Would anyone like to comment on the actions of the Blue ITS BMW during Mr. Flocks encounter with the wall after T5?[/b]
Unsafe? Maybe. The backstraight at IRP is a scary place. Concrete on one side and a chain-link fence on the other. And at the end is a turn that can either make or break your race. I never felt comfortable racing down the backstraight at IRP.
But, if he timed the pass until after the incident, it was a perfectly legal pass under our current rules.
The interesting aside here is that if we had FIA flag rules, which some folks have proposed for SCCA Club Racing, the track would have been yellow until the first green flag, which would have been at Turn 6. Therein lies the fodder for an interesting debate. Would the the FIA flag rules have made this situation safer? Or would it have taken away a prime opportunity for the guy in the blue BMW to take advantage of a situation?
As for start penalties, we stewards debate this ad nauseum. If you do a stop and go penalty, you provide instant feedback to the offending driver that you don't like jumped starts and you provide instant gratification to the other drivers in the field who might feel wronged by the jumped start. On the other hand, in sprint races like we typically run, a stop and go takes away a guy's race.
I'm sure Andy was much happier with the outcome in this situation than the alternative of being black-flagged for a stop and go. And if Andy was really in the wrong and the Chief Steward chose to take some action after the race, the guidelines from our Executive Stewars say the minimum penalty is 1 position in class. Would Pauly and the rest of the guys in ITS been satisifed with that?
Personally, I'm not in favor of stop and go penalties. I'd rather sort things out after the race.
Bob Burns
13 years as an SCCA Club Racing Steward
3 years as an SCCA Runoffs Operating Steward