[kdobson]

This is one of those posts I know as I'm typing it biting the tongue would have been the better option. But this is raw nerve territory for me as a race track promoter.

[BEGIN RANT] I don't feel like even in this day and age a track owes you video proof. What a track owes you as a competitor is a staff that is experienced, thoughtful and capable of making the best decision they can without prejudice or bias under the circumstances. I don't have the luxury of a TV truck and 5 different camera angles and staff to stop a race and review video footage like you would in professional sports and get a call right at the time it happens. Nor do the fans who pay your purse want to sit through that.

And yes.. that video proof would have to happen right after the incident. Not at the end of the race. It's just as unfair to the guy you are going to penalize to wait until all chance for him to pass and overcome the penalty is gone as it is to not penalize in the first place. The NFL doesn't wait till a game ends 4th and goal at the three yard line, then the next day come back and say video shows they missed a 10 yard penalty in the 1st quarter so they are going to award a touchdown.

What you are talking about is a race stoppage to review video. Where is the car that later was determined to have not hit the cone going to be scored? Where he was running at the time of the bad call? It might have been lap 3 and the whole field was going to pass him anyway. We don't need race stoppages to review video. The only time in our form of racing a video could be properly implemented is pretty much on the last lap of a race at or near the finish line. Otherwise any call you correct after the race or the next day does not take into account the racing that was yet to be completed.

A track hires the best crew it can hire and every one of them at tracks across America make the best calls they can at the time under the circumstances. They aren't always dead-on perfect -but they are right a whole lot more often than given credit for. I don't expect my officials to be perfect. I expect their best effort and reasoned decisions. When they screw one up and we know it - we admit it and try to remedy it the best we can given what transpired afterwards. Some calls go for you and some against you. We get some right and I know we will occasionally get one wrong. But don't ask me to review video and change 10 laps of racing that went on in the interim. It's darn hard to fix a problem after the racing is completed.

Officials are expected to be perfect every lap of every race for an entire season. A race team... a couple perfect nights a year makes for a really good season. [/END RANT]