Driver ejection,NHRA cover up at St. Louis

[Bruce Kastle]

I have received several calls and texts over the week from people who after seeing my son win 4th round at the Div. 3 race at St. Louis and not return for 5th round,and the results posted on Drag race central confused them more.
What happened was, in the excitement after seeing his Win light come on, he inadvertently hit the reverse lock out button and over shot the neutral gate on the shifter causing a brief lock up and tire smoke well past the finish line. He corrected that and steered the car safely off the track, at the scale he was told he was ejected for excessive braking, his explanation was met with indifference so he went to the tower to plead his case to the race director, where he was told that he "already made the call" and if he continued with his plea that he would suspend him for a year! His timeslip , not posted was, .011 rt, 11.928(11.91 dial)@110.59mph,(car runs 112 wot), NOT 88.01mph as seen on the internet (FAKE NEWS/COVER UP), Excessive braking? You be the judge.

[HR9121]

I like a good conspiracy as much as everyone but that not the case here. For whatever reason when a driver receives a no time on DRC it puts these random numbers in the mph column. If you go to round one eliminations of Stock you will see the same thing.

[Lenny5160]

From what I've seen, tire smoke from excessive braking happens just as often (or more) after the stripe as it does before it. The MPH on the slip doesn't really serve as proof.

In this case there is video available:



I think the video backs up the stated reason/story. If you're in the tower watching, probably not closely, and only know that the car got very loose just after the stripe it is probably easy to make the wrong call.

It definitely sucks. Not sure what a good solution would be.

Scary ride!

[topless63]

NHRA needs to start hiring competent division directors. I have witnessed over the years multiple division directors abusing there authority and no one will stand up to them in fear of being suspended. If you make a wrong call stand up and make it right. spending thousands of dollars to travel and race at a divisional and then get screwed because of a division director playing favorites is part of the declining car counts.

[jmcarter]

FYI that the subject run is at the 6:49 mark of the YouTube link that Tony provided. Happened to be watching the broadcast live when it happened and thought hitting the brakes that hard was bizarre given he had just crossed the stripe so now we have “the rest of the story”. Very unfortunate but can probably catalog it as one of the million ways to lose and learn from it because there’s no logical resolution. Personally, unless I’ve got a clean neutral I steer away from going to neutral until the end of the shutdown area, that has been in my vast repertoire of lessons learned for quite some time. Even though the call wasn’t correct he is fortunate to not have suffered some damage to both his and Austin’s car. Perhaps a different shifter is in order.

[FED 387]

Looking at the video it could have been a crash if the left lane car had been just a little bit slower and was not as far down track as he was or in this case ahead of the right lane car------good call by the tower--- I'm sorry but an equipment/driver malfunction causing the tires to smoke and then a complete lane change to me would be a reason to disallow the run--

just lucky the 2 cars did not collide as it looks like it was pretty close from the camera's perspective

FED 387

[Jim Kaekel]

I was presume this call was made by our brand new division 3 director who just started in his position this month, correct?

[kansas stocker]

Looked like a good call to me. When you cross the center line out of control it does not leave much choice.
Pete

[RKelliher]

No one who watched the video can tell when the tires locked up.This should have been handled much better by the division director.Like checking with people at the other end of track and not threats to the driver. The result may have been the same ,but doing your job right might have saved a lot of bad blood.

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by kansas stocker

Looked like a good call to me. When you cross the center line out of control it does not leave much choice.
Pete

Now wait a minute, if you are past the finish line and cross the "center line out of control" in a fuel car, you still win the race. And that also goes for hitting the guard wall, exploding your car apart, hitting the driver in the other lane or, oh yeah, smoking the tires.