I've done lots of heads up racing, and am now just starting to try my hand at brackets. I've done fairly well, even made it to the bracket final last time out, but I need some help.

When getting into the later rounds, I end up next to the 9 second cars (I run mid 13s). I'm thinking it'd be a good strategy to dial in VERY tight, and just go for it.

My thinking is, the faster car is going to try and sandbag me and beat me to the line by a foot. (Last time I lost by .007).

IF I pull a better light then them, and breakout, and they beat me by a foot, then they broke out more than me, and I win right?

And if I don't break out, then I'll be very close to my dial in.

I guess what I'm asking, is it a bad idea to dial in to my average ET? I'm not sure if the 9 second car is racing me, or racing himself, and knows if I'm breaking out or not. I'm only consistent within a tenth or a bit more. I can usually get em off the tree though. Last time out I ran a .500, .502, and .503 reaction time.

 

The general rule of thumb is to dial hard against a faster car...this is to say dial your car a couple of hundreths below what you think you will run..this will make your opponent push to catch you and possibly break out doing so...I forgot to add that, in doing this, you need to be prepared to tap your brakes just before the traps so you don't break out...

The faster cars strategy is to catch you as soon as possible and then keep a fender in front of you to the finish line...bracket racing is all about consistency...your great R/T's help tremendously but a tenth or more difference in ET's is not good...my post about Saturday's event shows this...I treed the crap out of my opponent but my car ran way under the dial....

 

Go-back to your heads-up racing knowledge:
if you 'leave'-on any opponent, the ONLY way he beats you to the stripe is by running quicker than you (by MORE than the starting-line advantage you gained on him ), in this-case, in-relations to your respective dial-ins.

If you have a .020-better RT (regardless if it is .010 to .030, or .060 to .080 ) and run dead-on with a "0", he can ONLY reach the stripe first if he runs .021-quicker than you, and since you went 'dead-on', HE must run .021 UNDER his dial.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CentralCoaster

And if I don't break out, then I'll be very close to my dial in.

even-if you'd run .010-under, he'd STILL have-to run .031-under, and you still win.

 

There are MANY different strategies on how to dial & run vs a faster car.. About 2-3 yrs ago my car was running around 12.50 - 12.53 I had to run a LOW 9 sec car.. Everyone was telling me he was sandbagging...

Soooo I dialed 12.60 I (KNEW) I would break out.. but he didn't.. so when we ran it out, he caught me at the 1000' marker... I waited until about 150' before the finish line & STOOD ON THE BREAKS he didn't have a chance to react to me stomping on the breaks.. I ran 12.61 on a .60 he ran 9.77 on a 9.81 dial

 

I would not dial average ever.

You do have it figured right though.

I always dial hard

 

I always dial in 1 hundred thousand slower than the car will run for the night.
Keep the engine hot no matter what.I always run one run cold and run a back to back run to see what the car will run and watch my temp.
Most forget that the last round you don't have the time to cool down.
The night air will make the car run faster most of the time.I just keep track of the humidty.Weather station helps.Humidty goes up 10% you lose 1/2 a tenth,at my DA.
I usualy can pull the other guy out with me.If you have to race the faster car and you don't bag he will stay at your 1/4 panel until the end and make you nail it at the last minute and you will break out.
I took the win last mth but the motor was new and no one knew what it would run .I bagged the crap out of it and only one racer new it.
He could not figure out how to beat me so he sat at my 1/4 panel and watched my break lights.I jumped on the breaks and he followed suite.
End result I had more power than him and he broke out.I jumped on it real hard and he shot by when I breaked again.

 

My my, all of you giving away your secrets eh? Well, I'll just have to install those new 6 piston brakes I've been looking at.

By the way John....next time you and I line up I'm dialing 12.50....

 

Thats fine but remember your NOT a 9 sec car.. & I KNOW that...

 

Hi Kevin.

