spread of air, tight scatter, predicting inside your logged range. Trust it. |
| B | Solid, or capped here because you mixed track-clock and GPS-box ETs in one line (they measure the start differently). |
| C | Enough to fit a line, but thin — treat the ± seriously. |
| D | Cold start (few runs) or predicting well outside your logged air. It's a best-guess, not a fit. |
Predicted ET and your dial are separate. The app predicts the ET; YOUR DIAL is your pad on top, your call, per round. Selecting a track (and lane) shifts the prediction's center toward that data — but it can never inflate the grade or the ±; those always reflect the real data behind it. Tap SHOW THE MATH to see your runs plotted (ET vs DA) with the line through them.
The air numbers, explained
Density Altitude (ft)
The headline "how thin is the air" number, from first principles (humidity-corrected air density). Higher = thinner = slower.
Grains
Grains of water per pound of dry air — the humidity gauge racers actually use. Higher grains = more moisture = less power.
SAE CF / SAE Power
The SAE J1349 correction factor. CF > 1 = thin air (less observed power); the app also shows SAE Power as the % of standard power your combo makes right now.
Where the inputs come from
Pressure from your calibrated barometer (true station pressure), temp & dewpoint from the nearest NWS station — and manual entry overrides either. Every value is labeled with its source.
Free vs Racer
Logging and the air readout are free forever. The subscription unlocks the prediction and always-fresh air.
- The full logbook — unlimited runs, cars, setups
- Photo & batch import of your timeslips (track & Dragy)
- Live Dragy measurement & timeslips
- Density altitude, grains, SAE power, the barometer
- CSV export & import — your data is yours
- Manual weather refresh
- Predicted ET + your dial, fitted to your car
- The data grade, the ± window, SHOW THE MATH
- Auto-updating, minute-fresh air
Cancel anytime in your store's Subscriptions. Your logbook stays readable and exportable whether you subscribe or not.
Your data stays yours
- Everything stays on your phone. No account, no cloud sync of your logbook, no ads, no analytics SDKs.
- Location is used only to fetch weather for your spot and auto-suggest your track.
- Timeslip photos are read on-device for the numbers — the images never leave your phone.
- Export to CSV anytime — and back up regularly, so a phone swap or reinstall never costs you your season.
Troubleshooting
My Dragy won't show up when I try to pair›
The box sleeps when it sits still — pick it up and give it a shake to wake it, and take it off the charger. Make sure Bluetooth is on and, if prompted, grant the Nearby devices permission. If it still hides, make sure the official Dragy app is fully closed — a connected Dragy stops advertising, so it can't be found while another app is holding it.
The satellites are stuck on "acquiring"›
The box needs a clear view of the sky — indoors it may connect but never get a real fix. Head outside, give it a minute, and it'll go GPS READY. This is also the app protecting you: it won't log a phantom run without a solid fix.
The +30 min air looks better than right now — is that a bug?›
Not necessarily. The projection blends the NWS hourly forecast with your barometer's recent trend; if the forecast has the air improving, the later number will read better. It's telling you to expect the air to move — write your dial for when you'll actually run.
Why does it say EXTRAPOLATING / grade D?›
Either you don't have many runs yet, or tonight's air is outside anything you've logged. The app is being honest that it's guessing. Log more passes across different air (hot days, cold days) and the grade climbs and the ± tightens.