To some of us, we don’t know what’s good, bad or ugly when it comes to the new drag racing distance.

The whole qualifying experience didn’t help.

Apparent to anybody who could see the scoreboards mounted 320 feet beyond the finish, the left lane displayed spurious speeds. It credited Funny Car racer Jim Head with a 1000’ elapsed time of 4.26 seconds, coupled with a top end speed of, uhh, 21 mph. Del Worsham went even quicker (4.03), and showed a Top End Speed of all of 24 mph. Mr. Magoo could see the whole thing was bollixed. Then the clocks stopped showing any mph at all.

Rumors began to manifest about the possibility of the computer tracking the first mph light as the second light and vice-versa. Who knows what was wrong?

It got worse. Top Fuel came up. Then everything went Dixie.

Four pairs of dragsters into the session, Arley Langlo and Titan Xpress fired their engine. Apparently, the team forgot to fasten a throttle stop, Arley rolled through the water box, stepped on the throttle and the rpm went to the moon and POOF! -- a flash of fire and the burst panel pops like a frozen beer can.

The parachute follows suit, dumping unceremoniously in the rear. As a denouement to what has become a series of sight gags, Arley engages his reverse gear and backs over his flaccid parachute. The cloth canopy is now in front of the dragster.

Somebody in the Pomona pressroom uttered, “Darwin was wrong. It ain’t survival of the fittest that will ensure perpetuation of the species; if anything, it is survival of the unfittest.”

Meaning what? Meaning that NHRA once banned these guys from racing. It had plenty of entries that could make a pass and not scatter part and oil all over the drag strip. The economy took care of that… Hillary Will, Dave Grubnic, Hot Rod Fuller, etc. They’re all gone this year. Now NHRA needs the leakers. It needs Top Fuel entries who were once banned and who can’t do a burnout without sneezing the blower. It doesn’t matter. NHRA Top Fuel is like the Statue of Liberty: “Bring us your poor, your tired….”

To dispel such drag strip demagoguery, in subsequent passes Antron Brown and Joe Hartley roared down the racetrack and posted career best numbers. At 3.70, Brown’s was the quickest 1000’ pass in the sport’s history. Or was it? These benchmarks transpired in the dubious left lane.

The rains came again, and somebody ran the numbers and Brown’s and Hartley’s times were dismissed as popcorn, if not poppycock.

As CompetitionPlus.com reported that night regarding the rotten recordings, “The NHRA made a decision to race ahead instead of halting action, which would have likely forced postponement due to rain.

“In checking the incremental elapsed times of low qualifier Antron Brown and Joe Hartley, the NHRA decided their runs, although obviously quick, could not be counted as legit runs.”

NHRA itself acknowledged something was awry: “NHRA is confident that the two cars in question were among the sixteen quickest cars, but because it's impossible to assign times, the ladder will remain intact. Also, NHRA will not be awarding qualifying points for this race to Top Fuel drivers."

What their press release didn’t address is that the whole situation is bongoed. Moreover, it is even salvageable?

What times really mattered? Is this competition or isn’t it? As much as one may enjoy both horseshoes and hand grenades, there is a lot to be said for competition that is not fuzzy, but is dead nuts precise to as much as a 10/1000th of a second. Drag racers have DIED trying to squeeze an extra 100th of a second out of their machine’s elapsed time, or an extra mile an hour. And now such pursuit means nothing at all? It is as if, “If you appear to be quick enough, that’s good enough for us.”

“A new low,” somebody muttered.

Perhaps. But if drag racing hasn’t stepped on its dork, it has at least backed up over its own parachute.