$10,000.00 Fine Refunded to J. Force!!

[Bullet]

I though that the $10k fine was a thinly disguised advertising bill from the NHRA to Force Racing.....

 

[Gregg Pickens]

Could somebody post the video of where he "shoved" the official. In the 500 times it has been played on TV he pushed an officials arm up. I don't think that is the same as shoving, or going after an official. If that had happened I would agree to your comments and the fine, probably not $10,000 grand but some fine anyway. Heck, I wouldn't have fined Whit $10,000 when he kicked his car after losing a race.

CJ, glad I could pull you out of the mothballs as a poster.

Rapid

PS, Sorry for bringing this "Getting Very Old, Very Fast" story up, but I just feel if it is such a cool thing to have happened, why the fine? If they changed their mind and decided that it was sooooo good for the sport and great for getting the media attention,,,,refund the fine. JMO

OK<OK<OK, I will drop it now. Back to the corner for me.

I have to agree with you. When an "Official" puts his body between two people having a heated discussion and pushes them apart how can you claim either of them shoved the official? You see this all of the time in NFL games and those players don't get fined or even penalized. Slapping someone's hand away thats pushing you should not count.

Now if a person approached an official on their own and bumped or pushed them then I could see making the argument. Im not taking sides just being an observer. Maybe something else happened off camera?

 

[mick]

........shirley comes on and stands behind tony, that was worth the
entire 3 hr. broadcast!!

 

[I was NITRO BREATH]

........shirley comes on and stands behind tony, that was worth the
entire 3 hr. broadcast!!

Her "thoughts" on the force- Tped incident seemed phony to me. How could you trust that anything said on the WWF/NHRA broadcast was real???

 

[Rajunz]

Seeing the Incident replayed was predictable as usual, but the racing itself was terrible today! For the King of racetracks it sure didn't deliver good side by side racing like others have! Other than the 4 off races the show was a dissapointment!

I don't see how you could say that Joe, I thought it was one of the best days of racing for the entire year, tons of upsets, lots of close races. I think the cars that couldn't get down the right lane were throwing to much at it, lots of others made it down there. Having Doug Herbert back on the track, Foley to the semis, Langley taking out the Sarge and going to his first final, Ashley vs. Hight, Mike Edwards wins one, Robert Hight in the winner's circle, Stoffer back in the hunt, all good stuff.

Randy... actualy i thougth it was odd on how quiet Mike Dunn was on the subject during the broadcast......


Force and the guy from Sportscenter was awesome...loved how the guy admited he had no clue on drag racing... but thats how ESPN gets thsoe very candid.. non-scripted moments.. watch their other interviews.. guy who has no clue is given questions to set the person off... which it looks like he got ot John a couple times.....


I saw the show as a ESPN exerting their control on the broadcasts... they screwed the pooch years ago on NASCAR .. taped delayed.. not airing on time..etc..... (see the connection here).... maybe they had two roads to go... one make the hard core fans like ourselves happy... let it go and move on.. or milk it for everything its worth... keep the press up.. grow viewership... and hope they get a land rush in new viewers so they can charge more for comercial time..... they could care less for us core fans.... they want the new blood to increase the numbers......


in the long run its gonna be good for drag racing....


Billy

Good post Billy. ESPN is the one that's milking this, NOT NHRA.............and you're right, ol' Mike Dunn sure took the high road throughout the weekend.

 

[Toejam]

I don't see how you could say that Joe, I thought it was one of the best days of racing for the entire year, tons of upsets, lots of close races. I think the cars that couldn't get down the right lane were throwing to much at it, lots of others made it down there. Having Doug Herbert back on the track, Foley to the semis, Langley taking out the Sarge and going to his first final, Ashley vs. Hight, Mike Edwards wins one, Robert Hight in the winner's circle, Stoffer back in the hunt, all good stuff.

Good post Billy. ESPN is the one that's milking this, NOT NHRA.............and you're right, ol' Mike Dunn sure took the high road throughout the weekend.

Lance I enjoy an upset as much as anyone, but very few side by side races doesn't sell the sport IMO

 

[yoda]

It is hypocritical of NHRA to fine Force for an infraction and then give John and Tony a spectacular amount of coverage in the subsequent races. That is sending mixed signals and it makes you wonder if the low buck teams aren't contemplating some pretend fights just so they can finally get some TV coverage? Or if sponsors are asking their racers to get into fights?

