The NHRA Nevada Nationals brought many things to light, specifically the way tech inspections have been handled and the processes surrounding this procedure.<\/p>\n
One of the teams the NHRA tech department issued a \u201cStatement of Action Against Participant\u201d was Elite Motorsports, and it wasn\u2019t just one of its Pro Stock cars, but four.<\/p>\n
As a result, Scott \u201cWoody\u201d Woodruff, Director of Branding & Motorsports at Elite, calls for a change to the system.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that NHRA is the only major motorsport in the country that doesn\u2019t have an appeal process for something tech and competition-related,\u201d stated Woodruff. \u201cYou know, that\u2019s a shame. That\u2019s something that needs to be changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The runs made by Erica Enders, Jeg Coughlin Jr., Aaron Stanfield, and Jerry Don Tucker were all thrown out due to a technical violation with the bypassing of the Leahy system after round two on Friday at the Nevada Nationals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have four drivers that got fined, and in all reality, the drivers shouldn\u2019t be the ones that get fined,\u201d said Woodruff. \u201cThey have nothing to do with the car. They just drive the car.\u00a0It\u2019s just another antiquated system that they have that they need to get up to date on.\u201d<\/p>\n
This issue could have been addressed earlier in the race, and even the season for that matter, to avoid the whole scenario from happening. However, each driver received a $5,000 fine and had their runs disqualified. Woodruff stated that the fines have been paid, but, had there been an appeal process, the team would have most definitely moved forward in pursuing that route.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy personal opinion is that they\u2019re picking on the teams that they want to pick on at this point,\u201d he said, continuing to elaborate on the said violation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe moral to the story is there are two switches that you\u2019re allowed to use \u2013 one of them is made by Modern Racing, and the other one is made by Flaming River. The Modern Racing one plugs right into the Leahy box, and the Flaming River does not, but it\u2019s not specified how it should be wired in the rulebook,\u201d he explained. \u201cClearly, if there was an appeal process, this would be appealed, but there\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n As far as whether the cars have been wired this way since the start of the season, Woodruff neither denied nor confirmed the statement.<\/p>\n \u201cI can say it\u2019s interesting that \u2013 let\u2019s take Jeg [Coughlin] Jr.\u2019s car that he\u2019s driving for Erica, her brand new car \u2013 it went through the chamber, it went through the tech process at the track, and it was fine. So nothing was changed on that car between when it got to Vegas to when they found their said violation.\u201d However, in Elite\u2019s case, were they not disqualified from the entire event because it was only during qualifying?<\/p>\n Again \u2013 some additional information and education from the sanctioning body would prove extremely helpful for racers, teams and fans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s their sandbox,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just get to bring our shovels, you know. But there is a large group of people that bring their shovels that also pay for a lot of the sand.<\/p>\n \u201cI read what Ron Capps said,\u201d Woodruff stated, referring to the previous breakdown of disqualified passes on Drag Illustrated<\/span><\/a>, \u201cand he\u2019s 100% right. It\u2019s NHRA\u2019s job to make sure that we have a level playing field, and it\u2019s NHRA\u2019s job to tech the cars in a professional manner to where that happens. All four of those cars that were DQ\u2019d should have been found in a pre-race inspection, and not to mention, it should have been found way before it was.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSo, who\u2019s not doing their job here? NHRA\u2019s the one that\u2019s not doing their job. Take Jake Hairston [engine builder and crew chief for Elite], for example, he wrote a majority of the rulebook. If he didn\u2019t want this switch to be found that we had to use to make this Flaming River switch work, who else is going to come up with a different way? They never would have found it to begin with, so there is nothing malicious about it. We weren\u2019t pretending to hide anything. We came up with a solution that the rulebook did not have a solution for, and apparently, our solution wasn\u2019t something that they liked.\u201d<\/p>\n As a conclusion, Woodruff has an idea for an appeal process for tech inspections. An appeal process currently exists for non-track and non-competition infractions.<\/p>\n \u201cI will present the idea to the PRO [Professional Racers\u00a0Owners\u00a0Organization] Board when we meet, most of which already agreed that it\u2019s the right thing,\u201d Woodruff said, eventually planning on presenting it to the NHRA in the near future.<\/p>\n Additionally, he stated that there will be a number of professional teams asking for their cars to be inspected on-site at the NHRA Finals in Pomona, California. \u201cThere are championships on the line, and this seems the most prudent thing to do,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a shame that it gets down to the end of the year, and right now, they just want to be nit-picky, which is fine. It\u2019s their prerogative, but you have to have a level playing field. I could go on and on and on about the differences of our program and other programs out there, and if I wanted to, I could name four things right now that are illegal on competitors\u2019 cars that go absolutely unchecked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t care \u2013 they just obviously have the people that they want to try and make a statement about and that\u2019s fine. But I can tell you, I am so looking forward to having a race in February where the racers understand the process from A to Z. I\u2019m not throwing a dart \u2013 I\u2019m just saying I\u2019m looking forward to it personally.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Scott \u2018Woody\u2019 Woodruff Calls for Appeal Process on NHRA Tech Inspections<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated | Drag Racing News, Opinion, Interviews, Photos, Videos and More<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The NHRA Nevada Nationals brought many things to light, specifically the way tech inspections have been handled and the processes surrounding this procedure. One of the teams the NHRA tech department issued a \u201cStatement of Action Against Participant\u201d was Elite Motorsports, and it wasn\u2019t just one of its Pro Stock cars, but four. As a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,78117,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-race-pages","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91247,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90280\/revisions\/91247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nAnother interesting aspect of these ongoing tech chronicles is Clay Millican\u2019s disqualification and fine at the Texas FallNationals. If anything, more questions have been raised. What happened in his situation that called for a complete disqualification and a fine, but Millican is also allowed to appeal the decision?<\/p>\n