Eagle Eye.... Dario hits powers tire in pitbox?

[SarahFan]

Penalty or no penalty?

[SarahFan]

debris on the track
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BB answers the question re :D ario and no penalty
Question: Why wasn’t Dario penalized for hitting the tire on pit road? (Brad, Pittsboro, Ind.)

Answer: This from chief steward Brian Barnhart: “After reviewing the situation, and taking into consideration all the circumstances, including the intent, the effect on competition and the effect on safety, race control officials in their discretion didn’t feel it was a violation worthy of a penalty.”

http://blogs.indystar.com/racingexpe...and-milwaukee/
It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood.



^read the above at another forum this morning.....

[chuck34]

What a load of crap. When anyone besides Dario hits an air hose leaving the pits, they didn't intend to do it, there really wasn't any effect on competition, and it was probably safer than what Dario did. Did you see the way the guy was standing on the tire and d@mn near went down, how safe is that? Give me a break.

I usually try to give Barnhart the benefit of the doubt, as I think (thought?) he normally tries to be fair. But this one is just blatently favoritisim for Dario. What a sham.

As I saw someone else say somewhere, Dario better stop whining about being "screwed" at Texas. He just got all his points back and then some.

[EagleEye]

Penalty or no penalty?

We wanted a penalty but did not get it. The rule is fairly straight forward, and we were not aware that now "intent" comes into play.

That said we were happy with our results, and Dario drove a heck of a race.

We were more upset a few years back, when Marco blocked Justin at Chicago on the last restart a few years back, which robbed him of the ROY award, which went to Mutoh.

[chuck34]

Eagle, you say "we", who do you work for?

[dataman1]

I agree with EagleEye that the rules do not include a clause for intent and how could they possibly know intent from the steward's location. Dario's intent was to complete a fast pit stop. Chuck is also correct that nobody leaves or enters their pitbox with the intent to run over a hose or slide into their team tire guy. It's all about safety and if I were the guy on the tire I sure wouldn't have felt very safe. I'm impressed that he kept his cool and did a good job with his own pit stop.

[NickFalzone]

I believe the comment during the race was that the pit boxes were extremely tight this year, and thus an incident such as what happened was not surprising. If that is that case, and intent can be used as part of racecall judgement, then I have no issue with this call. However, I am not convinced that this was entirely an accident, and thus that intent was negligable. To me, Dario is far too good a driver to make that "mistake" by "accident". I think he was annoyed that the tire guy was a bit on the edge of the penske pitbox and wanted to give him a little nudge. I don't think the intent was to knock him down, like basically happened, but I do think that there was more to this incident than a harmless mistake. Keep in mind that this in not a rare occurence, the Penske and Ganassi pit crews had a few incidents last season where they were leaving tires out and/or doing other things to make it a bit more of a challenge to get into each others pits. A half a second is huge on a pit stop and can decide a race. Don't think that this is not part of their strategy. OTOH, while I'm suspect on Dario, if Danica had done it, I would definitely agree with Barnhart that it was simple driver error.

[SarahFan]

I felt cheated

[Marbles]

In most other pit incidents I thought the drivers didn't intend to mow down pit crew members but this time I thought the intent was definitely there. Dario -- Ganassi -- need I say more. Funny how people interpret things differently.

This is why folks are constantly getting hit on pit row. Is Barnhart taking his cues from Vince McMahon?

You want to see see drivers tip-toe into the pits then there should be zero tolerance! I've said it before. You hit someone in the pits -- you park it. Tough titties! Of course there would have to be a judgement call if the incident involved another team but pit boxes are pretty well defined.

[Sateryn76]

Do we have any information on how far out the guy was supposed to be? It was my understanding that pit crews have a certain limit on how far they can be from the wall. Not that that would excuse Dario, but I'm sure he's been through more than enough training on how to get past pit crews.

If that guy was standing out too far - Dario's coming in at a high speed, and depending on everyone doing their job and hitting their marks. I could just as easily see Penske pushing their guy out just a tad to force a penalty.

Honestly, I can't see either team cheating in that way, but there's a whole 'nother side to this story, right? We need the info on the pit limits.

[Hoop-98]

From M. Pruitt, the most reasonable explanation I have heard.

"BAD ETIQUETTE?

Controversies were kept to a minimum at Milwaukee, but the one item that did flare up—and keeps going—is Dario Franchitti’s pit lane tire contact incident.

