Dennis Reid, president of Dedenbear, located in Pleasant Hill, California, introduced the two boxes in late summer after months of research, and he thinks they will change the way we look at the delay box from now on. Both feature LED numbers, and the only difference between the two is that the Lightning Plus has a much larger display on it, "so it’s easier to read, especially for us older folk. It’s for the more senior members of our racing fraternity," he said with a laugh.

The two Lightning boxes trace their beginning back to Dedenbear’s successful Command Center series. Because of new NHRA rules that outlaw an rpm-activated switch inside the delay box, Reid and company have taken the Command Center and simplified it, removing the rpm switch and leaving both Lightnings with the regular delay box capabilities, plus a four-stage throttle stop controller, which means "off-on, on-off" down-track. "It’s for Super racing, and it also has a starting line control that can be flipped back and forth between the starting line control and a second four-stage throttle stop timer. You have your choice of which one to use on that channel," Reid says.

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That starting line control allows you to put a linkage-style throttle stop on your carburetor and allows you to control the carburetor right on the starting line. Meaning that the racer can go to the mat on pre-staging and the engine will stay at idle. There are actually four different setups you can have on the starting line control. One of them is a mode wherein you can have it so that when you press the trans brake button, the throttle goes to the closed position, so you can put your foot down on the floor and the car will idle in to the beams. Then it will stay that way until the trans brake is released, Reid says, so when the solenoid is released, then the throttle goes to wide-open throttle. And that mode replaces an ignition two-step, "so instead of being up there banging away on the ignition, you can set this up to, say, 5,000 rpm, and it will hold your engine at 5,000, and when the trans brake is released, the car will go to wide-open throttle," he said.

The second mode is a timed mode, and with that, the racer can program in the amount of time before the trans brake releases when you want the throttle to open. That means that if you find that it takes your engine a half-second to get up to rpm off idle, then you would program in at least a half-second in the box.

So let’s say that you put in a half-second in, you let go of the button, and then a half-second before your trans brake releases, you’ll go to wide-open throttle automatically, and it will hold it at wide-open throttle, then a half-second later, your trans brake releases and off you and your race car go. The advantage of that, Reid says, is that if you’re bracket racing and you’re spotting the other guy by a large amount of time, you don’t have to go down on the mat when the first bulb shines. You just go in at idle, let go of your button, the car sits there for a second or two seconds, then just when you need it, it will pull the throttle open, so you save the converter that way.

For that, you hit the Lightning starting line control button, and it comes up with a menu and it lets you select what you want it to do. It is broken down into thousandths of a second, Reid says.

Also, you can go to what Dedenbear calls a pre-stage mode, and this is kind of the opposite, Reid explained, so if you’re a Super Gas racer and you’re concerned about the starter giving you a quick tree, what happens is that you can pop an arm button, which is your bump down or skip button. You can then press that before you get to the starting line, and when you press that, it will drop the throttle to idle, so you stage the car at idle, your foot is all the way to the floor, then once the car is staged, your foot is on the mat, then as the trans brake sets, the throttle goes to wide-open. "It goes instantly to wide-open throttle. So it’s a Pro-light deal where you haven’t got much time, so you just get in there and set your brake, then the thing zings right on out. That program is called ‘Super Stage’ on the menu itself," Dennis said.

Since the boxes have a Pro-tree mode and a full-tree mode, it is actually two complete sets of settings, almost like you have two complete delay boxes sitting there. Reid explains. "If you’re running a Super Gas race and a bracket race on the same day, you can program in both of your times. So you may not want to have any throttle stop controller at all if you’re bracket racing. So that particular group of settings wouldn’t have you turned off on the throttle stop control, and then on your full tree or your bracket racing, you might have it on, say, a timed deal. You can turn the thing off and program it without having to go in and rewire the car. You can turn it off with software without flipping a switch. But you can turn it on for the other program, so you can have two completely separate programs in there. It can save you from having to change all the settings every round between the two classes. All you have to do is set one button, and it flips you over to the other group of settings. You press the Pro Full setting, ‘P/F,’ he said

The screen shows up as LCD letters – liquid crystal displays, in black letters on a silver background, but both Lightning boxes have yellow-green lighting.

