[Kellen Conover]

Sure Bob, there was a rule broken and a fine assessed accordingly. From what I've seen it appears to be a much bigger issue to others than it was the actual team involved.

[Charles Nungester]

[treecitytornado]

Nothing wrong with fines and point deductions for safety violations. Trying to avoid another tragedy!

[midget96]

I am not saying I agree or disagree with this ruling or is this directed at anyone or team. BUT I know that when we have a red flag our crew chief always reminds us not to get on the track or advance towards our car until the white flag is waved. And he always is talking about other rules during different times of the race.

[Kuhn74]

JUST AN OBSERVATION FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN (Please keep that in mind)...............


Rules are rules. If you have them, enforce them. They may bite me today, they may bite you tomorrow, but over the course of a season they will have the intended effect and it usually works out even for everyone (little tid bit Scott Benic told me once).

That being said, the one issue with enforcing them is even though there is a publication that lists the "Rules," there is not a publication that lists the "penalties" for breaking those "rules." So that leaves it up to someone's discretion and that rarely works out fair in the eyes of "everyone" involved.



My observation for the situation is:

Cockrum is leading the race, his guys jump over the wall and work on the car during a closed Red. Maybe they didn't do anything that changed the outcome of the race, maybe they did. That is for someone else's discretion to declare. Cockrum restarts and wins the race. He also receives a hefty check for the win (a check I would gladly take a small monetary fine out of any day over receiving a smaller one).

Tracy is running second. His guys/gal do not cross over the wall during the closed Red flag situation. Somewhere in the last 5 laps, Tracy runs out of fuel/car starts to sputter and lose power. He loses several positions. As a result he lost quite a bit of money in race earnings and he also lost points. Losing money sucks when you do this for a living. Losing points was a big deal considering Swanson didn't have a great finish and the Championship race has been relatively close all year long. (If you don't already know, there is a big difference in MONEY between first place and second place in the Championship). So there is a possibility Tracy could end up losing twice on the money side of it.


Not sure how USAC should have handled it, I don't work there...........If you are in Hardy Boys shoes, it wasn't that big of a deal, simple mistake. If I were them, I would be happy with my win, small fine and a points loss in a chase that I am not in contention for anyways.

If you are in Tracy's shoes, at a minimum it cost him 3 points in the championship and money in winnings. He has lost a midget championship by 1 point before. Just proves that every point counts.


Enforcing the rules is enforcing the rules. It doesn't matter what the rule/offense is. If you are not allowed on the track during a red flag, then you aren't allowed on the track. If you aren't allowed to touch/work on the car, then you aren't allowed. Period. It is fairly black and white isn't it? Crossing the wall is no different than adding fuel or changing a tire. Right?

I can remember being at the Night Before the 500 a few years back and during a "open red" someone took a jack out on the track. It was stated in the drivers meeting that you couldn't do that. (I believe it was Cole Carter) USAC put him to the back and ended what looked like was going to be a good finish for the driver because a "Rule" was broken.

"IF"
You put Cockrum to the back for the restart, he still restarts like what 12th? With 9 laps to go? With a good car? Still has a shot to salvage a good finish. Tracy still runs out of fuel and two guys get by him, but finishes 3rd and has 3 more points and more money.

USAC wouldn't have 10 teams complaining, they would have one team complaining. And the one team complaining would be able to at least know that they did something outside the rules. Doesn't matter how far over the line.

Seems like precedent would have been set on infractions in the past (sometime over at least 50 years), but they do have a new leader for the crown division. Maybe he wanted to do it his own way.


Either way, Congrats to Cockrum and Hardy Boys. They have the check and the trophy and most fans won't remember anything about the race except that!

[Tim]

Folks,

I guess I look at the penalties handed out in more of a "punishment to fit the crime" perspective. The difficult thing the officials have to decide is whether the "crime" has a strong potential of changing the complexion of the race, thereby deciding the outcome. We all, including those officiating, want the race to be won by the racer on the race track. Unless the offense is obviously aggregious, the officials try desperately to refrain from letting the decisions they are forced to make in the heat of the moment take the race outcome out of the racer's hands. From my perspective, I'm not sure how much "advantage" was gained by getting over the wall 30-60 seconds before the red was opened, so I have no objection to the call to continue the race as it was and hand out punishment later.

Just my perspective.

Tim Simmons

[sprint29]

The red was never opened during the disputed time. Kuhn is correct in his thinking.

[ossuks]

How do you get a penalty for going over the wall prior to the white flag being displayed for an open red if the white flag was not displayed and the red was never open? How do you hand out different penalties for the same infraction? There is no way to determine how much of an advantage was gained by the amount of people or the time spent at the car (a turn here and a few pounds of air and maybe they went faster, maybe Levi wins if they do not touch the car, maybe Levi wins if he works on his?)...I am sure that there are lots of teams that would spend a few $ to gain an advantage....

Not to take anything away from the team that won...good for you...a 1st time winner is good for the sport!

[RoyaltonMiniSprint]

Did anybody actually see what happened I did because I was sitting in the bleachers across from Shane Cockrum's car when the violations happened. From what I saw ( am know expert and don't pretend to be) when the red came out one of his crew members for some reason went to take the hood off but was chased back across the guardrail by another crew member. For some reason there were no Usac officials anywhere in the vicinity of the cars stopped on the track they came rolling up later!!

[THEPAINTER]

The hood was coming off.they went out and fixed the hood. And he was backing up to Tracy. Then after the restart he took back off and pulled away. Seen it all and was the worst call I have ever seen in all my years in the sport,still can't believe it.