Bracket Racing 102 - "The Dial In"

Dialing in your car to win again falls more into the realm of art than science. Requiring only a few simple tools - cheap weather station, a notebook, a pencil and a simple handheld ET predictor (optional) - you will be able to predict what your car should run based on weather conditions. Predicting your car's ET and actually dialing your car for an elimination run are two different things.

The art of the dial-in is having an idea of what your car should run and dialing your car in slightly slower than this number to compensate for errors and changing weather or track conditions. Some folks call this "sandbagging" as conventional wisdom holds that we dial our car .01 to .02 seconds faster than our best guess of "exactly" what our car might run to avoid breaking out. Unfortunately, this conventional wisdom is a losing strategy and here is why:

1) You can never 100% predict exactly what your car will run no matter how many gadgets you buy to help you do so.

2) You have just handed your opponent a .01 to .02 second cushion the minute you dial your car in too fast. Many bracket races are won or lost by thousandths of a second.

3) Should the air density, windspeed or any other weather related factor change more or less than your last calculation you could be either fast or slow and not know exactly what your car will run. Weather shifts can be extreme during night time eliminations thus causing inconsistency.

4) The guy that beats you every week-end at your local track has figured out what you are doing and knows that you have not given yourself multiple options to win the race should you be slightly late at the tree, misjudged the weather, did not get a great burn-out, etc. Further he knows that if he monkeys around during his burnout and staging he can make your engine take on more heat further increasing his advantage. Bracket racing is more like playing Texas hold-em than racing. Dialing in the car is the first step towards mastering the game.

Dialing your car in slower than the predicted ET will require you to develop your skill at judging your car's position relative to your competitor as well as the finish line or "STRIPE"!

THE ULTIMATE GOAL: Get to the finish line first without breaking out but not taking the stripe by too much!

Deciding how much slower to dial your car than the predicted ET is up to you and your skill at judging your position relative to your opponent at the big end of track in relation to the finish line.

Every Stock and Superstock racer out ther stripe races. The third week-end in September I took my Buick stocker to the local track for some testing and raced in the pro ET category. Due to an extremely old timing system and very crappy track prep, it was almost impossible to consistently predict my cars ET. I stipe raced my way into the final six cars out of 50 total and lost fourth round in a double break-out race losing by .01. 3 out of the 4 cars I raced were delay box equipped!

It works try it for yourself!