t's not really the fastest car that wins in drag racing. It is a matter of being consistent.

You're talking about bracket racing where each participant has a self-defined handicap. The cars line up side by side at the start, but they do not start together. Depending on the disparity of the handicap between the two cars, one car might get the green light as much as five or even ten seconds before the other. The consistency part is that if each car were to get a perfect start and run exactly at the handicap, or bracket speed, they would finish in a dead heat. If a car goes faster than the bracket speed, it is disqualified. It takes nerves of steel to watch your competitor take off while you wait for your light to go green, and then patiently avoid exceeding your bracket speed all the way to the end.

In "normal" (i.e., non-bracket) racing, it's "run what you brung" with various classes set up limiting what is allowed in terms of displacement, fuel, weight, tire size, supercharger, etc., and let the best man win. Both cars start together, first one to the end wins.

I've never cared much for bracket racing (isn't it primarily IHRA that sanctions that, and NHRA that does more of the "head to head" racing?) but that's just me. As I mentioned before, it isn't the competition that gets me excited in drag racing, but the machinery itself. Why bother to run some flat-out balls-to-the-wall high-tech super-car when you're just gonna get beat by some nice lady in a clapped out Nova with a really great stereo who Lives to Launch and is very consistant.

tanstaafl.



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