Tulsa Nats, results to be posted soon

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by HuSSker:

Well, since you brought it up, uh... no Karl, you must have still been on east coast time. Jeff was there the whole time, but the announcer was calling it "super 8" on the radio, and loudspeakers, not super PRO, as it was printed in the program. Furthermore, you guys never corrected the announcer. 8:30 came and went, and at about 9, he decided to see why his class hadn't been called yet. That's when you guys proceeded to screw him out of running, giving him the "Well, that's racer's luck" line. Better yet, Carla asked the "big dogs" to vote whether or not he should be allowed to run, (after all, he had 2 time slips in his hand) and they all voted "no" to him, and another gentleman from Oklahoma, who JUST got there, after putting his engine together. I dont think he had run yet though. Apparently the "big dogs" are not very open to competition. Simply put, if you're going to call it "Super Pro", and "Super Natural" when people sign up, you should have it announced at the track that way. The way I saw it, Jeff was missing the "good ol' boy" edge, therefore he got screwed out of running.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

All I can say is that everyone else heard it and was where they needed to be when they needed to be?

Well, Husker, I was not on east coast time and I think you should be a bit more civil. I'm a stickler for honesty and accuracy.


I checked my time slips to see about what time 1st round natural was and that would have been around 10pm, (from what I can remember since I don't have my slips here with me where I'm typing). The 1st I saw Jeff W. show up was just before 1st round of quick 8 Natural and he was asking who to run. (and I could be wrong since I'm going on memory here), I said, "lets wait for the tower to send the pairings and see who your running". He said all that you mentioned above, (not hearing the qual calls).
I don't know exactly what the tower was calling the quick 8 Super Pro but I think they were mostly calling it Power adder, Quick 8. He said he didn't hear any of the calls.
And Husker, yes, I repeat, that's racers luck. If you don't find out when your class is qualifying, and somehow miss the call, then who do you blame?
I think that unfortunatally Jeff was the only one who didn't catch or hear the qual announcements.

And while I was at the starting line Carla and the qualified Quick 8 racers were discussing that matter, they called for me to the staging lanes.
I feel the decision by Carla and the qualified racers is a good and fair one. I would have made the exact same judgement and I agreed with the decision. You need to qualify your car with the rest of the gang. That's quick 8 racing.

The way I see it, the track did as good as they could, all the "Super 8" "Super Pro" Super Natural", "Quick 8" racers made the call for qualifying and unfortunatally Jeff did not.

And I don't know who the late-commer was who just put his motor together but that's just cut and dry, no qual, no quick 8 pairing.

Jeff W.'s case is not as cut and dry. Jeff could possibly have spoken a bit more with me and mentioned that he had some time slips, (not saying the decision would have been different). Then Alan and I might have dicided to bend the rules in that case. But Jeff wasn't able to explain that he had some runs down the track. I was listening.
I'm a fair and honest person Husker.
I challenge you to prove otherwise.

Karl Ellwein

HuSSker, When you begin to understand that people are not perfect, that things never run as planned, and that you can help inprove all situations like this with constructive criticism, then you'll be part of the "for the people, by the people".
Do you think any of this name calling and critisism is helpfull then or now?

Also note: When you include yourself with "the people", you'll have to put up with people like me, who are just not as perfect as you. I can live with any and all mistakes made by sincere ISSCA members. I can live with all decisions made by all of the competition directors. I made many decisions in Tulsa as a competition director in service to YOU and not because I wanted to.
I hope you can attempt to try to see what the organizers had to go through to put this event on. Saying things like "good ol boys" and such and such is just not helpfull and it's just plain despicable really.

And HuSSker, I've seen eveidence that you are a helpfull person.
Maybe your just not ready or able to mix with ALL the people, the good and the "not so good".

Karl Ellwein

Fell free to point out where I called you any names. How much more constructive can I be? Like I said over and over, if you're going to call it one thing when people sign up, that's what it should be referred to as when the event is called. That would have eliminated any problems. I don't know of any kinder, gentler, simpler, more constructive way to put it. It was said if we the members could see a better way to do something, we should suggest it. I pointed out a problem, and a solution to prevent it from happening again, and now you keep trying to turn this into something else, suggesting that I'm calling you names or something.

