Racing Format for the Stock Appearing Drags Events.


Once racing starts this year, you are going to get 3 time trials (time permitting), it is during this time that you will be looking to get what you think is your  best ET out of the car for the day. So out of these 3 shots down the racetrack, you will be asked to guess what you think your car will run for the day on its best run. More on this in a minute.

When everyone in the class has gotten their 3 time trials completed. (probably sometime around lunch time). We will break the class down into 2 groups.  The first group will be the "Quick 8" you may have heard of this format before and we are stealing its use for this racing series!
If you are in the quick 8, you will be paired up against one of the other 7 cars and will run heads up down the track. If you LOSE you are done for the day. If you WIN you will come back and be paired up against the next competitor. And so on, until there is only 2 cars left, they will run for the King of the Track ET honors in Stock Appearing Class.

Assuming you are not in the Quick 8.....meaning your ET is slower than the fastest 8 cars at the event, then you will be running in a bracket runoff.
What this means is that, you have to DIAL IN YOUR ET, or mark your expected ET on your windshield and your back window with racing chalk and or ET marker (this is the white stuff you see on peoples car, so get yourself a bottle). Once you have marked your windshield and back window and are called to the lanes to race, it will not matter who you race against. You are racing against the clock and the driver, you do not have to have the fastest car! WTF??  How does this work???

Lets say you have a typical unmodfied Muscle Car, that is truly a Factory Stocker running in the high 14 et second bracket. And after marking your expected best ET on your windows, you go to the staging lanes, and it turns out you are going to be paired up against the car that was the 9th fastest car for the day. He just missed the quick 8!! Yikes his car runs in the mid 11's !!!  It does not matter, under this system,  as he has also marked his expected best et for the day and is ready to run.    When you are both at the lights ready to race, your lights will come down first giving you a headstart exactly equilvalent to the difference in your dial-in times. So if you were pretty accurate in your guess on et's, then it will be very difficult for anyone to beat you, regardless of whether you are racing the #9 car or not. If you get to the finish line first than you are the winner, and again will go back around to the staging lanes for another round. (you have advanced a round!) This will continue again and again until there is only 2 cars left. They will face off for the Stock Appearing Drags Class Eliminator title.

This style of racing will give all competitors regardless of how fast their cars are a chance at being the Stock Appearing Drags Class Eliminator for the day.

When the winner of the Quick 8 has been determined and the Class Eliminator winner (cars 9---thru 60?) has been determined. There can be a a face-off for the Top Dog spot for the day!! That is if you can convince the winner of the quick 8 to race you!! If he doesn't want to race in a end of day final, then the winner of the Class Eliminator brackets will be crowned Stock Appearing Drags Top Dog.
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A couple of things to remember under this format:

You have to CLEARLY mark your expected et on your windshield and back window, if the Raceway Park Tower cannot read this when you come up to the lights, you are an automatic loser, and you go home without knowing if you would have won that round.

You have to accurately estimate what you think your car will run for the next round. Because if you decide to put 14 seconds on your windshield and your car runs 12 seconds...great!! Except there is one big problem.....You broke out!!! You lost that round. This prevents sandbagging.

Situation number two looks like this:  You have been running 14 seconds flat all day, but decide that your car can run 12 seconds flat. you put 12.00 on your windshield and back window and you come up to race. The guy next to you is also a 14 second car, and he puts 14 seconds flat on his windshield. You run the race and again you only run 14 seconds. Well when the Christmas tree lights started to go down, it had you listed as capable of a 12 second ET and gave the other car a two second head start,because YOU said on your window you could run 12 flat!! Therefore if you ran 14 seconds flat and the other car ran 14 seconds, and he got a 2 second head start...who gets to the finish line first??

So you must be as accurate as possible in your ET guess on your windshield. The effect of the these racing rules is to place a premium on consistency of the performance of the driver and car rather than on best ET, which in turn makes victory much less dependent on you spending large amounts of money to make your car go faster every race or year, and more dependent on mechanical and driving skill, such as reaction time, shifting ability, and ability to control the car out of the hole. Its a much more fair system then dragging your car to a racing event every year only to get blown away by guys who are claiming they have the same car as you and completely stock too.......only 2 seconds faster than yours!!!


If you are in the Quick 8, then of course you ARE one of the quickest guys at the track and have already spent huge sums of money and don't care,
what the other cars are doing until the event is over as... ALL competitors in the Quick 8 will get a Stock Appearing Drags Quick 8 sticker to put on their cars. Sometimes you may be in the Quick 8 and sometimes not, so get to know those 15 second guys real well, because one day one of them may beat you.