...... tons of strategy in bracket racing ...... I recall a staging duel onetime where one of the drivers on the line started reading a National Dragster newspaper right there on the pre staging beam waiting for the other guy to stage first
Most tracks now days utilize "Autostart" where the computer will start a countdown to activate the tree once both "pre-stage" and at least one "stage" light are activated, so staging duals are pretty much eliminated for bracket and sportsman competitors. The Pros still use a tree manually activated by a human starter I believe. But that brings up an excellent point, it's a good idea to check at each track you run how they run their program. The Autostart system can be adjusted in the programming for the amount of time it allows before the tree times out a competitor, different tracks can have different settings. I have seen a few racers that seem to use every bit of time, but it's rare. It's important info too for someone that "deep stages" to be sure they can get staged in time.
Another thing to check is how bye runs are picked at your track. I've seen some tracks that give the bye to the last person in staging for a session. Some pick a randon number in the tower, say #1 thru #10, then have the person running the staging lanes count back that number of cars for the bye - if you're never up at the front of staging you'll never get picked for the bye. In later rounds sometimes it can be picked by the racer with the best reaction time or closest to the dial in on the previous round. It's always nice to get an easy round win, especially if you're chasing points, and nothing wrong with bettering your odds at getting picked.
Another thing to check if the track uses and familiarize yourself with is "Cross Talk". It generally only applies to the classes that allow delay boxes, but some tracks do a run off between the "Box" class winner and "No Box" class winner for the big prize and Cross Talk may be on and can really throw you off if you don't know about it ( or how to have the track turn it off in your lane ).
Finally for now, it's a rule that you as the racer need to check if your dial in is correct before you pre-stage. Some tracks have a preview board near the burn out box so you can see the tower has your dial-in correct, but most don't - you need to look at the scoreboard ( some small tracks may not have that ), if you can't see the scoreboard ( hey, we're all getting older ) have a friend who can see it help you and alert you not to pre-stage if it's wrong. It may seem basic but I see it happen at least once each race weekend when someone stages on the wrong dial-in. The person reading your dial off the car may not be able to pick it out well in the suns glare, or the track owners relative working in the tower may be half blind, but it won't matter, "If you stage on it, you own it".
