My take on Tulsa

[dragracer2011]

Originally Posted by voltdr

I have said the same thing about finishing races late into the night or next morning. It isn't a safe condition. EVERYONE is tired, reaction times (for EVERYONE, inculding safety personnel) are diminished. Fortunately there wasn't an incident. I suggest all concerned people to contact Trey Capps (tcapps@nhra.com) or Graham Light (glight@nhra.com) at NHRA and let their concerns be heard.I have forwarded a link to D4 for Trey to read. Trying to complete a race on schedule should NOT be the priority of the officials that are supposed to have our safety at the fore front.
Dan Foley
SC4698

again, Well said but I believe it will fall on deaf ears

[voltdr]

I just had this same conversation with Trey Capps. He told me that not one person said anything negative about finishing the race on Sunday morning. I told him it's because no one thinks anything will change.

[Ed Wright]

I talked to several other racers, not one was happy with it.

[voltdr]

Trey is in la la land. But if you don't come out of the tower it's hard to know what is going on outside. I can't imagine that the D4 crew was excited about getting back to their hotel at 5AM or later. I'm sure no one got up at 8A to drive home and enjoy the extra time off. If no one else tells him how he feels, he thinks he did a great job.I would hate to see a result like Las Vegas national a few years ago when a SG racer didn't make it through on of nhra's bad decisions.

[Adub464Q]

Originally Posted by voltdr

Trey is in la la land. But if you don't come out of the tower it's hard to know what is going on outside. I can't imagine that the D4 crew was excited about getting back to their hotel at 5AM or later. I'm sure no one got up at 8A to drive home and enjoy the extra time off. If no one else tells him how he feels, he thinks he did a great job.I would hate to see a result like Las Vegas national a few years ago when a SG racer didn't make it through on of nhra's bad decisions.

I can tell you, we went to bed around 3:30 and were up at 7:30 to drive home, it wasn't too bad. I, myself, saw Trey out of the tower on multiple occasions, including working the back of the staging lanes in second or third round. So, we will have to agree to disagree on that one.

I can not speak for others, but I would much rather finish a race on the weekend, than to have to stay until Monday and it get rained out anyway (last year).

Is running until 3 am ideal? Absolutely not. But, I did not hear any of the winners complaining about the late racing, or the racing surface.

And for those that think this director is acting like the last one, who else remembers the year in Tulsa when we got 6 time trials, to get rained out on Sunday. I may not agree with everything he does, but he will not cater to a specific class and stands by his decisions. I have to give him props for that.

[voltdr]

You'll never hear the winner of any race complain about anything.

[Ed Wright]

I would certainly never accuse him of acting like the last one. That dude was an ***.

[countrypuppy4865]

Had it not been for a flag pole on a golf cart giving us a 5 hour delay we would have been done for 11. It was a very unusual circumstance in this case. We left the track at 7am Sunday morning and it was raining about an hour from the track. The track conditions were not unsafe by any stretch. As far as everybody being tired that's understandable, but you can never please everyone. If Trey would have decided to continue on Sunday and it was unable to be completed Sunday, it puts a strain on many racers that have families and work to get back to. I agree there are certain tracks that you just couldn't attempt to run this late due to dew point being reached or just because some tracks get slick at night. Maybe we should just give one time trial and go straight into first round then we could be done early?

[Ed Wright]

Cooter, most of us are older, many of us can't see well in the dark. That isn't safe. I started to leave when they announced we would be racing into the night. I had trouble seeing the return road down at the end.
That .308 light of mine against you told me I should have just gone on home.

[Mike Pearson]

We had a similar issue here in div 2 at an IHRA nitro jam race. we were called to the lanes at 2 am. after a car crashed they sent us back to the trailer to race the next day. I was completely exhausted from being up for 20 straight hours at the track. Needless to say I skipped the next race that had the same schedule. They only had 4 cars at that next race in SS. It was not safe to be racing when you are that fatigued.