Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Could you believe no re-run? What a deal!

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

X-2

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

I posted that on NHRA's facebook page & they deleted my post!!! graham Light is an IDIOT!!! he didnt even have a good excuse/response made no sense!!

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

What happened?

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Their set up sucked. You could see KJ didnt move before the red came on, but it looked to me like Vinnie did, and might have been red, himself.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

The guard beam caught him. At National events ONLY there is a third beam and it is out past the stage beam. If anything on the car goes into the guard beam before the car clears the stage beam, it will cause a redlight. Kurt admitted the 60 ft was wrong.

Graham screwed up by talking about things other than the guard beam. It made him look like he was not sure what happened. All Graham needed to say was the guard beam caught Kurt and that would have been the end of the conversation.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

The 60' was messed up because the timers started and the car wasn't moving. Vinnie did go red, Kurt never moved until after Vinnie. In my opinion there should not have been a rerun, Kurt should have been declared the winner. Glitch in the system, yes, Vinnie still clearly left first and went red.
Chuck

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

I agree. Kurt Did not move first. Vinnie did. Very clear. Kurt said his car was 1/8" high. Something blow through the guard beam? Who knows. Kurt should have been declared the winner.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Once that can of worms was opened it would be chaos every time somebody thought something odd happened.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

I had the same thing happen to me a few times with the HF/SA car I raced. Billy put a new header on, and I had to keep the front tires pumped up to keep the header from triggering the beam. Sometimes I'd get a bad redlight, even before I moved (like Kurt's deal). My RT would be off three tenths, and my ET the same amount. Pretty sure this is what happened to Kurt--something interupted the beams and he got a redlight without moving.

Vince's -.006 red could have been a reaction to seeing Kurt's redlight.

I almost never agree with Graham "Dim" Light, but in this case, they were correct. Not enough hard evidence to warrant a re-run.

Still sucks for Kurt. I imagine they will go over the front of the car with a fine tooth comb and eliminate anything that could possibly trip the beam and cause this to happen again.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

I doubt Vinnie reacted to Kurts red light. On a pro tree, you react to the ambers coming on, and in this case, the ambers came on, then the red light. On a sportsman tree, I could see leaving too soon from reacting to a red light. Now if Kurt would have actually left too early, I could see Vinnie reacting to that
Chuck

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

This might be a silly question but what do Pro Stockers use to hold the car in the beams? Do they have line locks? I really don't know.

I watched the race very carefully also, I have it on TiVo, it was Vincent who left first, no doubt, but he had a -.006 light. I'll leave this one to the electrical experts. Looked funky to me. Jim


.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

If you watched the video it was clear that Vinnie moved first and he went -.006 so either Kurt should have been declared the winner or they should have rerun.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Kurt got Major screwage. ...you can clearly see his car did not move and Vinnie's did.
The fact that the 60' was way off adds to the possibility of a timer malfunction.
There were also some suspect R/T's in that round of Pro Stock Bike
Regardless of what The Compulink people will tell you ,their system can and does screw up. ....I have several videos of a somewhat similar malfunction from Numidia Dragway where the stage and prestage lights go out and then come back on, or all the lights on the tree on one side go out and come back on, causing major R/T issues.
This was eventually determined to be caused by a dirty fibre optic connection at the tree!
once it was cleaned the problem went away!
Incidently ,before cleaning the connection ,Bob Dimino's manager called Compulink after seeing the videos,and they said that what was happening, was not possible.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

I watched a video not to long ago of a round in SuperStock out on the left coast that showed a car redlight and it clearly never moved. A flash went off just as the redlight came on......

The issues with timing systems is nothing new.....but I feel with all the modern technology this should not occur.

Frank Iaconio was on the receiving end of the biggest occurance of some sort of timing malfunction and it cost him the Pro Stock season title....

No one could explain what happened.....and the following year at the Gatornationals the exact same thing happened involving the same car!

I was there and saw it myself.....the guy clearly left early and did not trigger a redlight......twice!

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Stage lock program comes to mind.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

http://www.competitionplus.com/drag-...-really-doesnt

They cannot find convincing evidence that anything was wrong.

There is no evidence anything on Kurt Johnson's car triggered the guard beam.

According to Graham Light, Kurt Johnson could have deep staged (really? with both stage lights lit?) left after Vince Nobile, who was 0.006 red, and been 0.200 red.

I guess that would explain the 0.200 discrepancy in Kurt Johnson's 60' time, too. Yes, Kurt Johnson's 60' time was curiously the same 0.200 off that he supposedly redlighted by, when he left last.

