That’s true. So does William Baldwin. I usually start with the distributor locked out and then tune from there. I have a 3 stage retard on the desk I use so I can change the timing and see the results.
A bracket car maybe, maybe I might lock out. Maybe.
But to do it so you are not beating the engine to death around peak torque means you will hurt peak power even worse.
You can really get in the weeds trying to make a locked out distributor to not kill a bunch of torque while trying to make the most peak power you can.
I know if everything goes right (it never does) it takes me about an hour or so to figure out what the curve should look like. And probably another two hours at least to put that curve in the distributor.
It would be near impossible to do it at the track unless you had it all sorted out on the dyno first. It would be really easy if you had two distributors with one locked out and then at the track you could just swap them.
But sorting out the curve in the car?? That’s a tough one.