[bill dedman]

The essence of drag racing...

The fact is, Class racing and the same-class matchups that occur (infrequently) in Stock and Super Stock Eliminator(s) is the only PURE drag racing left unless you want to include CIC racing in Comp, which admittedly, has no breakouts, but does have moveable handicaps (CIC induced.)

The heads up DRAG RACING that goes on under the two aforementioned situations is all that's left of
"drag racing" for the Sportsman racer.

ALL the rest is just Bracket racing.

Nothing wrong with Bracket racing (I have a Bracket car, myself), but don't confuse it with DRAG RACING.
It may LOOK like drag racing, and it may even sound like drag racing (minus an active throttle stop) but it's not....

Drag Racing got its start with 4 Stock classes, NO handicaps and no breakouts.... It was ALL heads-up racing.... no Christmas tree, just a flagman.

Would it have grown and prospered, and become the nationwide phenomenon that it became if it had had all the handicaps, breakouts and dial-ins that we have today, at the outset?

I doubt it; it was pure and simple and people could understand it. First car (of two that left together) to the finish line wins!!!

That was drag racing...

If you kill heads up runs, you have killed the essence of what made this sport great.

You can rationalize all you want about the perceived "damage" done by a system that includes heads-up/no breakout runs, but do away with that and you've gutted the soul of this sport.

My 2-cents...