effect of rearend gearing on ET's

It's not simply "more gear is better"... It's the car as a whole. Stock Eliminator cars (and bracket racers) run as much gear as the engine can take, and build the engine to make power at the higher rpms. Because the physics is the same.. X number of horsepower per firing event x number of firing events in a minute = more power delivered to the tires in the same amount of time. It's why Indy cars run to 20,000 rpm, motorcycles run 13000, and Stock Eliminator run sat 6800-8000, nitor dragsters run to 8500+(and why NHRA raised the gear limit a few years ago to slow them down). I use the work the car needs to do, and the driveline package as a whole to determine the gearing. Many times the gearing gets matched to the engine after the engine is done, and it's a common "mismatch". Generally, the most (numerically highest) gear that your engine can turn will get you faster. If the engine falls over at 4000 rpm, and the gearing wants it to spin to 6... you wont go any faster...lol