Dawson, just an fyi, I bracket raced with a QJet carb atop the 396 and later the 454 in my Chevelle for 8 years and manually shifted the 3 speed trans in my Chevellle for the entire time I raced it, over 3000 passes, with the stock “staple” shifter, no gates, nothing to prevent the shifter from going from 1st gear to neutral, winning a lot of rounds and races, as well I manually shifted the 3 speed trans in my Firebird from the 1st pass in it back in 2008 and through 2018, again thousands of passes. Both cars were easy to drive, it was not challenging nor was it difficult to tune my Q Jet and predict its ET’s and neither had a 2 step. Maybe I’m a better tuner and more coordinated than some running stock eliminator.
Well now I’ve clarified my statement about bracket cars for you but surely you knew I wasn’t taking about taking mom’s daily driver to a Friday night trophy race.