My sense is that, sadly, we haven't heard the last about how John Force runs his teams from Tony Pedregon, and both Force's and the NHRA's carefully crafted reputations could suffer.

And the fact that one of the NHRA's professional drivers (Matt Guidera) was suspended for a year for failing to take a required drug test isn't going to help.  

Mike Dunn is my new hero … sort of. He was amazed that Force chose the right lane and said so. As the scene unfolded Dunn made it clear he thought Force took a dive. Then after a few minutes when he and Page revisited the incident he pedaled a little and said, "something smells" about the race. Then later when ESPN's Sports Center had a long segment on the deal, he pedaled even more. C'mon Mike if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....

One last thing about the Force vs Hight debacle. Forget about the fact that Force took the questionable right lane. Ashley went right down that lane right after John blew the tires. No, the thing that really gives me pause are Force and Hight’s reaction times. In his first and second round wins Force had lights of .094 and .068; not great but not bad, while Hight's RT's were .103 then a .065. In that semi-final race, probably the most important lap so far this year, he had a pedestrian .143 and Force a comatose .209.  You make the call!

PRO MOD
A respected manufacturer friend of mine recently told me that I should just accept that I cannot change the way NHRA does its business by writing about it. I'm trying to take his advice, but there are some ways they do business I just cannot let rest. Roger Burgess single-handedly saved Pro Mod as an "exhibitions" series at selected NHRA national events by sponsoring the series, reportedly at the request of Tom Compton. 

Burgess has had fuel Funny Car teams and he owns and supports numerous Pro Mod teams that support the NHRA. Monday he won the U.S. Nationals as a driver. You would think that sometime during the six-hour marathon ESPN2 broadcast on they could have found 30 seconds to give the man a congratulations.

POINTS
NHRA announced that starting at the next event they will have a new points program. As I understand it the three quickest cars in each pro category will get points. Reportedly the NHRA management believes this will encourage better qualifying.  

I believe this new points program favors the highest funded teams who can afford to destroy a lot of parts. I predict spectacular explosions, fires, massive oil downs and the longest qualifying sessions in history, especially if the points chase get really close.

The NHRA has announced that they will now start keeping 1,000-foot speed and ET records and will award bonus points for both instead of just for ET as they have in the past. And no one thought that both of these actions might cause racers to push their parts much harder with resulting failures? Doesn't anyone think these things out?