Bracket Racing 101 - "The Basics"

Bracket racing is a game of both skill and art! "The Basics" is the first of series of bracket racing articles designed to convey knowledge on both the skill and art of bracket racing.

The skill is in being able to predict your cars performance at any time and at any race track regardless of weather and track conditions and consistently performing the burnout, staging, launch and shifting.

The "art", much like the game of poker, relies on your ability to always keep your opponent guessing and having the presence of mind to make the necessary adjustments during a race to improve your chances of winning.

Developing Basic Skills

The very first step in developing your skill starts with a trip to the racetrack with the goal being to gather information about you and your car. At this point all that is required is a notebook and a pencil.

Recommended Steps Day 1

1) If this is your first time at the track my advice is to sign-up for time only runs to practice getting your skills down without the distraction and pressure of competition.

2)Spend some time at the starting and watch a few cars perform their burnouts, stage and launch to get the idea of the basic technique.

3) Pay close attention to where they stop the car in the burnout box and the approximate amount of time they spend heating the tires - simply count 1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000 etc.

4) If you are running street tires drive around the water box. Dry-hop the car to get the gravel and dirt off the tread but stay out of the water. The tread on a street tire picks-up water deep in the grooves that ends up dripping onto the racing surface when you are staging the car. As soon as the rear tires hit the wet surface your rear wheels spin and you lose consistency.

5) Once you have the basic idea of what you are supposed to do head to the staging lanes to make your first pass. You will be as nervous as a dime store hooker at Sunday mass on your first pass so don't expect too much. Just follow these few basic steps:

a) Pull into the burnout box, set the lineloc or foot brake

b) Put the car in low gear and nail the throttle. Once the wheels begin to spin and the car again comes up on rpm shift into second gear.

c) At the top of your count 1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000 etc., let off the foot brake or lineloc and carry your burnout up to about 10-15 feet from the starting line by feathering the throttle. The idea is burn a clean path up to the launch area to make sure there is no water, gravel etc under the rear tires.


6) You are now ready to stage the car. There are two staging beams that correspond to the two sets of staging lights on the Christmas tree. The idea here is that once the first beam is tripped and you see the top set of stage bulbs gently ease the car forward until youtrip the second beam so that the bulbs flicker just before coming on.

7)Bring the car up on rpm until it just starts to pull while holding the foot brake. Make a mental note of the rpm.

8) When you see the third yellow bulb, release the foot brake and mash the throttle at the same time. If you wait until you see the green light you will be late. It is necessary to anticipate the green light.

9) Make your run and pick-up your time slip. Once you get back to the pits record all of the information from your time slip into your notebook. For example: launch rpm, reaction time, 60', 330', 660', 1000' and 1320' E.T.

10) Make between 3-5 passes before making any adjustments or changing anything. The idea is to get to know your car. See if you can arrive at some sort of consistency before trying to improve or change things.

11) Compare the data in your notebook between the runs paying particular attention to reaction time and 60' time. We want to see very consistent 60' times to make sure the rear tires are not spinning. If the 60' times are erratic this is the first thing you will need to fix.

12) If the 60' times are consistent then you can start working on tuning your car for reaction time. See the article in this site entitled " A Simple Idea to Help You Win More Drag Races".

13) Once you have mastered the basics of launching your car and tuning for reaction time proceed to "Bracket Racing 102 - The Dial In"