[Ed Wright]

This is an email I recieved this morning from a guy working the lanes:

Ed,

I was talking to the tower and Doug (Operations Manager) when this incident occurred.

The guy in the red car (John) came running up to me after I pulled three or four sets of cars to the lanes.

Chaney was the forth or fifth set in line that was going to race John. He said that he is not ready and still had to get buckled up. I told him to get in his car and get buckled up and get up here. After the water incident in the third or forth pair I thought he would have plenty of time to get up to the lane. He still did not move at all. Once the water incident was cleaned up the tower and Doug was wondering what the delay is. I explained to them that John was still in the lanes getting buckled up. The cleanup took about 5 minutes to get cleaned up. Chaney was setting at the gate at least 4 minutes prior before the water incident. The tower then declared since the car did not get into line to run against Chaney it was determined by the tower that he was broke. Chaney did not want to go forward without John but was told to pull forward to take a single run. Chaney was told by the tower that John was broke, that’s the only way to get him to go forward. Cars then started to pull around John. Chaney took the single and other cars started to pull up then John showed up expecting to run. He was told that the run has already occurred. He was ticked off.

It took him close to 15 minutes to pull forward to the starting line from the time he told me that he was not buckled up. My TAD and TAF cars do not take that long to get buckled up. Most TD dragsters can get buckled up in 3-4 minutes.

All he had to do was to start the car and pull up to the gate, chances are he would have run against Chaney (Assuming that he would not take long). Since he stayed back in the lane and delayed the event they had no choice but to disqualify his run. When you have Craig Hutchinson and Doug Wright wondering why no cars are going down the track they will rectify the issue quickly.

I just wanted to share you what really happened. Strange thing is that when he came up running to me I did not see him running from his car to me. Not sure where he was?

Don’t want to talk about what his wife did when she came up to me and Doug, that was intense. She was pizzed.
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The "water incident" mentioned was rain water falling from under another car in line ahead of them. We had sideways rain for a while, and some cars were dripping. I hate John had problems getting ready in time. I really like him. However, Bryan says he didn't try to avoid racing him. I don't think Bryan sweats racing many of us.