Bracket racing

The effect of the bracket racing rules is to place a premium on consistency of performance of the driver and car rather than on raw speed, which in turn makes victory much less dependent on large infusions of money and more dependent on mechanical and driving skill.

Measuring devices both at the start and at the end of the track post times down to 1/100000 of a second (0.00001s precision), which makes tied races almost impossible.

The difference between when the green light comes on and when the car actually leaves the starting line is called the reaction time.

If a driver leaves before the light turns green, he/she is automatically red-lighted and disqualified for that round unless the opponent commits a more serious violation (crossing a track boundary line, timing block, or touching the barrier).

The reaction time is merely an indication of how fast a driver reacted compared to when the green light came on.

If the driver launched the car with too much power for the available traction, he will have wheelspin and correspondingly will have a longer time to cross the 60 foot barrier if he were to drive with more finesse.

Violations involving absolute breakout include: Examples: This eliminates any advantage from bending the rules by putting a slow dial-in time on the windshield to get a head start.

This is arguably the most important part of a bracket race: making sure of being able to "run the number".

When the first car launches, a green light will be initially shown, even if the driver committed a foul start.

If both cars foul, the lesser of the violations is the winner; a break-out is the least serious violation, then a red light, crossing the boundary line at the edge of the surface, crossing the dividing line between the lanes, leaving before the tree is started, failure of technical inspection after the run, and then absolute breakout.

If one car leaves before the tree is started, the other driver is automatically the winner, regardless of a further red light or crossing either boundary line (which by rule becomes a single run with a "no time, took green light" win status).

In a final, in case of a double disqualification on boundary lines or leaving before the tree is started, only the first driver to foul (cross the boundary line, leave before tree started) will be tagged.