Again, I'm not going sit quietly, while you post on here about a freind of mine, stating things that aren't true. Jeff was there when the gates opened, and he ran twice. He didn't just show up at 10pm, and ask to run. He was there the entire night, waiting for the call for SUPER PRO. As far as that goes, like I said, it's water under the bridge, I'm just setting the facts straight. I'd hope you would do the same for any one of your friends.

copy-pasting...
Jeff was missing the "good ol' boy" edge, therefore he got screwed out of running.
The whole "by and for the members" idea went out of the window at the track.
Karl, you must have still been on east coast time

(Inserting and editing here: Hussker, I appologize and ask for your forgiveness here. I just spent an hour thinking about this and I can see you are simply defending a friend. I did lead you and others to believe that Jeff just popped in at 10pm. That's not the case. I really meant to say that that was the 1st that I spoke to him. Also, I think it was not you that said, "some not-so-good people". I sincerely appologize and I'm not going to delete the original text of this post so that you can see my error. end of edit...insert)


And from memory from another post a few days ago by you, "I met some good people, and some not-so-good people".

HuSSker, let me restate this. Jeff showed up to talk to ME at around 10pm. That's the 1st I saw Jeff, my one and only contact with him the whole event. It's not my intention to imply that Jeff showed up at the track at 10pm.

Now, from the pasted quotes above, I take it that you think of ME and all the people involved with putting on the event when you say good ol boys and when you say I was still on East coast time and when you say it's not by the members for the members. That's how I read your post.
I could be looking too deep into it?
How about the, "I met some good people and some not-so-good people"?
Karl

Hussker,

You are arguing around the main point of all this in an attempt to make Karl look Bad.

EVERYONE ELSE HEARD THE CALLS AND WERE WHERE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE AND WHEN.

NO if's and's or But's.

Wether they called Quick 8 Super pro or Quick 8 Power Adder or Impala Power Adder or
Impala Quick 8 Impala Power Adder or ????

Everyone else made it to the line when they were called for their particular class.

End of story.

"You are arguing around the main point of all this in an attempt to make Karl look Bad."

Oh really Paul? Do you even know what the main point of my posts were? Judging by your post, it appears you don't. Karl had some innacuracies in his story, they have been straightened out. I went on to point out WHY he wasn't running his qualifying runs at the specified time, and what needs to be done to help prevent this kind of incident at future events. That was the point. I did nothing to make Karl look bad. The only people that made THEMSELVES look bad at any point were the guys who voted "no" on letting Jeff and another guy run at a club event for no money. Also, I don't remember anyone arguing the point of "everyone else being where they were supposed to be..." I just said they need to call it by it's correct name. To put it in perspective for you, 16% of the class did not show up due to it not being called by the name it was expected to be called. The story ended before you posted.

HuSSker;

I know Karl and he is as straight up as it gets. So is Paul R. Trust me on this, any inaccuracies are through error and not malice.

That being said, I see lots of your posts on the forum, you seem like a great guy.

But as an outsider reading this thread, it appears that your attempts to clarify Karl's inaccurate statements came across as an attack on Karl and ISSCA and the good old boys that run it.

I am sure you were just jumping in to defend your buddy, and to you (since you knew the guy Karl was referring to) it was an attack on your friend, but Karl was just stating what he recalled happened. He did not judge or smear anyone, he was just casually telling the story from his side.

I think you will agree that if you re-read your comments you will see that you probably lashed out a bit aggressively in your attempt to set the record straight.

All of us that know Karl know that he is as honest and straight up as they come. Who else would not even count their own points for an entire racing season of ECIRS because he wanted others to have a chance to win? That doesn't sound like someone who feels threatened by other competitive cars.

So I think anyone who knows Karl is insulted when his integrity gets questioned. He also does a lot for ECIRS and ISSCA and probably WAIL too, while everyone else sits on their asses and then complains afterwards they didn't like the way things were run! F THAT! If you don't like it, get involved and help change things! (Sorry Hussker, this paragraph is more aimed at the general public, not you)

As President of LISST, I am appalled that we have almost 100 members, yet only about 10 of us do all the work. And then these people who show up once or twice a year have the balls to complain about things! Ah, but I digress...let me pop a few more Prozacs...there, that's better...

Bottom line, I think you may have over reacted to Karl, but I also think you realize that now. (Geez, I just read my post...I think maybe I have a crush on Karl or something, even though that bastid knocked me out in the first round of my own race at E-Town...GRRRRR)

Peace out!

