Just caught up and watched Jerry Bird beat Brandon James in the Finals. When they showed the replay I thought I saw something unusual so I ran it on slow. From the looks of it, did Brandon's stripe taker go over the beam? Definitely looks like Jerry is a foot behind.

Interesting. Looks like both are kinda high, but you could be right.
Goofy-looking things; I get it, but would rather they not have them.
I'd be the guy who'd trip over one

Absolute BS IMO and the camera proves it

i thought the same thing when i watched it the other night, looked like brandons car won.

If your frontend rides high you will lose a close race if the others guys stripe taker hits the beam and your front tire takes the stripe. He’s new and will fix his car.

I shut it off after that race, did they address it on the show/after the event?

saw it too. ran it back a couple times, far lane was ahead.

that stripe taker/tripper been a point of disagreement for yrs i dont know what npk rules are but i have seen this many times minimum 3" off the ground, and 30" max in front of the spindle unless the car nose is longer than that stock.

The same thing happened to Daddy Dave a few races ago. Those guys need to get their front ends down at speed. DD's car always looks like it's going uphill.

The finish line lights at the end of the track are mounted higher than ones on the starting lines at NHRA sanction track, Finish lines lights are supposed to be 6.0 inches high to the centers from up the ground, the starting lines lights are 3.0 inches to the center is what I've been told by several local strip techs and by NHRA headquarter tech people
NHRA did increase the legal limit on the length of them from 36.0 inches to 42.0 measured off of the furthest forward spindle several years back based on that some of the newer cars having longer noses
This a fine example of the need to raise the finish line heights up to 12.0 inches or higher

I'm thinking that whatever you break the Tree beams with, should also be what you clear the clocks with.

I saw that too, just figured they wanted Jerry to win.

You can see where the reflector is on the block. The extender has to be low enough to hit the beam. In this case it appears it's over the top of the block.

Not with this series, but how do any of the sanctioning bodies handle this scenario if a racer brings video evidence? Would a win light ever be overturned or is it the end all be all?

Hmmmm not really sure but camera angle is so important. I saw several videos of this race and man Jerry was really closing in on him at the finish line. From two feet back you figured no way. Funny thing is if Brandon would have played bracket racer and left off the gas he would have won. Lol. I do know a pro stock motorcycle race was overturned years ago.

Steve Johnson got a win at the US Nationals years ago with video.

One thing you have to remember with the NPK races, these guys have already split the money by the time they get to 4 cars.

Brandon's car is so high he tripped the beam with his front wheel, Jerry beat him to the beam with a lower car.

I know I'm late on this one. Been busy. Brandon knows exactly what happened and it's what you described. There are no favorites or predetermined outcomes. It did suck and it took Brandon a minute to get over that one.