I was notified after the race that I had cut the eastern deadline. I was sceptical of the call as I have never had a problem with that side of the course ever in the last 20 years at Reno. We did have an onboard camera and after our initial viewing felt confident that I had remained well within the boundaries of the course. I had clearly convinced the Sanders that their hired gun had been wrongly accused of a most serious offence. After having the tape moved onto disc and blowing it up onto a large screen television and then overlaying it onto an aerial map that was shot on Monday morning by a local firm at great expense. I have determined that I may have in fact busted the eastern deadline on more then one occasion. It appears to be not by much, maybe a few feet, however a miss is as good as a mile in horse shoes, hand grenades, atom
s and apparently air racing. It appears in the video my parade lap and 1st lap were high due to turbulence from the leaders. I was carrying the same pylon position on my windscreen as usual and did not adjust for the increase in elevation, a typical rookie mistake. I therefore extened my radius line to just possibly over the deadline on the first two laps. After lowering down onto the course on lap three my line was back into its usual correct location for the remainder of the race. In other words I screwed the pooch. I have already contacted RARA and removed my protest with an apology to Mr.Houghton. In addition to removing my protest I want to apologize to the Lineman that I doubted as well as thank the General for his patients while I ranted and raved about the call. Its probably not the first time the General has had to listen to the ravings of a lunatic. I imagined a conspiracy was in the making, when in reality it was the old mind playing games after a long hard week. After driving home and having a subsequent testosterone decrease my mind has returned to normal ( as normal as can be) and therefore feel compelled to eat a large plate of crow. Congrats to Smoot for his second place finish although he never did pass me ever!!!!!!!!! and never will. No more sausage and Fighter Pilot Red for me.
Matt Jackson