But there's no convincing evidence of anything actually being wrong.

:rolleyes:

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Here's a question, did Graham Light ever race a drag car? If not, why is he in charge of making a decision that effects the livelyhood of other people that do race? I have found that there are people in place in the NHRA that never fielded a car or raced what's so ever. These are the people that make policies that suck because they have no knowledge of what it takes to race.
There should have been a short turn around time for both drivers and have them line up. If they don't make the call, then it's too bad for them and the team.

Casey Miles
248H F NHRA Stock!

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Hose job all the way. According to Arlene, Vince came over after with his time slip and said "this isn't right" . Of course, NHRA can't be wrong nor make a mistake and actually admit it, can they!


"There should have been a short turn around time for both drivers and have them line up. If they don't make the call, then it's too bad for them and the team"

Not that easy to turn these cars around quickly. Vince was red without a doubt and Kurt wasn't according to all the evidence. KJ should have been awarded the round and points.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

I believe he ran t/f or f/c in the early 70's with Gary Beck out of Edmonton. He's just following nhra protocol never admit it's our error, no matter how much evidence you have, and they do not use video playback like in hockey etc. to reverse a decision, which would have helped in this situation. gsa612

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Sad part is, he did look at the vidio. Then he makes a dumb comment about maybe Kurt staged deep. I guess when he was looking at the vidio, he didn't see the stage, pre stage, all the ambers and the red light on all at the time.
Chuck

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

It also took him days to admit he was wrong and give Steve Johnson the win at Indy years ago when vidio replay clearly showed he got to the strip first. I don't know why it is so hard for NHRA to admit that the timing system can have issues at times.
Chuck

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

it is all about the show, and TV. Graham could care less who wins or loses. IMO. Kurt got screwed, wasn't the first, won't be the last.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

If it was Warren I could imagine the post race interview, and the s#*t storm to follow. gsa612

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Well it's televised up here on wednesday. Guess i will see for myself then. Until then i have complete faith in the sanctioning body.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Lol
Chuck

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

I've had my share of issue with the so called "Guard Beam" and it sucks . NHRA should get rid of it now . Several Pros and Sportsman racer have been burned by it this year . They can say what they want but in my opinion it's not on every round at the Nationals , I think the starter turns it on when he wants .


Kurt got screwed

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

I found this explanation of the Guard Beam at...

www.hoosiertire.com/dragman.htm

It states the following:

"Guard beam: A light beam-to-photocell connection located 16 inches past the stage beam that is used to prevent a competitor from gaining an unfair starting line advantage by blocking the stage beam with a low-installed object such as an oil pan or header collector pipe. If the guard beam is activated while the stage beam is still blocked, the red foul light is triggered on the Christmas Tree and the offender is automatically disqualified."

The best explanation is when Kurt matted the throttle, the torque of the engine twisted the car enough allowing something on the lower front of the car to set off the guard beam and caused the redlight. No he did not move but the front of his car was too low and the guard beam caught him.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Kurt's car measured 1/8" over the minimum. They are not dumb enough to set the car too low. They know all about the guard beam.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

I checked my car with a 3 1/2 in pvc pipe front to rear nothing hit . I also had video showing the car did not move forward . The body did torque when I matted it put not a inch. This seems to happen with cars that sit low .

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Go to the following web site that has it recorded. At 4 minutes into the video, hit pause then use your right arrow key on the keyboard to move frame by frame. It actually looks like both cars moved simultaneously but Kurt's red light was on and the pre-stage and stage beams were out before the car moved.

Also, just because nothing on the car is lower than 3" doesn't mean the guard beam can't be activated due to misalignment of the beam or some other reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-d96guIZJU&feature=BFa&list=UUyDaLMO3VccFGWjZLtNUCu Q

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

You can bet your ***** if it was a Force or Schumacher car something would have been done by Dim Light.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

I was filming my uncle make a run at Dallas 2005 and he was timed out in like 4 seconds. I was right behind the car with the starting lights in view and we could clearly see him and the lights. Same thing, he got screwed but he told me he keeps the proof and they have it for later. The behind the scene stuff that I'm sure happens. My uncle now drives the Lucas oil mustang in Pro stock. I'm sure Kurt is pissed but will get his later, we won't know. Sad part is they won't say that the machine failed.

Re: Kurt Johnson got SCREWED!
 

Story today on the Competion Plus site by Brockmyer of Compu link.Explains what happened to Kurt.It has happened before too.!!!!