Thinking about this in depth.......

[Jeremy]

I think our Class/Bracket car races will be improved in 2010 with the new .15 faster rule. There just needs to be some ballance between the 2 different types of racing.

[T Hall]

Originally Posted by treessavoy

Say whatever you want but Bracket Racing is the only refuge for the little guy!

Crowds? Hold an all Stock and see the crowds....all friends and crew members....and that's all....!

And now for all the Stock Racers (of which I am one)....if you have shoe polish on your windshield......you're a bracket racer, only you have more restrictive rules....

JimR

Well said.

[randy wilson]

i am going comp racing, that is my point. it should not cost what it does to actually race.it is broken as far as crowd appeal goes. i am not trying to stir anyone up, im just saying there must be a way to make it affordable and interesting.any bracket racing involving any class including s/ss is boring. just dont piss down my neck and tell me its raining. and by the way, we have little chance to be winners in our choice, but it is actually racing, only reason we are trying it.

[njk53]

You guys also have to think of the cars that the OEM's were producing in the late 50's 60's and early 70's. Faster cars were introduced every year and a lot of advertising was geared to the young guys. You could take a showroom stock BB Chevelle and go pretty fast at the track, take the slicks off and you had a daily driver. The key is if you had a decent job you could afford one of these cars and go racing. Not many of these cars are being produced today and if you have one you need to be making pretty good $$$ to afford it.

[randy wilson]

i think most are missing my point. it is to expensive to run heads-up. but at knoxville they have 360 sprints with a spec head and the place is packed. head policing is done by a rep. of brodix, something like this could work for drag racing, and people would have an affordable option.

[Greg Reimer 7376]

Back in the mid '70's,I raced fun&grudge and ET brackets at Irwindale.It closed,we went to Orange County.It closed, and we raced at Riverside.All brackets. During that time, I got involved with Chuck Norton,Tony Janes,et all, and drove a stocker at Winternationals in '83.That was a different world, and nearly the only game in town,so I modified my operation from brackets to Stock Eliminator.Riverside left off in '88,leaving us in a bad way with only two national events at Pomona for race fodder.All grade-point earning points races were out of the area. That meant towing to Bakersfield or Phoenix a few times.As far as I was concerned, Stock was it. Years later, Fontana came along, then a regular program, then the new Irwindale 1/8th mile track, and the Summit series. We're back to both worlds again, and it's fun again with a few choices along the way. All these tracks seem to draw a crowd of some kind, and yes, shoe polish is a common denominator. Whatever turns you on,I'm grateful for all of it.

[bigshow2966]

I started racing in the '70's too. The stands used to be packed. However, they were packed because there were always some kind of feature show there. Before there were a bazillion national and divisionals to go to the Pro's used to match race to make money. It was not unusual to go to US 30 on Wednesday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday and see Don Garlits, 16 funny cars, or watch Bob Glidden match race Da Grump. Think all those people in the stands gave a crap about us bracket cars?

Fast forward to today. No match racing, no feature shows, empty stands.

I don't know about anywhere else, but in my area dirt track racing is dying. Boswell and Kankakee ran for years and years. Both shut down mid-season this year from money issues and are both hanging by a thread for next season.

[art leong]

Originally Posted by bigshow2966

I started racing in the '70's too. The stands used to be packed. However, they were packed because there were always some kind of feature show there. Before there were a bazillion national and divisionals to go to the Pro's used to match race to make money. It was not unusual to go to US 30 on Wednesday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday and see Don Garlits, 16 funny cars, or watch Bob Glidden match race Da Grump. Think all those people in the stands gave a crap about us bracket cars?

Fast forward to today. No match racing, no feature shows, empty stands.

I don't know about anywhere else, but in my area dirt track racing is dying. Boswell and Kankakee ran for years and years. Both shut down mid-season this year from money issues and are both hanging by a thread for next season.

This is true. And divisional points meets used to have the pros run for points too.

[80 monte]

I am a bracket racer and truthfully I admire what you guys do with a "stock" car but there is now way in hell that I at 25 years old would or probably will ever be able to afford to build a stock legal car and be able to compete in any sort of way unless my oponent had a problem or I get some major support. $$$ is the factor that seperates a "Bracket Racer" to a "Stock" class racer. In bracket racing you still run into near heads up racing and sometimes heads up if your race director is on the ball in the staging lanes. For me to be able to get to a competitive level in stock would take alot more for me to be involved in, I cant afford to go out of town every couple of weeks too head off to another track when I could load my bracket car on the trailer and drive 20 mins down the road and compete every other weekend for half the cash and never have to worry about tear downs or weight so on so forth, unload the car and put the hammer down he who is better at both ends wins.

[CycloneFE]

Jim is correct in his thinking(I feel) and a lot of the other responses have very good merit.

My thoughts on how to get into class racing for the most reasonable outlay is this;

I already had my Cyclone. Every addition to it has the intention that I will race in stock. Every purchase must be a legal stock part. The roll bars were put in with the intention of running stock. The motor is from a shop that I think I can trust and is NOT stock legal, but affordable. My converter is race ready, but the trans may be weak as it is not top dollar. The rear and suspension is all Calvert and should work well. I am currently waiting on ride height to order shocks and they will be race ready.

I fully intend to bracket race this car for quite a while. Money will be saved and data can be gathered. Once the car can perform in the incremental times as a comparable stocker I will spend the money needed for the motor and the trans.

While I am not young(51) this is a formula that can be used by anyone beginning or getting back into racing as I intend to do.

Just my 2 cents