Bracket Drag Racing 101 ~ Understand the Essentials and How To Win

YouTube Channel JustMoparJoe had an opportunity to go bracket racing for the first time this season with his 1968 Plymouth Barracuda drag race car. In a session of after analysis, Joe breaks out the painters tape and matchbox cars to fully explain and demonstrate what happened during several actual rounds of drag racing as compared to the timing slips.

What is Bracket Racing?

The term “bracket racing” is self-descriptive. Instead of drag racing all-out and whoever gets to the finish line first with the quickest elapsed time and fastest mph wins, in bracket racing, you set your own elapsed time–or better said, you predict what your elapsed time will be at the end of the run.

If your car goes faster than that predicted elapsed time, you lose. If you go just a wee bit slower than your predicted time, you might lose the race to the car in the opposite lane, who may run closer to his predicted dial-in. Hence the term “bracket racing.”

You yourself select your own index, or “dial-in,” down to the hundredth of a second. You display that dial-in on your car, to tell race officials and your competitor what you think your car will run on the eighth- or quarter-mile, and he or she does the same. Then you line up and race.

Hemmings

The Essentials of Bracket Racing ~ How To Win

This is a solid primer for those hoping to improve their results as well as those that are bracket racing for the first time, like a number of the participants in the 2022 No Name Nationals.