It is bracket racing. Just uses a distance handicap, instead of a time hanicap.
Back in the eary 60's I raced a track upstate NY, called Jacksons Dragway, that used a traffic lite, and a distance spot instead of a Xmass tree and a time spot, for the eliminator races. One time I was move so far down track, I was beyond the "tree". They had to use a flag man.
Anyway it is still not appealing to everybody, or we would not be having this discussion.