There is more. If you don’t want to use the starting line control but you do need another throttle stop control, you can choose software that makes it into another four-stage timer. For instance, if you were Super Gas racing only and you never use the starting line control, you might use the first throttle stop control for your throttle stop, and the second might be used for a time-shifter or a shot of nitrous on the top end. It has to be on time, because NHRA rules won’t let Pro tree racers go off on rpm basis.

Why the names Lightning and Lightning Plus? The Plus, Reid says, is just to designate it from the Lightning model. The Plus means that you get the bigger display, and ’Lighting’ because it’s different than what we’ve ever done. "Everything has been done in letters and numbers before, and this box is so radically different that we wanted to name it radically different," Dennis said.

This is the first time, he says, that anyone has ever built a billet aluminum box. Why? "One of the things is looks. Billet is in and everybody likes it. The other thing that we were able to design electronic shields and filtering inside it, to keep out radio frequencies or ignition noise. We were able to add extra shields that you normally aren’t able to do with a sheet metal enclosure. It also makes the box more rugged. Plus it’s smaller, much smaller," Reid said. And another reason was that Dedenbear people were getting requests to shrink the box size for the dragsters, because they have so limited cockpit room. "We were able to put all of this stuff into a much smaller box. For the amount of features this box has, it is the smallest package out there on the market," he said.

Concerning throttle stop controls for Super racing, it is designed as a four-stage, so in the software, the racer can change it between turning it off or running a two-stage stop controller, or using it as a four-stage – "off-on-off" or "off-on-off-on-off."

Dennis again: "What we have done in the past and everyone else in the industry in the past, on a four-stage throttle stop controller, if you want to use it as a two-stage, you have to go in and program the third and fourth stage not to come on. Which is a pain. So we have allowed you to select a two-stage throttle stop controller in the menu, and then when you go through and make your settings, you only have to set the two settings. When you go to a two-stage setting, it only asks you for the two settings, so you only have to program it two settings into it. So it’s a bit quicker and easier to use.

"And the other thing is that if you wanted to turn the throttle stop controller off, what you used to have to do is program all four stages, so they cancel each other. And that was a pain, and so this allows you in software to go the "off" mode and that shuts it off.

"Those features also get transferred between Pro and Full settings, so you can shut the throttle stop off if you’re bracket racing, or you can have, let’s say, a two-stage if you’re a Super Gas racer, so you have those two programmed into this Pro/Full feature."

The Dedenbear Lightning weighs about two pounds. The Dedenbear Lightning Plus weighs a little less.

Other features include a lighted key pad that can be set at night, plus a lighted display. Both are more vibration-proof because of the billet enclosure, and it is sealed better against moisture and dust because it’s machine-built, so everything fits together very tightly, and that makes for reliability and long-life. And one of the other reliability features is that the key pads are gold-plated, so they will not tarnish and corrode with age. Five years from now, Reid said, it will still operate properly. "We tried to go in and hit everything we could to improve the box across the board," he said.

And there is also a remote display output, what is called the B and C connector, a funny-looking white connector that connects to our remote e.t. display, and that’s the full-sized red-numbered display that shows your dial in to the tower. So rather than going in and taking shoe polish and painting on the car, you can program in your dial in and that gets displayed remotely on the car for the tower to see. It’s much more professional.

It displays through what Dedenbear calls its RD-1 remote display, a separately-sold item that displays your e.t. in big, red numbers that is sunlight-readable. The big advantage of this – and Dedenbear is the only company that has this, because it is patented – is that it automatically takes the racer’s dial-in from the delay box and shows it automatically. If you’re racing by yourself, for example, and you want to change your dial in at the last moment, you don’t have to jump out of the car to do so. The Lightnings (and others from the Dedenbear lineup) are the only delay boxes that allows you to automatically update your remote display. "When you set your delay box, you know it’s right on the outside. It also stops any errors that may happen. Whatever is in your delay box is what’s displayed outside," Dennis said.

By the way, Dedenbear’s Model RD-1 remote display has something else that no one else has, an automatic dimming feature. The remote display looks at the ambient light level, and when it starts getting dark, it dims the display so the race car it is mounted on won’t "blind" people. It’s massively bright for sunlight, and at night, it automatically dims. It costs $369, available through the same sales places as the Lightning boxes. The unit is housed in a billet aluminum enclosure also.