i was at infineon raceway or used to be known as sears point. i noticed when the cars lined up it showed their previous time. and for instance right lanes previous time was 14.00 and left lane was 13.00 the right lane was given like a 1 second head start. WTF? and then they ran but who do you tell who wins, is it still who finishes or is it go by if you ran a quicker time than your previous time?

 

It's called the handicap system. The winner is whoever runs closest to their dial. They give the headstart to make things a little more fun.

 

Yeah Bracket racing is set -up with a handicap to keep things interesting, if both drivers drive the way they should they will finish at the exact same time. This allows slower cars to have a chance against faster cars. It takes the race out of the cars hands and puts it square into the drivers hands.

 

Yeah in bracker racing it really doesnt matter which car is faster, it all depends in the consistency of the drivers.

 

But it does suck if you have a mid 13s car and have to give a 5 second head start to a civic.

 

Recipe for red-lighting for sure.

 

alright i gotcha. yeah that sucks. dude theres no way i could let a damn civic get 30 seconds head start. i might give them 3 or maybe 4 car lengths. lol. but im for it and against that rule. yeah it puts it in the drivers hand but i still perfer people just to line up and run regardless.

 

I prefer going heads up, you get to show your racing skills and all the work you've put into the car. Just try to avoid lining up next to a zo6.

 

Most organized Brackets pair the cars up within a closer E.T. usually like 13.99 to 13.0, next bracket 12.99 to 12.00, next bracket 11.99 to 11.00, then anything faster they just bunch together. but each one does it different.

 

That's more like index racing ... similiar, but not exactly the same.

And truthfully, spotting someone a 7 second head start then blowing by them in the traps is a kick in the pants ... of course you have to have a car fast enough to spot someone 7 seconds ...

 

Index racing is different from what he described. In index racing, you want to run exactly on the index. There's no actual dial-in, just the index. For example, Super Gas runs on a 9.90 index. The idea is to run as close to 9.90 as possible without going under. In the bracket racing described above, you still put your own dial-in on your car, but they keep cars with dials-in fairly close together in the same class (though normally a little more spread out than what was given above).