It sucks. It was supposed to keep them from blowing up. Well Antron's car proved that's not the case with two huge oildowns in qualifying, as did Tony Schumacher's during the second round of eliminations. He beat Clay Millican that round, barely, as Clay went by him just past the 1000' mark. I went by Clay's pit and told him he'd have won with 1320 foot track and he laughed and said 'that's what we were all saying'. Tony Pedregon would have lost in the first round to Bob Tasca with a 1320 foot track , because he blew up too, beating Bob by 24 ft with a 295mph top speed compared to Bob's 303.
The first thing that I noticed this weekend was how many drivers were keeping it lit all the way to 1320 , even on race day. Several. Tony Schu consistently shut off before 1320, but many , many , probably more than half of the runs I saw, did not. Why? I asked two drivers who shall remain nameless, that I chose to ask specifically because I saw them run the full 1320 more than once. They said oh no , we are shutting off after 1000' or, ' I may have gone a little long on that last one ' yeah right. I saw it. Most of them kept it lit all the way.
Which was nice, but I 'd sure like to see the real numbers on the score board, and see the right car win the race.
Tony talked about Alan wanting to run 320 at 1000' this weekend. Are you kidding me? What is the point of 1000' if you are running 315, 316 anyway, and still blowing up, still having cars not have chutes come out (one promod ended up in the sand trap Sunday), basically, all the reasons given for going to 1000' basically not proving to be valid.
I stood on the GA side at the fence near the starting line during the semis, and no doubt I wouldn't notice from that vantage point until I saw the scoreboard. Down there it's the same.
I understand not wanting to lose that sensory experience of the full on nitro motor, although , at 90 percent they really aren't...but I think it's not worth what is lost overall. Sitting at half track in the club nitro seats, it was obviously a huge difference having the race decided the length of a football field sooner than it should be.
and on TV? forget it. It really sucks on TV, and I heard Tony talk about how important TV is. No oildowns, so we can be live. Well after sunday all I can say is , so much for that.
The 1000' change is a band-aid just like 85 percent was a few years ago.
I'm just as opposed to it as I was before I saw it.
I would have liked to feel differently after seeing it, but I don't, and I 'm really perplexed as to why so many drivers still leg it to 1320 anyway.
The first thing that I noticed this weekend was how many drivers were keeping it lit all the way to 1320 , even on race day. Several. Tony Schu consistently shut off before 1320, but many , many , probably more than half of the runs I saw, did not. Why? I asked two drivers who shall remain nameless, that I chose to ask specifically because I saw them run the full 1320 more than once. They said oh no , we are shutting off after 1000' or, ' I may have gone a little long on that last one ' yeah right. I saw it. Most of them kept it lit all the way.
Which was nice, but I 'd sure like to see the real numbers on the score board, and see the right car win the race.
Tony talked about Alan wanting to run 320 at 1000' this weekend. Are you kidding me? What is the point of 1000' if you are running 315, 316 anyway, and still blowing up, still having cars not have chutes come out (one promod ended up in the sand trap Sunday), basically, all the reasons given for going to 1000' basically not proving to be valid.
I stood on the GA side at the fence near the starting line during the semis, and no doubt I wouldn't notice from that vantage point until I saw the scoreboard. Down there it's the same.
I understand not wanting to lose that sensory experience of the full on nitro motor, although , at 90 percent they really aren't...but I think it's not worth what is lost overall. Sitting at half track in the club nitro seats, it was obviously a huge difference having the race decided the length of a football field sooner than it should be.
and on TV? forget it. It really sucks on TV, and I heard Tony talk about how important TV is. No oildowns, so we can be live. Well after sunday all I can say is , so much for that.
The 1000' change is a band-aid just like 85 percent was a few years ago.
I'm just as opposed to it as I was before I saw it.
I would have liked to feel differently after seeing it, but I don't, and I 'm really perplexed as to why so many drivers still leg it to 1320 anyway.