LET THE POOP FLYETH!

Bill

Can of worms says, hey, "Open me!"

As for my comment, "I met some good people, and some not-so-good people", I have gotten a few e-mails about that and I explained why I said such a thing. It is life. People don't agree. It' happens. But no need to bury your heads in the ground.

Paul, it was a grand thing you did awarding your trophy to Jeff. Or it would have been grand going to anyone that deserved it. I commend you for that.

Karl, I like you, but think that you, the ISSCA officals and the "good ole boys" voting could have made more of an effort to help these two guys out. More to come on that later.

Understand this. Jeff is not a member of this forum. He is not an Impala/ISSCA racer. He only joined the club and showed up to Tulsa because HuSSker and I thought he would enjoy it. Not to mention that he has a really nice ride. We(HuSSker and I) are also not ISSCA racers due to lack of opportunity and location. We tried to help Jeff "fit in" as much as we could. Jeff was signed up in both bracket racing and Super Pro, but backed out of the bracket's to just run Super Pro. At signup, he was informed that he was running Super Pro class only. We, meaning, all three of us expected the call for Super Pro. Not Super 8/Power adders, or anything else. We did not memorize the rule books, nor did we re-look at it to see if they called the Super Pro class anything else. Upon registering we understood only one thing. Jeff was running Super Pro class. So this is what we lisned to be called.

After he had run two time trials with the bracket racers and not hearing any call for Super Pro all day, we got curious. And that is when Jeff talked to you Karl. Through obvious miss-communication, you told him "racers luck". Not saying you were wrong by the rules, but a little understanding would have gone a long way. That is why we stepped in to help him out. We understood that jeff "missed out". Rules are rules right? We then just tried to see if he just run with them, not against them. He was having Nitrous problems and we wanted to see if he had fixed it. Carla got involved and butted heads with all, and the vote was drawn. All voted no. What this appeared like to me was, you all were saying "Tough Sh!t". And was a very childish thing to do. I'm not sure they all knew that he just wanted to go down the track once, but either way, the "Does not play well with others" t-shirt came to mind. Instead of welcoming the new guy with a serious passion for the Impala cars and the future community, the group pushed him away. This was why HuSSker and now me are sticking our heads up for our "friend".

I would have done the same for anyone in the same situation, freind or foe, and would have fought the masses about the decision whether it be Karl, Carla, the "boys", or the pope himself. Why, because if felt it was wrong.

Mav

I read over some of the latest replies and commend all involved that have kept the discussion quite civil. I'm admitting to taking offence initially and that's because I'm a firm believer in supporting the umpire, official, Competition Director even if you think they are wrong. And of course in this case, I'm that official.

I'd like this discussion to wind down now, (although I won't cut it off).

Summary thoughts from me as the acting competition director that day, in conjunction with Alan Cooper, who is free to have dissenting opinions and probably hasn't seen this thread yet.

I would have made the exact same decision to not allow Jeff W. to race in the qualified Quick 8 Super Pro Power Adder even if there were no vote from the racers.
I wish that there was not a vote among the racers one way or the other. If the vote went Yes, let him race, I would have strongly lobbied to not allow it. I would have consulted with Alan and if Alan would have opinioned "yes allow him to race", then we probably would have gone to ISSCA officers for guidance. At that point Alan and I would make a final decision one way or the other and if it turned out to be Yes, allow him to race, I would have firmly supported that decision.

Yes we race for trophy and not for money. Yes the goal is to race for fun.
I believe having rules and following them makes it easier to have that fun. Yes, there may be cases where one would allow an exception to the rules. In this case, (Qualified Quick 8 racing), I feel it's best for all to stick firmly to the rules. That's my opinion for future Quick 4, 8, 16 Qualified racing at ISSCA events too.

I hope that someone may print this whole thread and show it to Jeff W. It is quite possible that he would find it in himself to forgive us and also to participate in future events as a fellow ISSCA member.

Karl Ellwein
ISSCA Tulsa Nats 2003 Drag Racing Competition Director

Karl, I'll make sure he sees it. I thank you for your tolerance, your patience, your time, and most of all, your dedication to this sport, which all ISSCA members benefit from.

How's that for a run-on sentence!

Don't worry about Jeff, his love for the car keeps him moving on past issues like this. He's a great guy, with A LOT more patience than I! God willing, he'll be in Dallas in October.