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Picky, picky

Dear Monarch of the Phlegm Building,

Directing my observation and comments to the Winternationals photo spread in DRO, I couldn't help but notice something: If not only DRO readers have voiced their opinion about "too much Force" in the ESPN 2 televised coverage, you too, Sire Burk, have yawned and rolled your journalist's eyes at the over-coverage of family Force. So imagine that besides the "cover" shots of Haddock's flamer, what funny car participants from the 50th Winternationals were shown in the photos of the extra event coverage? How about: John Force, John Force getting the stale and tired Gatorade bath, and Robert Hight, team John Force. Just sayin', Monarch....

All that was small potatoes, though. I was really crestfallen to see the photo of Mike Boyd in the Winged Express. Not big Mike and not the car, oh hell no, but I was saddened to see that Boyd has shed the classic gas mask and goggles he wore as recently as the last March Meet, I guess in honor of Willie's memory, for the conventional helmet of the current era. That is a drag. Boyd might have been the last one of the nostalgia guys to actually don the nostalgia look when skating down the strip. The world, because of this, is a little less bright place.

Bummed on the St. Clair River, Burkster.....

Richard Gebhart
Marine City, Michigan

It would be well to remember that the Burkster's beef wasn't with coverage of John Force, but OVER-coverage. Force hadn’t won in 40 races, so we thought he deserved a photo or two.

Gotta keep those cars moving

Amen, regarding Burk's assessment of Rick Stewart. Not only did both cars not shut down, but the race was contested. If Buster Couch gave the universal shut-off gesture, two seconds later there would be silence. What a difference!

But it's not uncommon for a pair of fuel cars to be fired before the previous car(s) are off the track. The fire-up, burnout, stage and race thing takes a few minutes and usually the previous cars are off the strip with drivers out drinking Full Throttle by the time the green is given. If they waited for the previous cars to exit the strip before even firing the next pair, it would resemble an old AHRA race, with several minutes of silence between runs.

It is amazing that NHRA is insisting on using an unproven gizmo to shut off fuel cars that is actually causing damage to race cars. How much of this subject will we ever know? Maybe we will have to follow Capps on Twitter to find out anything!      

Jon Hurst
Arizona