By T.J. Buffenbarger
I am not going to get into if the call to penalized Troy DeCaire while leading the Auto Value Super Sprint feature on Saturday night was the right call. The bigger issue for me is that the way the rule is enforced is bad for everyone involved. From fans, teams, and officials nobody left Kalamazoo Speedway on Saturday feeling good about what happened on Saturday. I believe the situation was preventable. Here are three reasons why that rule is not good for all of sprint car racing:
- The rule cannot be equally enforced. If the leader gets called for a jump on a start and there is a caution flag period they have the opportunity to serve the penalty during the race. If the race goes to completion without a caution the penalty is applied after the race. To me being lucky enough to have a caution flag to serve your penalty should not be a reward. The start should be called back and the penalty served immediately.
- The rule puts officials in a bad position. The official making this call on the leader can be completely right in their justification, but the way the rule is enforced only after a caution or after the feature does not look good even when it is the proper call. If the penalty is enforced by calling the start back the penalty gives it a sense of decisiveness.
- Fans deserve to see the winner cross the finish line first. If a car fails tech inspection the onus falls on team. They were the ones that did not follow the technical rules. For instance if the driver does not make the minimum weight requirement there is a precise instrument that measures that. Not matter how correct an officiating call on a restart it is perceived as a judgment call. As one person properly put it, “Fans don’t pay to watch officials officiate, they pay to watch people race.” By calling the start back at the point of infraction the penalty is served and the outcome is still decided on the race track. Once again even if the call is correct it will be widely perceived as being wrong or being part of favoritism by race fans when that is not the case.
How do you fix the problem?
Call the start back and penalize the team immediately. I realize this does take some more time and the risk of tearing up cars either throwing the caution to call it back and on another restart. If this rule is going to be officiated in the manner it is now I think the penalty needs to be swift, decisive, and made on the spot.
The biggest issue I had with the entire situation on Saturday…
…was how AVSS officials’ communication as so badly broken that victory lane was conducted with the driver that was disqualified. I believe this magnified the situation ten-fold and made things even worse. When I first heard the disqualification I thought it would be a possibility until DeCaire was handed the victory lane sign, interviewed and presented as the winner, and went through the entire victory lane motions when officials knew DeCaire was going to be disqualified.
I still am close enough to the paying spectator to realize if I was at a race that this occurred and I read on here Monday that DeCaire was disqualified on a officiating decision on a restart I would not be happy and would question spending my money to see that series again.
In closing…
As I waited on official word on what the finish would be hours after the checkered flag all I could think is this could have largely been avoided with a caution flag and moving DeCaire back two spots immediately if officials felt he jumped. Had that been the case we would be talking more about the incredible drive race we saw on Saturday and not an official’s call that was perceived as being after the fact due to the way the rule is enforced. Even when the rule is applied correctly it cannot be enforced uniformly based on if there is a caution flag.
Hopefully the AVSS board will review this situation and put themselves in the position of the race fan for a moment and make appropriate changes to give their customers the best chance to see the winner cross the finish line first.