# Drag Racing Bracket Software - Recommendations?



## pshoe64 (Jun 10, 2008)

Just finished the Racing to the Future program for this years KY Student Technology Leadership Program. We had a fantastic time and saw some really thoughtful designs towards speed and appearance. As always, I want to improve the event and this next "off-saeson" I want to investigate a better bracket system. We always seem to have an odd number of entries and use a bye system. Even with the bye being randomly generated in each round, sometime an entrant will get more than 1 bye. What are you guys using? We have the brackets displayed on a projector so everyone can see the progress. It's fairly simple using Access and Excel to show the bracket, generate the pairings and move the winners onward and the losers to a secondary bracket with a chance to move back into the primary bracket. We run strictly as win/loss by the first to the finish line. We do not do timing (that caused an issue the first year). Any recommendations???

BTW, I'll have an article posted next week with all the activities that when on yesterday.

-Paul


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## alpink (Aug 22, 2010)

*byes*

this has long been an issue when there are an odd number of cars and/or more than 16 (read that as divisible by four) qualifiers.
most places do not want to force anyone to NOT qualify and be out before even the first round. so in that case all are permitted to race.
there are many ways of trying to sort out a field but no perfect one when either of these cases presents.
one could move the bye to the first spot of the next round making it difficult for that person to have another. 
this gets more excruciating the closer to the final pairing you are.
I use paper slips to create my pairings and write all the info on it including lane and bye condition.
so it is easy for me to manipulate a bye to the first pairing in the next round, insuring no back to back byes. and I can see, in later rounds, if a racer has had a previous bye and correct the pairings if necessary.
there are other systems which include two byes in the first round to even out the field into a "divisible by four" situation.
there is no easy answer and certainly not everyone is going to be pleased.
in the course of racing one might want to go to a different system for eliminations. with a smal field, we sometimes have the winner of the first pairing come right back to start line and race next person in line. a given number of wins has already been determined to select winner.
if same person wins his second race, he continues to race next person in line....
until he loses at which time he goes to end of line. eventually someone will rise to the number of wins required and event will be over. good for newcomers and kids because no one is eliminated early and forced to watch everyone else still having fun racing.
and if you are bracket racing, meaning the slower car gets a green light before the faster car, then this forces folks to be really careful entering their dial in.
if bracket racing doesn't mean that to you, perhaps an explanation of what you do mean would be helpful to others riding along. 
LOL


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## pshoe64 (Jun 10, 2008)

I forgot the traditional term bracket racing in drag comp and the class mix staggered start process. We are just pairing up the cars by age group and trying to get an equal representation/chance for the racers. We do 2 brackets, 1 primary, losers in the 1st round primary move to the 2nd bracket. Once in the secondary bracket you have to keep winning to stay in. The 2nd bracket gets additional racers as the lose in the primary rounds. The winner of the secondary bracket (no losses) moves into the semi-final of the primary with a chance to win it all with 2 more wins.

Our problem is the odd number and the byes between the 2 brackets. I've been weighing the idea of everyone races each other once and tally the wins and losses, most wins takes it all. Ties would race each other in a final shot at the title.

Thanks for the feedback Al. I've been trying to come up with some ideas and seeing what others are doing is a big help.

-Paul


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## jobobvideo (Jan 8, 2010)

How many drivers do you have on average? that might help in coming up with a solution...

It seems you need some sort of qualifying...to tournament bracket them out.

I like the all race all win loss idea...give a top qualifier trophy...then bracket the the top 16 for the championship??? might be a long day


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## pshoe64 (Jun 10, 2008)

The number of drivers grows every year. We had 80+ registered with around 50 total that showed, from 3 age groups. Elementary and middle school makes up the majority of the drivers with around 10-12 from high school. We have around 4 hours to complete the competition. That's why we moved to drag racing 4 years ago, to get as many student involved as possible. We always get an odd number in one group or another and the bye scenario gets more convoluted each year. I'm actually looking at a darts tournament bracket software that looks like it will rotate the bye. It's pricey, but maybe worth the investment to avoid the headaches.

-Paul


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