Spray and Dump. No, it’s not an emergency bathroom situation, nor something to have your minds in the gutter about. The Spray and Dump is a technique used by experienced bracket racers to try tricking their opponent into making a mistake at the finish line. While there isn’t enough room on all of the internet to discuss the nuances and techniques used in any single bracket race, a few of the individual techniques can be dissected and explained to those who don’t actively bracket race or follow it closely.

The gross oversimplification of Spray and Dump is “Spray, slide, get behind”. That gives you an idea of how things are supposed to go if it’s done correctly. But before we dive into the How, let’s discuss the Why. In a sport rife with near-infinite ways to win or lose a race by mere inches, any perceived advantage can make or break a round and a racer. The basic idea behind Spray and Dump is to make your opponent believe they’ve made a mistake, either on the tree or in selecting their dial-in. Even moderately-experienced bracket racers have a mental plan of how the race should look before they stage, based on his dial-in and that of his opponent, and the Spray and Dump disrupts that plan, causing the other driver to second-guess his game plan. Four hundred fifty feet into a 660′ drag race is not the ideal time to think about “what if”, so if you’ve disrupted your opponent’s train of thought, you stand a better chance of being on the happy side of the time slip.

An In-Car View Of The Spray And Slide At The Stripe

Now, the technique itself. Spray and Dump, much like bracket racing itself, can be closely related to Texas Hold ‘Em poker, in that it takes a moment to learn, but a lifetime to master. The first thing that needs to happen for the Spray and Dump to be most effective is that you still have to hit the tree, or all the spraying and dumping in the world won’t help (there are some racers who spray to “gain back” ground lost to a bad reaction time so their opponent can’t tell they were late, but that’s not technically the same thing).

Once you’ve nailed the launch, you lay into the nitrous (generally a small kit, 75-125 horsepower. You’re adjusting your ET, not trying to run new personal bests) to drive up on your opponent, or if you’re the slower car, to get farther out ahead than he’s expecting. While there are different trains of thought on how far into the run to spray, a good “spot” to start would be to spray from 60′ to half track, where you want to start spotting your opponent and planning to execute the “dump” portion of the technique, the part that takes years to truly master.

The idea, again, is “spray, slide (or dump), get behind” so what you NEED to do is locate both the finish line and your opponents front tire and make sure HE gets to the finish line first, but you want to run as deep into the run as you can before slamming the brakes and feeding him the stripe, and hoping that he breaks out, or runs under the dial-in.By altering his idea of what should happen during the race, he’s likely thinking he was either late or he is running off the dial-in. Either way, he’s not 100% focused on driving the stripe, and he will be more likely to run out the back door, or simply lift off the gas when he sees you dump him, but by then, it’s almost always too late. Unless he’s dialed “hard” (or exactly what he expects to run) he’s going to break out, handing you the win light.

Another variation on the Spray and Dump is the Spot Spray. According to Jason McClure, a successful footbrake racer from Huntsville, AL, instead of spraying at the launch, you pick a spot downtrack that is easily-repeatable (the cone indicating the beginning of the speed traps, for instance) and spray there instead. The logic behind this method, which is more effective if you’re the slower car in the race, is to let your opponent catch you early and start pedaling the gas. Then you spray at your “spot” and stick your tire back out front, leaving them no time to get back into the throttle and regain the momentum lost while they were whomping the gas.

It’s all a part of the high-speed chess game known as bracket racing, and when the stakes are high, racers will try any tricks allowed within the rules to gain an edge on their opponent to turn on the win light.