Ben looks like he would have been tough to beat even on a near perfect run. Great reaction times! That would have been a good one to see.
I saw the comment about contingency awards being lost? How exactly does that work? I've gathered you have to have a sponsors stickers on your car and if you win, you get the money from that sponsor? Is that right? I'm not a fan of stickers plastered all over a car, but that's some serious money lost.
I have a little experience with NHRA contingency after making it to the final round at the Division 5 ET finals a few times. Yes, you are supposed to have the decals on the car, although occasionally a company will pay without the sticker, but that's rare. And yes, some people just don't like the stickers all over their car, but then they give up the chance to collect that extra money. How much a company posts varies, and the amount varies if it is a Divisional event or a National event. A win also pays more than a runner-up. Generally it is around $50-$500 a product/decal, you've seen how many decals some cars have and that can easily add up to thousands of dollars. Things may have changed a little, but when I was involved if you made it to the final round a NHRA tech official will come around with a clipboard and a form and go through with you and check off the decals you have, and if the product is visible, like for example tires, verify you have the product. You sign the form and they send it in to the various companies. A few weeks ( or months ) later either a check shows up, or some companies will send a form to require more proof of running the product, like a copy of a purchase receipt, or in the case of something like a trailer, a copy of the registration. Some companies you register with ahead of time so that they have the info on file. For Summit, which sponsors our ET Finals, you had the decal and showed them your Summit logbook. At the beginning of the year NHRA used to publish a list of what was required for each company, it's probably all online now. When the economy was bad about 10 years ago quite a few companies pulled out of the contingency program, so it's not quite as lucrative anymore, but still significant. I will add, for me the company that always paid the quickest was Calvert Racing for my CalTracs. I think John Calvert believed in taking care of the racers, being a racer himself.
Ben Line also won the NHRA Divisional event at BIR the week before too, so yes, he gave up a lot of extra money. Ben has won the Brainerd Raceway Stock/Super Stock season championship a few times, he is an excellent racer, as is his brother Lance.
Edit- I dug these photos out, here I am at Denver in 2003 with the NHRA official going through my contingency products.
