How important is qualifying???????????????

[Mike Taylor 3601]

How important is qualifying? Is a good question, with lots of answers, many have no right or wrong answers. If you like to be fast, then #1 is your spot and always give you the highest possibility of a bye run first round..
full field qualifying definitely is important or you don't race, so that probably be when it is most important..
Playing the ladder for possible bye or avoiding someone can help, but is a crapshoot that you can get one of the spots you need, no harm in trying.
I understand all these strategies, for the most part.
Alot of my strategy is really simple..... keep it simple, don't overthink it.....drive the best I can....none of it matters if you don't have some luck...then some days or years I just can't drive...

[j gardiner]

There might be a lot of bracket racing going on, but stock and especially super stock are not bracket cars. If my stocker was a bracket car only, there would be a lot of things I would be changing on it.

[1320racer]

But it IS bracket racing

[j gardiner]

But it IS bracket racing
__________________
Unless you have a heads-up. These are not big motor, big tired cars on alcohol with a power glide trans. They are heavy with loose converters with too small of a tire,not enough carb,nasty little camshafts. I race both and have won in both. Both of them are challenging, but they are different.

[1320racer]

Originally Posted by j gardiner

But it IS bracket racing
__________________
Unless you have a heads-up. .

a heads up that the vast majority of stock racers look to avoid, playing the ladder, hoping to avoid a heads up race in the 1st round, early rounds, counting on another class racer ending the fast guy?s day in a handicapped start with shoe polish on his window. Again it IS bracket racing and while I’m stating the TRUTH again, I’ll continue by also stating many of the fast guys are just fast guys that don’t have the skills at either end of the track so they are an easy win for drivers that do have the skills.

[J.R. Haddad]

As Stock/SuperStock Racers, we have some confessing to do. We are not
Semi- Professional Sportsman Racers. Regardless of investment, Engine,
Transmission, or Differential R & D research we do, no, we don't cut it.
Thinking we have made life long friends through our racing, Sorry, not
allowed, we are supposed to have enough friends, no new friends allowed,
NO FRIENDS FOR YOU, TWO YEARS, As a famous Food **** once
said. We are not having fun, we should be ashamed we are in these
Classes. DO NOT pretend we having qualifying, Heads UP Races, that some peoples goals are having a fast car, some like consistent cars, others
like their cars to be show quality. These preferences will know longer be
allowed, as outlined in the new 2025 Rule Book- Racing **** Rulebook,
to be published soon. Anybody appearing to be doing R&D, going far under their index, Winning Class, or generally having fun, will be suspended for up to 2 Years, and fines depending on level of enjoyment you appear to be having. No Appeals allowed, as you are not as smart as publisher of new rules, so why waste time in a battle of brains, when we are just not worthy.

J.R.

[1320racer]

So what part of the TRUTH and the FACTS didn’t you like that fueled your unhinged rant about your fellow stock/super stock racers?

[JP1738]

Originally Posted by j gardiner

But it IS bracket racing
__________________
Unless you have a heads-up. These are not big motor, big tired cars on alcohol with a power glide trans. They are heavy with loose converters with too small of a tire,not enough carb,nasty little camshafts. I race both and have won in both. Both of them are challenging, but they are different.

This is a great point that gets overlooked a lot on here. Although STK/SS is, for the most part, a shoe-polish race once eliminations begin, these cars are not easy to drive or predict. Tuning a q-jet, footbraking with no two-step, and hand shifting a three speed is not the most efficient way to bracket race at all. But those are the rules for the class (at least my combo, anyway) and make it challenging in its own unique way.

[JP1738]

Originally Posted by 1320racer

I'm not talking about your nor your mom's daily driver, they ain't showing up to compete at BIG $ bracket races like the flings and if one does show up they ain't winning.

Ok well you did not specify that you were only talking about the pinnacle of bracket racing in the post I was responding to. We all know a minivan is not winning at the fling, but it can win sportsman at your local track. That's all I'm saying. I wish more people, young people, would get out and do that so our sport can continue to flourish.

When you threw out the 40k number, you said nothing about competing for big money. You said "Meanwhile bracket cars today cost around $40k on the low end to $175k on the high end....Nothing cheap about bracket racing today either." Nothing about that sentence indicates the caveat.

[1320racer]

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.