Uh, by the way...

So, remember in "The Juice" on Friday when I ranted about transponders and scoring loops and how I doubt technology even though I exist because of it? And then I said something about a diagram, but the diagram was nowhere to be found? Well, here it is, only four days late, with the corresponding part of the article to go along:

"How about this scenario, and say for the sake of the argument that the transponders are located on the rear frame rail of each car (which is quite common): What if two cars are racing for position coming to the line, and Car A spins but Car B continues, yet Car A -- now facing backwards -- has its transponder cross the line before the Car B, which although its nose may have crossed the finish first, its transponder is scored behind Car A's. Yeah, I made a diagram. According to the transponder, Car A is the winner, but according to everything else logical, Car B is the winner. In theory, you would think such a decision could be easily overturned by a race director or anyone else that physically witnessed the incident.

In a situation where there are between three and six human scorers watching every single car with their own eyes and writing everything down as it happens, it'd be a moot point and Car B would win every time. In this case, where transponders have replaced humans (and the impression that the official press release gives is that there won't be as many people sitting in the scoring tower as there used to be, meaning less eyes watching), it's plausible that such a scenario could be missed if it was to happen somewhere in the middle of the pack rather than at the front.

Is that a likely thing to happen often? Probably not. Am I reaching a little bit to try and prove a point? Absolutely. But it's entirely possible. And a computer error could ultimately cost someone a championship."

Total brainfart on that one, folks, sorry. Again, for the record, I think electronic scoring is a good thing, but it's those instances where it works against everything that I worry about. Especially after 50 years of doing it the same way at Thunder Road. Now back to your regularly scheduled winter...

--Justin