Re: Video of Biondo's win over Fletcher's close call
As one who builds his entire car other the mandatory factory portion, I am not in favor of an additional risk to my investment. I have been guilty of excessive braking myself, but that is unfortunately a component of the game we play. Now if it were against the rules, and enforced to the letter....I think that would be a good thing. I love the competition of racing an except the risk involved. I am retired and If I were to get hurt because somebody pushed a little to hard on the brake pedal, I would still get paid....but what about the poor bastard that can't work anymore because someone was over aggressive! What about his family, his house, his livelihood! What about the racer that can't afford a new car....or can't find a ride deal like Peter, Dan, Anthony etc, etc. All because someone got caught up in the moment. Now I understand that the good "finish line racers" may disagree, because this is a card in their hand, but an intentional act that could upset the car at high speed if slightly over done should be removed from the sport. It's funny if you think about....every racer goes on the brakes softly after a run....they do that because it's the safe way to finish the run, and minimizes the risk of upsetting the race car. Let's face it...drag race cars are not designed for maximum braking effectiveness, so why would you take the chance of over braking at over 100 MPH in a vehicle that has no design incorporated to provide a more positive outcome when hard braking. I'm sure that the Fletcher incident has been discussed within the camp, and corrections have been made as well as a review of the equipment, to eliminate further incidents. Hopefully others will use this incident as a wake up call so we all can race and have fun, while bending the bar back toward safety a little bit.
Wade Mahaffey
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