Thank You and to those that are interested
 

I want to thank everone who posted, calls, texts and emails with congrats for my runner up at Pomona. I also apologize for not returning calls for a couple of days while I digested what happened.

Today, I met with Mike Rice and Jeff Foster. I told them at the beginning of the meeting that I was going to post the answers to these questions on the forum. I am satisfied with these answers and ready to put this incident behind me.

1. It is not impossible to have a roll back red light with the stage lock on. But, it requires a motion of at least of a half inch to the rear. It was the starters determination the car did not move.

2. The stage lock system is automatically programmed by category.

3. NHRA is going to renew their efforts including reminding photographers of the limits of the zones where no flash photography should happen.

4. In a perfect storm a situation like this can obviously exist due from a reflextive flash. NHRA is aware of this and it is the starters determination as to whether or not the the red light driver has moved and the red light was a result of the flash.

I believe that once that red light came on no good conclusion was possible. If I had been declared the winner, Jimmy would have been added to the list of racers on the losing end of this situation and I would have been the winner of a very controversial final.

I would like people to know what happened in the time immediately after the original final. It is obvious from the video I went down the track thinking I had repeated at the Winternationals.

I pulled over to where the other sportsman winners were stopped on the top end and was congratulated by the event sponsors, photographed holding a Wally over my head holding up two fingers and generally enjoying the victory for about 5-10 minutes. I was not made aware there was a rerun until driving down the return road near the scales. I even had an event winners hat in the seat beside me during the rerun.

I blame no one, none of these people knew. I only tell this part to explain the emotions I was feeling during and after the rerun.

Jimmy has reached out to me and I plan to talk to him and his father in Phoenix. After 30 years of friendship I am sure we can get past this situtation.

I still love NHRA racing. I have always loved working on and driving my cars. Paula and I love going to the races and having a great time with our friends and plan to do so as long as we can.

Thanks.

Re: Thank You and to those that are interested
 

Nice post, Mike. The post speaks a lot about you. You have always been a true gentleman at the races when I have talked to you. Good luck to you at Phoenix.

Re: Thank You and to those that are interested
 

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x3

Re: Thank You and to those that are interested
 

You are a class act sir. Good luck rest of the season, I hope I could keep my composure that well in the same situation.

Re: Thank You and to those that are interested
 

A real "stand up" guy.

Re: Thank You and to those that are interested
 

Mr. Cotten - I applaude you for your sportsman conduct as most would be very , very bitter given the circumstances .And I'm sure with that same attitude you'll repeat - keep trying ..............

Re: Thank You and to those that are interested
 

Mr. Cotten, your comments and explanation have the words "professional", "humble", "gracious" and "class act" written all over them. You've gained a new fan with those words, and I only hope to someday meet you and your wife. May you have the best rest of the season sir. You've earned it.
God bless.
Walt

Re: Thank You and to those that are interested
 

Very classy, Mike. You have always been a class act.


I'm not buying this. Yes, there was a perfect storm. A perfect storm within their software that allows a glitch like this to happen.

It's clear from the frames I posted in the other thread that there was a flash, but it clearly came AFTER the red light came on.

If there was another flash it should be easy to see from one of the other video cameras ESPN had at the race. They had at least four cameras on the starting line. One in front of the tree, two hand helds on the starting line and one on a scissor lift. They also had a camera at the 330' mark.

In the video from the camera above it should be easy to see if there was another flash right before the red light came on, but I don't think there was and they will probably never show it to you. It's much easier just to blame the photographers.

Good luck this weekend, Mike. Go get in the final again.

Re: Thank You and to those that are interested
 

So thats were the Class comes from in CLASSRACER. Great job Mike.