You'd be surprised by the competition in the serious bracket races, I mean $50K, $100K, $500K, $1 million. Not the $1K to $10K stuff that I enter because I don't race every weekend to be good enough at the finish line and the tree to enter the big ones.
If you aren't going under .015 on the tree and dead on your dial to within' a .01 you aren't winning. I watched 1 guy in a million dollar race with a .002 total package lose to a guy with a .001 total package. The guy was .000 (trip zip) on the tree but was .002 over his dial (dead on with a 2). Other guy was .001 on the tree and was exactly on his dial. The guy was trip zip dead on with a 2 and lost! Almost perfect and you lose, it happens...
Also, all of the seriously competitive bracket racers never dial to let it ride, they always leave some wiggle room so they can dump it, and they know if they aren't catching them by a certain point(or not being caught) they will break out, and yet they still run almost dead on. If you just dial to let it ride all the way out, any serious racer will easily win, because you are like a stationary target to them that is accelerating at a somewhat fixed rate. It's too easy for them to cut a light, run you down, and win by 1/2 a fender. Yes, they are that good. I asked my cousin one time, do you always dial back some or do you ever let it ride... his answer, "if you want to win you dial back". How much you dial back depends on the weather, the track, the car, who you are racing against, etc. There are two main reasons for this from my experience. First, if your car is running say a 12.00, and you dial 11.98. You just pretty much guaranteed you will be .02 over your dial, and you left the opponent a .02 window plus your reaction time to win. Most serious racers can cut a .010-.015 light no problem and put their frontend right in front of yours without breaking out and win.
Now with that said, if you don't have enough experience to dial back, don't do it. It will just get you in more trouble because you won't have enough experience to judge the finish line. However, with that said, don't just run it out like a predicable machine. Pick a spot on the track shortly before the finish that you can repeat, and let off there, it will make it harder for your opponent to judge.
Also, the vast majority of races are won at the starting line. If you are serious, you need a practice tree. Keep in mind, you only get one light per round, you blow it, your done. You don't get 10 in a row. So don't practice like that. You are better off cutting a few lights several times a day than having a 50 light practice session once a day. Because its really only your first bulb that will count.
Also, box or no box, there are really good racers in both. The no box is typically more competitive because there are more of them and they are all cutting amazing lights. Keep in mind, different tracks have different setups. They don't always have the same rollout, the same track prep, the same surface, the same type of bulb, the same levels of ambient lighting, the same lane, etc. So a delay box lets them easily change the delay to that track and bulbs. My cousin for many years raced both at the same time, I don't know how he did it. He would hop in his dragster and race with a delay box and then hop in his Cobalt and race no box back and forth at the same time every weekend, and he was competitive in both! The guy can drive anything down the track and win. Now he has them both in box. They almost always enter two cars per racer per race because it doubles their chances of winning for nearly the same amount of fuel and time to get to the race.
Also, most have electronic dial boards in their car hooked to their delay boxes. So they can change their dial from the drivers seat in the staging lanes depending on which lane they get or which racer they end up against, etc.
