Question for Jeff Foster and Dave Kommel

[Dale Hulquist]

Toby, if i'm ever involved in a close race (which is not likely) i'm going to hire you for your (DSI) Drag Scene Investigation, very through. Good job counselor.

[Michael Beard]

If you step through frame by frame on the Mason incident video you can clearly see the camera flashes, and they do not coincide with the red light coming on. The red light comes on *after* the camera flashes, and the the pre-stage and stage bulbs go out AFTER the red light comes on.

In the Brand incident there does not appear to be any camera flashes involved, and you're dealing with a footbrake car that staged solidly and then came up against the converter, so you are definitely not dealing with an issue of rocking back out of the beams. Once again, the red light comes on BEFORE the pre-stage and stage lights go out.

This issue has also occured at a track in the east in bracket racing, and we've seen similar things happen in the Pro categories.

[Jody Lang]

[QUOTE=Michael Beard;370036]If you step through frame by frame on the Mason incident video you can clearly see the camera flashes, and they do not coincide with the red light coming on. The red light comes on *after* the camera flashes, and the the pre-stage and stage bulbs go out AFTER the red light comes on.

If you're going frame by frame wouldn't the red light have to come on after the camera flash? I wouldn't expect it to come on during the flash.

[Rory McNeil]

Originally Posted by FrankChastain

Look at the O'Reilly sign at the right hand top corner on the sign. Then looking at the passenger side of the car about where the parking light is. According to this the car hasn't moved in any of the four pictures...Just an observation....

Good point. The camera is stationary, on the ground, so any movement of DeFranks car should be obvious.

[Michael Beard]

If you're going frame by frame wouldn't the red light have to come on after the camera flash? I wouldn't expect it to come on during the flash.

Step through the Mason video. The red light comes on 8 frames after the first flash, and 5 frames after the second flash. That's not just "after", that's a *significant* delay. Also, it's been noted that each frame represents a fair amount of time. The timing system is dealing in thousandths of a second, so I would imagine that it IF the flash was the culprit, it is very possible that its results could appear in the same frame, if not the very next frame. 5 frames? Don't think so. Again, it also appears that there aren't any cameras involved in Brand's incident. Camera flashes may just be a coincidence.

None of it explains why the red light comes on BEFORE the pre-stage and stage lights go out in each instance.

A poster on DRR mentioned they had this problem frequently at their home track:

At my home track, this very same issue kept showing up in the right hand lane, DURING eliminations only. The track at first blamed it on the driver rolling forwards or backwards out of the beams. Then looked for cobwebs, ants, sun reflection etc. Then after much logical, thoughtful incise and concise gentlemanly discussions, accompanied by arm waving, four letter words, threats of violence, promises to never set foot on the grounds again, and other civilized, illegal actions, somehow an answer was found. it was discovered this only happened during eliminations, only in the right lane, it was random, not a common occurence. A lady that used to run the compu-link system for the track, suggested that they turn OFF auto start during eliminations, and see if the problem went away. IT DID!!

We had a different issue at the bracket finals at Rockingham a couple of years ago. We had numerous errant runs. I was announcing and noted the anomolies before racers even got to the tower to complain. We stopped and replaced one or more photocells on the starting line (that had just been replaced a week or two before). Had problems with the Stage beam hanging so bad it wouldn't go out at all. We turned off Stagelock, and had no more problems. Weird things happen. Maybe we think they shouldn't happen, and we maybe we think the solutions shouldn't be the solutions. Doesn't change the facts.

The most bizarre thing I've ever seen is having R/T's, all incremental times and mph matching other timeslips and making sense, but having the finish ET being off by about two tenths of a second, and the MOV likewise showing about two tenths despite the cars being separated by thousandths. It happened multiple times at the same event, with different cars. How or why it happened, I have no idea, but the only plausible explanation I could come up with was that somehow the finish line sensor "missed" the front wheel, and was triggered by the back tires. A car length was roughly the amount of ET that was "missing".

[Toby Lang]

Like I said, I don't know much about external flashes. Cameras also use infrared for autofocusing. The DeFrank red light could be a case of the camera autofocusing before taking the photo. I don't know if it would take that long to fire an external flash.

As for the Mason red light, there are also three other photographers on that side of the rail. Maybe one of their cameras caused it by autofocusing.

It looks the photographer has to be in the right spot and take the picture at the right time for this to happen. It sure looks like there is some infrared coming from somewhere that is causing this. There definitely needs to be some testing to see what is going on so it doesn't happen again. They need to to get all the photographers together at some point during an event and have them take pictures at different angles to see if they can consistently cause this. Maybe there needs to be a car in the beams for it to happen. If they can't get it to happen then it must be the timing equipment.

As for the Brand red light, the footage doesn't show if there is a photographer on the rail or not. It could be caused by autofocusing as well.

[Dave Kommel]

Modern DSLR's do not use infared for focusing.

[Toby Lang]

I find it very conspicuous that Jeff Foster hasn't replied to this thread yet. I'm pretty sure he's seen this thread. His last activity on the forum was on the 18th and I started this thread on the 17th.

Maybe it's because he knows it's really not the photographers that are causing the problem and doesn't want to admit there is a problem with the timing system.

I've heard a photographer has tried numerous times to replicate the problem and couldn't do it. I guess it's much easier to just blame the photographers.

How about it, Jeff? How about a reply to this thread? Or better yet, how about some testing while you have all the photographers at Phoenix? Surely you can find a little time before or after the racing is done to test this. I'm sure the photographers would be happy to help clear their names.

[Dave Kommel]

NHRA has now "fixed" the problem by banning all flash photography at all times and anywhere from the water box to the 225' photographers limit.

[Toby Lang]

I wonder what they will ban next when it happens again.