Since I'm the "guy" on the front straight maybe I can fill you in on it from my perspective.
As you know, the transponder loop is in NASCAR turn 4, so the Starters (who are doing a lap chart for their own use) stop doing their chart on the very last lap and do a "Timing tape" of the order that the cars cross the Start/Finish line. Actually, we have three or for different people watching to make sure we don't miss anything. This is then passed to T/S and used to correct any changes due to passes that occurred between T/S and the S/F line.
We call the stewards in "Control" on our radio and report any passes that happen between the timing loop and S/F. That is exactly what I did in this case. We cannot call Timing directly because they are on a different radio network so we have to relay this information via the stewards. Normally it is "no changes" or occasionally one or two passes so it is easy to do.
After that, it is up to the stewards to pass the info to Timing, and it is up to timing to adjust the results on the computer to reflect reality. One of those two things failed to happen.
From memory (I don't have the paperwork here) it was 70, 55, 87, and 68. The cars may not have been on the same lap or in the same class, but we do not care, Timing knows that and gets it right (normally). 16 also got past 3, but it didn't impact the results. All the other cars crossed the S/F line in the same order they crossed the timing loop.
Please believe me in that this WILL be a serious topic for discussion at the next Regional Comp Board meeting which happens to be this Friday. Please attend if you want to say anything about this. (Or send an e-mail to Serge to express your opinion.) It's lucky that it is Friday as it is fresh in everyones mind. The same type of problem happened during the GT1 race on Saturday, but as I wasn't there, I cannot speak to what happened in that case. (I was actually in Timing working on a different computer problem for them during that race.)
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