Your knowledge of the other racer has to enter into the equation... If he is running 9's to your 13's than the advantage at the line is his as you have the first chance to redlight... at the stripe, you have the advantage as he is probably running about 40 MPH faster and he can't hit the brakes as hard unless there was a big differance in the light.
Remember the faster you go that .001 is harder to judge

Mike V

 

All good advice but remember...baggin' (sandbagging, as in dialing very soft) is not for the inexperienced bracket racer...especially against a much faster opponent...as mentioned above, your opponent will be coming on like a rocket and if you don't dump (hit the brakes) at exactly the right moment two things can happen...

One, you dump to soon and he takes the stripe..you lose and two,you dump a hair late and break out...you lose...oh yeah, if your faster opponent is smart enough to dial hard he can run it out the back door and when you dump he will kick your butt...

I have used the baggin' method from time to time...since the faster cars main objective is to catch you as soon as possible and fender race you to the stripe, by your dialing soft it takes him longer to catch you...the longer it takes for him to catch you the harder he has to push his car...if he doesn't catch you until just before the stripe, you can dump and make him break out a lot of times... once again, you must dump at exactly the right time so as not to break out yourself...

One last scenario...if you run a faster car who happens to have an experienced bracket racer driving, he will dial soft...this brings his dial closer to yours and allows him to catch you that much quicker and fender race you...good luck with those folks...lol

 

Another scenario is if you are a 12- 13 sec car, & are sandbagging say
.10 or .15... and the 9 sec car is dialed HARD... or VERY HARD.. he wont have to worry about breaking out.. and if you take the win stripe.. chances are you will break out...

The down side of a 9 sec car dialing HARD is he might have spin off the line, or get a little out of shape.. then he is DEAD unless the 13 sec driver is experienced & knows when & how much to dump..

I know from experience it is VERY hard to sandbag .10 hit the breaks in the last 100'- 150' & not break out... you WILL take a lot of MPH off your run but not too much ET.. because if you are "IN IT" to the 1200' you already have almost run your real ET not counting the .10 in the bank..

(I don't know if I made myself understood) its kinda hard to explain..

 

I, as a guy who usually is the slower-car, LIKE-IT when a much-quicker/faster opponent dials-soft on me, because when I dial-hard, if both of us have similar RTs and run *****-to-the-wall in a bang/bang finish, the chances of me breaking-out are dwarfed by HIS chances of running-under, and I win.

Let's go back to the original post, regarding a mid 13-second car, running a 10-flat car (for ease of arguement ):
the slower car probably traps at 100 MPH, while his much quicker opponent traps at 132 MPH, which are fairly-typical MPH for NHRA-Heavy/IHRA-Modified bracket-cars.

It is generally-accepted that human-reactions take approx .18-seconds for the body to react to messages from the brain after the eye 'sees' something, and this doesn't take into account time that the car needs to apply the brakes at the finish-line, so let's 'assume' (since we ARE theorizing ) that either driver must make his decision approx .25-seconds before he crosses the stripe:
if we again 'assume' that both drivers had identical RTs and 'assume' that both cars will run dead-on, we can begin a detailed understanding of what might happen at the finish-line.

When the car traveling 100 MPH is .25-secondsfrom hitting the stripe, he is approx 36.7' from the line, while his quicker/faster opponent is 48.4' from the stripe, almost 12' behind his opponent.

For the slower racer to make a good-decision, he must judge the stripe almsot 37' ahead of him, while looking-over his shoulder at his opponent, 12' BEHIND him, while traveling 100 MPH, an bad-situation at-best.

The quicker car has to make the same judgement, and although he doesn't need to look-around to find his opponent, that opponent is still 12' AHEAD of him:
who is going to lift when the competition is AHEAD of you?

Since it is very-hard to 'judge' a stripe AHEAD of you, and an opponent BEHIND you, why let your vision decide what you'll do, traveling 100 MPH, with the adrenaline pumping, when you can judge-the-stripe calmly, in the pits, looking-over your previous run data with a bottle of White shoe-polish?


