Handicap Drag Racing

[totalkos]

Okay. I was just posting to kind of get some of your opinions.

I haven't had my car at the drag strip yet. But i plan to. So i really dont know much about drag racing.

But it seems to me like Handicap racing is kind of pointless? I mean, you can set whatever time you want, but you cant pass it? I know its to make it seem more fair when racing other cars and make it more of a drivers race, but if you can set your own E.T then cant you kind of cheat? It just seems almost pointless to me.

Ive been arguing with this to my gf, which she has an 03 mustang with bolt ons, but i really think she might just be mad that my car is faster?

But the only reason i really would like to take my car to the strip is because i would like to know what kind of time my car would run and compete against my own times, not against other peoples times and/or E.T's

[Bottesini]

I have mixed feelings about drag racing. On one hand it is a way to make cars equal, but it takes out some of the fun of drag racing for me. Of course the other way is to make classes and those can be hard to make fair unless everyone uses the same stuff. As for cheating you can say a slower time, but you run the risk of breaking out which makes you loose just as much as running slow. Now there are so many electronic devices that ruin things even further for me.

[RacerBob]

There are many people out there who will put a slower time on their car and "drop anchor" at the big end. From time to time, I have done this also; however, it's dangerous and you can run under. It's all part of the game and I do not consider it cheating. People who use electronic timers or counters to cheat should be banned from the track for life!

As for going to the track just to see what your car can do, I'm all for it. That is the place to do it, not on the streets.

[BLKCLOUD]

It's called Bracket Racing, and it has been around for a long, long time. It allows faster cars and slower cars to compete in an organized elimination race on essentially the same terms while spending as much or as little money (read: going as fast or as slow) as you want/can afford.

Then there is heads-up racing. No "handicap" - whomever gets to the finish line first, wins. Organized heads-up racing is expensive, and typically he/she who spends the most money (within the rules of whatever class you're running) wins.

Of course, "street night" type of events allow you to run to your hearts content, and most tracks will try and hook up a pair of cars that want to run against each other. The downside is that there is no organized eliminations, nor season points, nor purse, nor contingency, etc.