Within the last couple of decades, makers of drag strip christmas trees and timing systems have universally instituted and programmed into their equipment what’s known as an automatic timeout, whereby a timer automatically begins once one driver lights the bottom stage bulb. Once seven seconds have elapsed, if the driver hasn’t gotten his affairs in order and bumped in, the tree drops and he’s automatically disqualified. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
Despite tens if not hundreds of thousands of passes down tracks all over the world each and ever year, timing out is a situation that rarely comes up, making the odds of any form of exploitation of the programming a get-struck-by-lightning kind of rare occurrence. But believe it or not, lightning struck on Saturday night at the Radial Fest in Huntsville, Alabama.
In the final round of the Pro 315 radial tire category late Saturday evening under the lights, Eddie Harrison lined up alongside Jamie Hancock for all the marbles at the spring edition of the Radial Fest. For Harrison, it was a coming-out party of sorts, as he recently invested in a new engine combination to propel him up into the class’ elite and was on the precipice of the biggest win of his career. For Hancock, it was a chance to avenge a demoralizing loss at this very track last fall, when he got loose and hit the wall in the final round as Brad Edwards sailed to the victory and the first-ever three-second pass by a radial tire car. It was to be an exceptional race on paper, but unfortunately, a one-in-million (or maybe more like a billion) happening ended it before it ever began.
Hancock, in his nitrous-assisted Corvette, bumped in first. Harrison, meanwhile, used up nearly the entire seven alloted seconds to build the boost and bump in in the left lane. The instant he did, the tree flashed and Harrison was off to the races, charging to an off-pace 4.40 for the win, as Hancock coughed and choked off the starting line and stopped just beyond sixty-feet. Both Harrison and Hancock, along with all of the spectators and officials, were a bit dismayed at what had just happened, thinking perhaps the tree had simply malfunctioned. Unlike the standard delay on a .400 pro tree between the stage bulbs being lit and the drop of the ambers, this was instantaneous.
But upon further review, track and race officials could only conclude that Harrison had bumped in at the very millisecond that the computer system was red-lighting him, but did an about-face at his movement and dropped the tree instead, creating a unique situation that we’ve certainly never seen or heard of before, and exploiting perhaps a minor flaw in the timing system that could allow such an incident, as rare as it might be.
Nevertheless, Harrison did indeed stage in time, even if at 6.99999999… seconds, and was thus rightfully awarded the victory in one of the strangest final rounds you’ll ever see. Hancock, meanwhile, will have to sit and ponder what might’ve been for a second time after leaving the Huntsville Dragway with runner-up honors.
Video courtesy FreeLife Films