'Fender-racing', when the trap-speeds vary this much, won't happen unless the slower-car car left-on by a huge amount, and if his RT was that-bad, his dial-in is the least of his problems:
I try using the wide-discepancy of the trap MPH against my quicker/faster opponent whenever possible, and run with the skinny-pedal on the mat for 1320', unless I see him squirming off the line, or broken at half-track (yet another reason to set your side-view mirrors W-I-D-E at the track when bracket-racing ).

There are maybe 3 guys in the world who can 'bag-and-dump' at the stripe:
Panuuz, Funkmaster, and another guy who's name I don't know but is damned-lucky (and probably already beat my azz a few times, too! )

P.S. : sorry for my 'partial-post':
I'm having problems on this Forum today (and THIS Forum alone? ), and it 'mysteriously' submitted my thoughts in mid-post.....

 

Thanks for the props and I only wish I had a car that was consistent enough to dial accurately.. ...it would make my life sooooo much easier...unfortunately I have to deal with the crap like I posted about last Saturday...run a 13.80 and 30 minutes later, with no change in conditions, dial 13.78 and run a 13.74 dead on the brakes after spinning and hopping out of the hole...there isn't any magic shoe polish for that deal...

Thanks to Central Coaster for starting this thread since I always enjoy discussing strategy and tricks of the trade for bracket racing...

 

I feel your pain Dan. I know how to cut consistent lights, and there are ways to make the car clear the beams fast or slower depending on track conditions, but dialing an inconsistent car is difficult. I've spent MANY runs at the track just trying to figure out why my car can vary almost .1 without much change in DA. I think I'm on to something though. Bwuhahah. Lucky for you I still can't race yet.

 

Glen

EXCELLENT POST you made is so clear even "I" could understand what you meant! As you realize in your scenario, if a 13 sec car was bagging .10 & the car WAS on a "Dead On" pass he could never take .10 off his ET in 37'

The 13 sec car would break out for sure.... good advice about dialing hard..

Also re: the point of lifting if you are NOT in-front.. just this last CC at E Town in my first round.. I "Thought" I was dialed HARD.. at 12.74 my opponent was 13,3x .... In theory if the lights were = and both cars ran the # I would be catching him just about at the finish line...

Well I WAS closing.. but I could see I was NEVER gonna catch him... I just stayed in it until about 50-75' before the line & threw out the anchor..

I "Thought" my .74 was hard.. but ON THE BREAKS I ran 12.73 (it prob would have been a .72 or .71 but he broke out more...

Thing is I know the guy I raced well.. & he is NOT a bagger.. he dials honest... I just got lucky.. I was the quicker car, & had the race in-front of me & its sooo much easier to judge when you are chasing...

 

Maybe you'll forget what you found by the time you come back...

 

This is a great post.

If I'm reading correctly, a sloooow 14.2 sec car with an inexperienced driver, 1 1/2 years, should dial "hard" or "tight" and run it out, while keeping an eye on the mirror for any problems the faster car is having.

Does that sound right?

 

John, 'bagging-10' is WAY-beyond my capabilities:
I just try to 'dial-hard' as general-principle at all times, and here's is why.....

We know that "most" of our cars are-NOT 'purpose-built', NHRA-caliber, " .90-cars", that can repeatedly run-the-number, and on even our BEST-days at the track, we realize the ET can vary +/- up to .02 either way of what we 'think' it will/can run at any given time, for no apparent-reason.....

..... and "most" racers are scared of NOT-being able to run the number, so, as an example, if they 'think' their car wil run 12.72 (knowing full-well it might run a .70 to a .74 ), they'll dial the .72, or possibly even the .73, then 'try' to scrub-off a few hundredths at the line, IF they 'think' they have the room, to keep from going-under.

