Question for Jeff Foster and Dave Kommel

[James Packer]

If the guard beam is tripped while the pre stage and stage beams are blocked (car staged),the computer thinks the car has moved and starts the clocks. If this happens before the green comes on the red light will be turned on then the pre stage and stage lights will be turned off until the clocks are reset. I believe either something blocked the guard beam or the beam was lost/missing long enough to trigger the red lights for Jimmy Defrank, Mason, Kurt Johnson, and Jack Beckman. It also happened to me in 2011 at a local bracket race.

I don't see how a camera flash had anything to do with these red lights at all unless an intense light or flash could possibly drowned out or weaken the infrared beam so the guard beam sensor doesn't recieve it, but I doubt it. Other possibilities are a bad sensor, bad connection/wiring, or some computer glich. However drivers don't need a flash blinding them so I applaud NHRA for removing that problem.

Compulink needs a recording device that monitors all the sensors during a race so a problem like this could be traced. It would have to be able to read and write at the same time sort of like a DVR opperates.

It would be nice to get a straight answer from NHRA or Compulink when issues like this comes up or at least fix the problem so no one else is becomes a victim of the mysterious red light.