Lets discuss Charlotte, rain and Tony Schumacher (10 Viewers)

[CS]

As we are all aware during E1 of top fuel after the burnouts were made mother nature let a little rain fall. The cars were shut off and NHRA decided to do a refuel/restart after the rain. While backing down Tony's car the team realized they had a locked up blower and returned to the pits to change it. NHRA decided not to wait and sent the remaining three cars down track. In your opinion did NHRA do the right thing or should they have waited on Tony. Before anyone flames on me yes I have read all the reports and reasons on NHRA, Comp plus, et al. As a side note the rain saved them some money because no one knows at what point on the track it would have been a boomer perhaps on the starting line! OK what's your opinion?

 

[ironpony]

Well if he had a locked up blower would he have been able to make the pass ?? As you said at what point would it have went boom ?? He came out ahead IMO.

 

[Paul]

As someone who was in the stands on Sunday, I think the NHRA made made the right call. We sat there long enough while they debated it and it was well past time to get the show rolling at that point.

 

[Just Paul]

It was a weird set of circumstances all the way around. After a lot of thought, I think the correct call was made.

My initial thought was, it wasn't the teams fault, they were told to shut the car off, let them fix it....And it still might not be the teams fault, but..

After a warm up in the pits, they shut the cars off the exact same way. Turn the fuel off, and disconnect the fuel line on the back of the barrel valve. That's the way everybody does it. Some teams will hit the injector with the squirt bottle as it's shutting down, some do not. I reviewed a warm up video of Clay's car, they don't do it that way, so I'll assume Tony doesn't either.

So what changed? If you run the car the full year, you are going to warm the car up 100+ times minimum, and shut it off in the exact same manner with no problems. Yes, they did a burnout, but otherwise is it really that different? Yes, I know cars have damaged pistons on the burnout from being too lean and then causing issues on the run, but I'm not convinced there wasn't something else going on there. Maybe the Angry Hornet will elaborate on his YouTube video.

My next thought was, let's say there was 0% fault on the team, and the blower locked up this one time for no other reason. What has been a similar situation where a driver was/is penalized at no fault of their own? Kind of an I'm sorry, I get the issue, but the show must go on type of thing. Getting a good run thrown out if the car ahead of you clips the cones on top end. We've seen cars not qualify because of it. Now, the situation itself is not that close in resemblance, but the fact that you lose a run at no fault of your own, and you aren't going to get a re-run is.

Overall my opinion is that the correct call was made.

 

[Randy]

I guess you have to draw a line somewhere. What if it kicked the rods on the burnout? Should they be allowed to go back and do an engine swap? Typically, whenever we or anyone else has been shut off on the line, including for weather (Topeka one year for us), unless they sent us back to the pits, the only adjustments we were able to do, including adding fuel, had to be done before the call to refire was made.

 

[Litefoot]

I guess you have to draw a line somewhere. What if it kicked the rods on the burnout? Should they be allowed to go back and do an engine swap? Typically, whenever we or anyone else has been shut off on the line, including for weather (Topeka one year for us), unless they sent us back to the pits, the only adjustments we were able to do, including adding fuel, had to be done before the call to refire was made.

I personally never got up to your level of competition Randy, but my bother, big bill did with Shields, I’m sure he would fell the same way, right unfortunate call,