Getting Started – Bracket Racing

Among the things that give me excitement in this world, nothing compares to the thrill of hitting the drag strip and tearing it up. Whether it’s banging those power shifts like mad man (or woman) in your near-stock T-5-equipped Mustang or speeding up those amateur drag strips with your turbo-charged muscle car, there’s always a place in this sport for everyone. But of course, you have to start somewhere. You can’t just go out and spend big bucks on a nitro burning car to compete with the pros right away.

It is also important to remember that not all of us were born in the staging lanes. Based from my experience, most wannabe racers are afraid to ask the expert thinking that they’re going to look stupid in front of their peers. The important thing is that you start from scratch. Ask your way into knowing the ins and outs of this industry and be mindful about every detail. The good thing about drag racing is that you can get to compete in the same surface as the pros do. Imagine trying to rent Madison Square Garden for a Wednesday Ball game with your buddies. Of course that prospect might seem daunting for the novice driver. But don’t get discouraged though, millions of people go drag racing every year and you can too.

Preferably, you should go try the sanctioned strips first. With the rise in popularity of illegal street racing, you may wonder why you need to bother going to all the trouble of participating at a sanctioned strip. Yes, it can be exciting, but sometimes for all the wrong reasons. Based from what I saw in my trips to Southern California and even the ones here in Miami, the underground and illegal strips are mostly full of hustlers and wannabes trying to earn a buck for each race. Unfortunately, many people get killed in street racing every year, including a lot of innocent bystanders. I’m sure you’re not really up for the prospect of facing manslaughter charges. Besides, even if you wreck and only hurt yourself, you don’t want to get injured at the side of the road without an ambulance in sight. At the track, there are precautions taken to help ensure your safety and that of your competition. In a best case street racing scenario, you "only" get a summons from the police. And this wouldn’t bold well with you and your insurance agent.

Bracket Racing is always a good start for novice. Of course some you might not be familiar with the term. In a heads-up drag race, the first car to the finish line wins. Each car chooses a dial-in time before the race, predicting the elapsed time the driver will take his or her car to cross the finish line. In bracket racing, it really doesn’t matter how fast or slow your car is. The slower car in the race is given the green light before the faster car by a margin of difference between the two dial-in times. If the car goes faster than its dial-in, it gets disqualified. This eliminates any advantage that faster cars have from bending the rules by putting a slow dial-in time on the windshield to get a head start.

Bracket drag racing rules are implemented to place a premium on the consistency and performance of the driver rather than the raw speed of the car, which in turn makes victory more dependent on the mechanical aspect and the driving skills. Reactions times, shifting abilities and the ability to control the car are the skills being tested in bracket racing. So basically, the golden rule in bracket racing is, the more consistent you are, the more you’re going to win races.

On my next post, I’m going to touch on the safety requirements and other rules in drag racing.