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As an interesting point of reference, I read a post on the
AAFO.com boards by the crew chief of the Thunder Mustang (who was behind Rod on
that fateful lap). He claims that he saw the cut and so when his
SuperCharger belt let go, he just tried to hang onto second, so that he'd win
the race.
I'm pretty sure that Darryl's plane had on board video
too.... I heard Darryl say after they were notified that, they couldn't even
"protest" the call....
I certainly don't want to take a side and I'm not going to
speculate on the reason for the delay, but it was a pretty emotional roller
coaster ride for those participating.
The one heat race on Sat, where the TM won, set an
interesting set of plans in motion.
For example. The Performance Engine guys (who built
Darryls Motor), pulled some of us aside the night before the finals and told us
that they were either going to win or blow up the engine trying. Where
they normally ran 62" of MAP, they were prepared to push it to 80". It did
take more that 62" to stay ahead until the TM blew it's belt, but they didn't
have to get close to critical limits.
As another note, Ron, ran some 380mph laps while he and the
TM duked it out. Sharpe won with a 350+ speed. And it seemed to be
all the NXT had. Just to give you an idea, Rod won by 1/4 to 1/3 of a lap,
and at the very last minute, Sharpe passed the TM. Even that distance was
too much for the 12 second penalty tho and so Rod got second even tho he won the
race.
Ah, well, there is always next year.
The other sorta pointed event was watching Sharpe after the
change. You'd have thought he "blew" away everyone with the way he was
acting/re-acting. If that had been me, I'd have been gracious, but he
certainly knew he didn't win outright, so why act like he did...I didn't think
it was very professional...
Just MHO...
Alan
Heard yesterday that the winning lancair at reno
was disqualified 45 min. after the race for cutting a pylon.I always thought
that was radioed in immediately officials not nearly an hour later.The chelton
onbord says there was no cut. SOMETHING SMELLS BAD HERE.
Gene Martin
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