Tim Wilkerson and Ron Capps came up to the starting line for their first-round Funny Car match-up in eliminations at the NHRA Fallnationals in Dallas,
performed their burnouts and began to stage for their race when a
glitch in the starting-light system forced them to shut down and
restart again several minutes later.
When the two finally squared off, Wilkerson took the win with a
4.120-second elapsed time at 298.34 mph. Capps, in the NAPA AUTO PARTS
Dodge Charger R/T in the other lane, was credited with what would have
been a remarkable .003 reaction time (.000 is perfect) and a losing
finish of 4.289, 295.14. It was clear that Wilkerson had crossed the
finish line first, but Capps questioned the numbers in his lane.
"Usually a light like that is just a bad red light," he said, "and I'll
be the first to admit it. But something was obviously wrong with the
clocks. The NAPA Dodge didn't run that slow either. We are trying to
figure out what was wrong because I left on the amber light and, by the
way it looks on the computer, it looks like the car ran way better than
that.