Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

I have a question about penalties in racing. Mainly is about sprint cars in general.

Unsportsmanlike conduct rule infraction at a certain race track on 5-4-2024

A car at a race track got a number of penalties for 1 infraction. Here is what happened below. Car flips and lands on it's top. Saftey crew is slow about getting to car. Someone hollers that the car is on fire. Car owner, father of driver jumps on his 4 wheeler and goes out to the accident site. Owner gets there about the same time saftey crew gets there. Rule book does not allow crews to be on track under closed red without permission. Owner knew that. His kid was in a car on fire which did go out on it's own. Sprint car series disqualifies the car for remaindure of night. Which car was already done anyway.

NOW:  the penalty handed down to this car for unsportsman like conduct. 

Here are the penalties handed down to this car.

1. Fine $250.00

2. One night suspension from track that the penalty was at.

3. No push vehicle (golf cart, wheeler, or any other form of push vehicle) allowed to push their car to the racing surface or in/around the pit area for 3 race nights after the suspension at this race track. Sprint car must be physically pushed by the team to the track surface.  The car in question will decline if a fellow racer/team, fan, track worker or any other person not a team member offers to push the car to the track and/or around pit area.

4. Driver must explain the severity of his teams actions of entering the track without permission under closed red causing this penalty and sincerely apologize on behalf of his team for their actions at the next pit meeting of his next eligible race with the series in question. Any recording and/or photos of this public apology posted by anyone on  social media platform will not be tolerated or allowed.

What do people think about this penalty for a first time offender?  I think it is the craziest penalty I have ever seen in any form of a sporting event.

Sounds stupid to me. I'd pay a lot nore than $250 if i could get a fire extinguisher on my kid before the safery crew. Maybe they'll use the fine money to buy a faster quad.

On a serious note tho.....sounds stupid to me. I understand the need for the rule but fire and safety issues should be a legit reason to not enforce it to the letter of the law. If the guy from the top of the grandstand can get the fire out first, have at it.

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

He who has the gold makes the rules.

In major sports the money from fines is almost always donated to a charity.

Wow, if my kid was in a burning race car and nobody was gettin off their ass to help, I would become Superman, and there would be collateral damage, we are Human Beings are we not??

Seems like we can add constitutional amendments to the list of concepts you don't grasp. 

Some years ago, Sammy Swindell was fined for something by the WoO. On a racing forum, there was a discussion of where that fine money went. The consensus was that Ted Johnson kept it.... for the good of the sport.

What do I think? I'd guess that the race team and the officials have a history of conflict. As such, the information listed here is probably a view from only one perspective.

An expert on paying attention in junior high government class. You should have been there. 

"Seems like several violations of constitutional amendments ok name one?

Well.....bye 

Seems like a name and shame situation. The DQ and fine seem reasonable but everything else is wild.

I agree with the other poster that mentioned this feels like one side of the story, because if this actually is accurate, then the series deserves to be identified so everyone involved in the sport can collectively laugh at them. 

"Illegal procedure for misjudging a slide job and putting another car in the wall.  Fifteen yards, repeat second down".

Stan Meissner

Ok, thanks. 

I agree except I would probably be more like Spiderman climbing over a fence.

But I believe this thread is about whether a dirt track should be able to impose penalties at their discretion.

Don't get me wrong - the track and/or series has every right to punish drivers/cars/owners however they want.

If this case is true, we just want to laugh at the track and/or series for that decision. 

Have you ever been on a pit crew or in the pits at a race or even around it other than as a spectator? FlaggerX hit the nail on the head.  What good is a crew member going to do in jeans and a tee shirt other than become a 2nd burn victim ? You want the track to be liable for that ? Because it would be in today's litigious society.  The Safety Crew has the training and equipment to extract the driver from a burning car and the equipment to extiquish the fire or slow it down enough to get the driver out. Now another Driver jumping out of his car if the first one on the scene and pulling a fellow driver to safety is a different story as they have the safety equipment on and know how to get the hans device and belts off in a hurry so they can pull the driver out and by then the safty crew is there helping and knocking the fire down. I don't agree with the way the OP described the way the track handeled it and the penalty they handed down but all the tracks I've raced at have strict rules about crew members or spectators running onto the race track in the event of an accident or coming onto the racing surface period unless it's an open red and they are on a pit crew. You don't punish someone for trying to help, you punish them for breaking lonstanding hard and fast rules that are put in place for a reason. Having said that, the punishment should be fair and not designed to humiliate or cause further problems or slow things down like hand pushing a race car. I just would'nt go back to that track myself until the penalty was up. 

The older I get the faster I was

Now you're a lawyer too?  You've lived four or five lifetimes with all of your expertise and experiences.  "Imposing penalties with no recourse in not American?"  I hope you don't watch any of the other professional sports, you notice how the NFL refs get in trouble all the time for calling roughing the passer penalties?  Now back to reality.  The constitution does not apply to a sporting event and I'm not a lawyer nor do I pretend to be on a message board full of strangers.  However my understanding of how this works legally is, nobody is required by anyone to race a racecar, help on that racecar or even attend that event.  However if they choose to attend this event they must abide by the rules of the people putting on that event.  But legally they don't have to abide by those rules but then the racetrack can tell them they're no longer welcome.  For instance tomorrow morning I can walk into my bosses office and tell him "Fuck you, you're a limp dicked piece of shit".  He can then fire me.  However he can't put me in jail for that, only tell me that I'm no longer allowed to work for him.  The constitution applies to laws of the country not how a sporting event is run.  But again thanks for telling us how smart you are well saying uninformed jargon.

As for the rule.  It's a rule that makes sense.  Since the father or another crew member is NOT trained in racecar crash driver extraction or if they are, how would the track know that?  Also there's a lot of subjective information here and I'm thinking you know that or you would let people give their own opinion by sharing a link to a video or at least telling us who, where or when this happened.  What is slow for a safety crew to respond?  What happened when everyone was on scene?  Was the dad in the way of the safety crew doing their job?  Was he wreckless

But the penaties #1 and #2 seem ok, depending on the circumstances, maybe even a little light.  #3 I'm actually ok with, since it was a crew infraction and most racetracks I've been to (at least the ones that pit on the inside) they don't have far to pust the car anyway.  #4 is totally ridiculous, what does this have to do with the driver?  Next time don't crash?  Or next time don't let your father/car owner come to the races?  This is a crew infraction so I'm not sure why the driver should be penalized other than a fine.  Just my opinion.