Quote:
Originally Posted by tstickff
Dave your a pretty smart guy, if your referring to my Facebook post, if you noticed i didn?t mention a name, even when people were asking who it was, I didn?t mention a name. If you read the post correctly you would have been under the impression I was asking if NHRA has ever given someone a pass at Indy because they say they can?t tear an engine down because the engine builder isn?t on the property, has that ever happened for anyone else?
If not they are either setting precedent or playing favorites, which isn?t right nor fair to the rest of the competitors. Especially the ones that lost to ?someone? who wasn?t ?legal?
I understand the carb issue blah blah blah, I could care less about that actually, I was more concerned about conduct with NHRA.
Tim Stickles
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I was at a race winner teardown at Pomona in the early 1970's. Unfortunately it was not for me. But I was helping the winner teardown. Farmer and a couple of his guys were checking the components. This racer had blown his own engine bracket racing at Irwindale on Tuesday evening earlier in the week, I believe it was. Anyway, we were all staying at a California friend's house who raced a similar 350 chevy stocker but was not competing at the Winters. So his engine went in place of the broken one. You want something scary trying going thru teardown with an engine you don't know anything about. Farmer was aware of what had happened earlier in the week. The teardown was essentially over and all the parts, CC's, bore and stroke etc had checked. Farmer was checking the head gasket thickeness. Needed 0.021" to pass with the deck height. I am standing right besides Farmer and watch him read the dial indicator. Look down at the card to see what was needed to pass. The indicator I could see and it read 0.017", Farmer looked at it again and called out 0.022", he gave him 0.005" that was not there. And the win was good. I know later in my racing life, this would never have happend when Jim Dale was national tech director. And while Farmer was tough, there was some compassion there too. I am sure if this had been for class or after first round, he would have thrown the individual out. Evidently after the race, with him being the only one reading the caliper, there was room for compassion. I have been thru more that 70 NHRA teardown's some were pretty special. There was one for class at Indy where Jim Dale would only let me remove bolts from my engine. He had a tech guy at the front and rear of my car and Tech guys would take the parts up to the bench and check them. Jim and I did not see eye to eye. There was the time at Milehighs where I was the first one to break out there in the final against my friend Steve Hahn. At the scale, I tell Dale, Steve is fine by me, he doesn't need to be torn down. Dale says that's too bad, because I want to see you both apart as he jumps in my car and rides up to the base of the tower with me, this at about 1:30 am Saturday night. Makes me stay with the car at the tower and send friends to get tools. Some individuals have no compassion and maybe they shouldn't. Who really knows. By the same token, why have rules that don't impact performance. Change the frigging rule so you aren't throwing good racers out. They can add or take away horsepower at the drop of a hat, they can also change rules the same way. Anyway, there has been some precedence for letting things slide in the old days.