Now, let's go back to the earlier scenario, of a 13.50-car running a 10-flat car:
if we agree that the 13.50 car 'might' run as-slow-as 13.52, or as-quick-as 13.48, for no-known reason, and his opponent may run between 10.02 and 9.98 (the faster car being more-reliant on traction and 60' than his slower opponent ), if the slower car dials at the lower-end of his 'window' (13.49, or even a 13.48 ), and the quicker/faster car dials at the upper end of his range (10.01 ), the slower car has a margin of .02 that he might-not run as-far-under as his opponent in a race involving nearly-identical RTs and *****-out runs, where neither racer wants to lift.....

In those .02-seconds, the quicker/faster car will travel less than 12 inches further than his 13.50-second opponent, and few drivers, being outrun by 30+ MPH can accurately 'judge' that distance, so he really isn't 'giving-away' much room that he can do-anything with, ANYHOW!

The slower car has eliminated the need to 'dump' on his opponent, and can run to the lights, knowing that he has .02-seconds to 'play-with' that he probably won't run-under:
an added-bonus of dialing-hard and running 1320' in eliminations is that "IF" we win that round against a much-quicker opponent (and what racer DOESN'T plan-on winning every round? ), we have a 'ful-pull' to help predict our NEXT round's dial-in, too, or as John says
Even an experienced racer like Panuuz wasn't sure if it would've gone a .72, or a .71, or even a .70-with-a-9 (OR, even-quicker! ):
when you dial-hard and make full-passes, you have better data to enter into your log-book or weather-station devices, making ALL future runs easier to predict.

Just something to consider.....

 

Generally-speaking, YES, but if you can't cut a light, chances-are you will be First Round Runner-UP more-often than not:
if you, in a 14.2-second car, running approx 98 MPH would run a much quicker/faster car, in the 120+ MPH range, 'realistically', what COULD you do at the stripe to make the D-o-V (Distance-of-Victory ) closer?

Your opponent is closing-in on you, and has superior MPH, but at vastly-different speeds/closing-rates, if you have similar RTs, by the time he can line-you-up and pace you thru the lights, he is PAST the lights, or so-close to the finish-line that HE can't do very-much (judge-the-stripe, lift/dump, etc. ), either.

Attend as-many test-and-tune sessions as you can, and begin keeping as-detailed notes as you can about every run (was there a head/tail wind? was the sun shinning, or did the clouds hide it? ), in addition to the obvious temperature/humidity/barometric-pressure:
as crazy as it sounds, even us-guys in 14-second cars NEED to know how our cars react, especially if racing against much quicker/faster cars.

Prior-Planning-Prevents-****-Poor-Performance

Really, we aren't racing our opponents, we are racing ourselves, our disciplines (to not foul-start, control your emotions ) and our-own knowledge (how the car will/may react under varying atmospheric and track conditions, etc. ), and I believe that much of this is just plain-old common-sense (although experience helps ):
if any members of this Forum can find issues of a magazine from the mid-late '80s that was named "Bracket Racing USA" , or "BRUSA" , for-short, it was a very good source of information on theories and racing strategies that I would advise any racer who is 'serious' about the sport to read..... you will learn more from those issues about bracket-racing than anything-else you can do, short-of running the car.

Hope this helps!

 

Glen... Again... Your On The Money Great advice... Another thing I do...if there is time for an "extra" time shot & I'm lined up vs a slower car.. I will fender race him...and see just how close I can get at the stripe (MOV)

I think it was 2 years ago E Town was having "American Iron" vs "Imports" and they had 4 different ET brackets.. I entered the 14.00 to 15.99 .. Thus was the FASTEST car/cars in the class I was holding about 1.5 sec I made it to the semi finals.. However you have to realize my opponents were FWD Hondas.. & to be "polite" none of em really "Killed the Tree"

Point being is learn how close you can judge the MOV. Ralph and some of the others have a piece of tape on each side window .. they just line it up with the other cars point of reference (Great Idea)... I tried but just cant get it down...