Surprised no one here has mentioned Michael Phillips' rant/ Full Throttle "commercial" during the qualifying show... He got the most mic time he's EVER gotten....

Is it going to be this way to make "entertaining" TV?

 

[Four Kalitta]

I don't think the fine was silly at all... If you take the heated argument away from everything: he still pushed an official which is against the rules... To take this fine away would be saying that you can do whatever you want to officials while your mad...

Doesn't make John wrong, bad, or evil; It just upholds the integrity of the rules and the seriousness of taking your anger out on officials...

CJ Curtsinger

PS. Haven't posted in nearly 6 months... Gosh, it's been a while...

CJ.....I didn't think the fine was silly. What I thought was silly & what I agreed with Randy on was NHRA fining Force then they kept replaying the argument & the aftermath over & over.

 

[mick]

drama = ratings

John Force vs. Tony Pedregon moves the meter for the NHRA - ESPN

 

[clwill]

So as far as I can tell, the way to improve the ratings for NHRA are:

1) To have more explosions, fireballs, and wrecks suitable for the "NHRA Thrills and Spills" videos. TPed's fireball in Pomona got him on the Today show, for cryin' out loud...

2) To have more WWE-like drama, either real (Ped vs. Force), made up (Hot Rod vs. Schu), or somewhere in between (Whit and/or Herbert vs. anybody).

3) To have more circus stuff like 4-wide.

So if I get this right, what we need is a 4-lane race between a jet car, a snowmobile, a nitro-powered beer stool, and the Jelly-Belly wheelie stage coach, and have the snowmobile burn them all down in the staging lanes...

 

[mw6789]

I though that the $10k fine was a thinly disguised advertising bill from the NHRA to Force Racing.....

Force and his group of sponsors couldnt buy all the publicity they got for ten MILLION dollars, let alone ten thousand.

 

[FC138fan]

3) To have more circus stuff like 4-wide.

So if I get this right, what we need is a 4-lane race between a jet car, a snowmobile, a nitro-powered beer stool, and the Jelly-Belly wheelie stage coach, and have the snowmobile burn them all down in the staging lanes...

I started watching the drags religiously since about 1995. I would say I am as big a fan as NHRA championship drag racing as most people in here (mostly pro classes - as probably most of the bulk of the "casual" fans are). As of the past several years of watching every race on ESPN and ESPN 2, I hate to admit it but I am starting to get bored with it, especially as the cars become more and more alike, there are no more speed (or 1/4 mile ET) records to be set, and the constant John Force show.

For the first time, I was really looking forward to seeing the 4 wide at Charlotte, even if it was just on TV. It was something I got excited about watching on TV.

I think the NHRA has hit a wall and it has to do something to make drag racing exciting to watch again. There is no more innovation, all the cars are the same, there are no more records to be broken, the cost to race is driving people away from the sport, car counts are down and so on.

In my opinion, the NHRA needs to add an element of show to the race. Wheelie cars, Nostalgia cars, Bragging rights races, jet cars, burnout contests? Whatever it takes to make it more exciting to watch.

 

[Al smith]

gotta say I called it in the original force/pedregon thread. I'm glad to see that some of you are starting to see the direction your entertainment (no longer racing) is going. Feel free to stop and say hi to any of us in the alky racing pits. where diving is unheard of.

 

[Rajunz]

Surprised no one here has mentioned Michael Phillips' rant/ Full Throttle "commercial" during the qualifying show... He got the most mic time he's EVER gotten....

Apparently you missed Indy in 2004 where he went ballistic and wanted to throw punches at the finish line for someone rolling in and out of the pre stage bulb? That was the same year as Scelzi's "Minimum Wage Dummies" comment.

 

[Kevin]

Could somebody post the video of where he "shoved" the official. In the 500 times it has been played on TV he pushed an officials arm up. I don't think that is the same as shoving, or going after an official. If that had happened I would agree to your comments and the fine, probably not $10,000 grand but some fine anyway. Heck, I wouldn't have fined Whit $10,000 when he kicked his car after losing a race.

CJ, glad I could pull you out of the mothballs as a poster.

Rapid

PS, Sorry for bringing this "Getting Very Old, Very Fast" story up, but I just feel if it is such a cool thing to have happened, why the fine? If they changed their mind and decided that it was sooooo good for the sport and great for getting the media attention,,,,refund the fine. JMO

OK<OK<OK, I will drop it now. Back to the corner for me.

No refund. But I hear tell JF got a $1,000 royalty payment each time "the incident" was rebroadcast