[Ken Miele]

Before this thread gets carried away, let me give you the facts. I know both drivers very well. Tex Miller was racing Thomas Fletcher in a qualifying pass. Thomas was having an issue with the car. It was running rough, and he had a little trouble staging. When he staged the car, he lit both bulbs, he backed out as Tex was not pre staged yet. Tex then lit the pre stage bulb, got on his two step and lit the stage bulb. Thomas only had his pre stage bulb on. I'm not sure why Tex was on the two step so fast when Thomas was not fully staged yet. Thomas, still having issues slowly bumped in, it took about 9 seconds, auto start is 10 seconds for sportsman racers.

If you go to the live stream at the 46.20 mark you can see what took place on the starting line. After the run at the turn off Thomas ask Tex, why did you cut in front of me as we were shutting down. Tex was very upset and verbally abusive because he thought Thomas burned him down. Thomas apologized and told Tex he was having issues with the car. Tex was still upset and was pretty hard on Thomas. Thomas kept his cool and went to the scales. Tex, still not happy with Thomas got to the scales and voiced his frustration again at Thomas but in front of the officials. I can understand being upset if you think your opponent is messing with you on the staring line, but this was a qualifier. Even if it was the case, causing a possible injury by cutting them off on the race track is wrong. It dangerous enough on the track, we don't need this type of behavior.

Just before the run I was talking to Tex, he was right behind me in the lanes, he seemed like he was in a good mood and we had a good conversation, I was shocked at what happened. I know tempers flair at the track at times, but this is something that should have never happened. Sometimes we need to take a step back, after all we do this for fun. There are to many bad things happening in our every day lives, we don't need it at the track.