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

I have noticed a lot in the last yesr that the car in the outside lane is allowed to creep in front of the pole sitter on the starts.  Sometimes they are almost a car length ahead of the pole sitter.  I thought they were supposed to be side by side at the start.  Many times you can tell it is an advantage for the outside guy.  Used to be the pole sitter set the pace not the out side car.  This is on original starts not on restarts.

Depends on the angle that you are looking at the start. Sometimes by the angle of the camera and where you are in the stands it looks like the outside guy is a little ahead but if you were looking at it head on in the corner they are actually side by side. Initial starts are supposed to be side by side starts. While the polesitter can set the pace to the stripe they technically should not fire until they reach the stripe. That as we all know has a variable grey area based on the day. Now talking to a couple flaggers in our area, if they feel that the polesitter is trying to play games meaning they bumped the throttle coming to line then bump the brake to get the outside guy to back off, they will let it go especially it they feel it did not hurt any of the cars behind them. Biggest thing is if they feel that all cars basically fired and it was fair, go racing. Some tracks also depending on the pace you may see the outside car spin the tires first but its because of how tight the corner is that they actually have to keep everything wound up by having to go a greater distance but as long as they and everyone are "even" then by judgement it will probably be let go. You will always have the occurances where everyone goes holy crap I can't believe they let that go similar to balls and strikes in baseball. 

To me this is kind of like holding in football.  If you look at every start or restart, the rules aren't followed, somebody is always going early.  But much like holding in a football game, where holding happens on every play, I "think" what most flagman and NFL refs look at is how does it really affect the outcome?  But as a fan would you really want to sit through them trying to get the restart "right"?  If it doesn't really affect the race who cares?

What you are seeing may be from the pole sitter in the inside lane using a tactic and slowing going into the turn.     If the outside guy gets ahead he has to let off the throttle to line up evenly.      As he does that the green flag waves and the pole sitter gets a jump on him.