The Target driver struck the new right front tire that awaited Will Power as he pulled into his pit stall, sending Penske’s Billy Vincent, who was standing on top of the tire, for a bit of a ride.

Vincent, Power’s chief mechanic, was uninjured, but some fans continue to question why IndyCar Race Director Brian Barnhart failed to penalize the Scot for striking a piece of equipment on pit lane.

The answer lies not in the formal rule book, but in the informal set of rules teams normally abide by in the pits. Teams make a habit of pulling in the left or right front tire (depending on which direction pit lane faces) to allow the car in the forward stall to pull in without any dramas. The team in the forward stall, in kind, pulls the rear tire out of the way to let the car in the stall behind exit without any dramas.

It’s the neighborly thing to do.

The only scenario where teams won’t pull that front tire out of the way is if two cars are pitting nose-to-tail. Had Power been right on Franchitti’s gearbox heading down pit lane towards their respective stalls, Team Penske would not have been expected to lose time by pulling its tire out of Franchitti’s way while Power followed right behind.

The non-call by Barnhart, in this case, was due to the fact that Power was nowhere near Franchitti at the time of the pit stop. The Penske team had plenty of time to pull the tire and step out of Franchitti’s way, but they chose to leave the tire in place…and to stand on top of it…

As one Ganassi team member told SPEED.com on Tuesday, “I hope this isn’t a view of what’s to come. It can get dangerous and pretty nasty if that’s how we want to start treating each other, and in my opinion, there’s just no need for it.”

I’d like to believe it was an innocent mistake by Team Penske; they aren't known for boorish behavior on pit lane, and I’m sure the two teams and the series will make sure everyone plays nicely this weekend."

rh

[NickFalzone]

From M. Pruitt, the most reasonable explanation I have heard.

"BAD ETIQUETTE?

Controversies were kept to a minimum at Milwaukee, but the one item that did flare up—and keeps going—is Dario Franchitti’s pit lane tire contact incident.

The Target driver struck the new right front tire that awaited Will Power as he pulled into his pit stall, sending Penske’s Billy Vincent, who was standing on top of the tire, for a bit of a ride.

Vincent, Power’s chief mechanic, was uninjured, but some fans continue to question why IndyCar Race Director Brian Barnhart failed to penalize the Scot for striking a piece of equipment on pit lane.

The answer lies not in the formal rule book, but in the informal set of rules teams normally abide by in the pits. Teams make a habit of pulling in the left or right front tire (depending on which direction pit lane faces) to allow the car in the forward stall to pull in without any dramas. The team in the forward stall, in kind, pulls the rear tire out of the way to let the car in the stall behind exit without any dramas.

It’s the neighborly thing to do.

The only scenario where teams won’t pull that front tire out of the way is if two cars are pitting nose-to-tail. Had Power been right on Franchitti’s gearbox heading down pit lane towards their respective stalls, Team Penske would not have been expected to lose time by pulling its tire out of Franchitti’s way while Power followed right behind.

The non-call by Barnhart, in this case, was due to the fact that Power was nowhere near Franchitti at the time of the pit stop. The Penske team had plenty of time to pull the tire and step out of Franchitti’s way, but they chose to leave the tire in place…and to stand on top of it…

As one Ganassi team member told SPEED.com on Tuesday, “I hope this isn’t a view of what’s to come. It can get dangerous and pretty nasty if that’s how we want to start treating each other, and in my opinion, there’s just no need for it.”

I’d like to believe it was an innocent mistake by Team Penske; they aren't known for boorish behavior on pit lane, and I’m sure the two teams and the series will make sure everyone plays nicely this weekend."

rh

Hm, in retrospect, I guess that's what I thought at the time as well. I thought that A.) Dario intended to send a message to the Penske pit crew, and that B.) the Penske pit crew was not being particularly "neighbourly" by getting in his way on a narrow pit entry. So this goes back to the previous comment by Barnhart that the ruling was about "intent". Well, I think it's pretty clear that Dario meant to give the tire guy a nudge, but since the tire guy was basically standing in Dario's way for no good reason at the moment, it was fair not to penalize Dario. Unfortunately, playing these games on the track is one thing, but playing them in the pits could have real and dangerous consequences..

[chuck34]

From M. Pruitt, the most reasonable explanation I have heard.

"BAD ETIQUETTE?

Controversies were kept to a minimum at Milwaukee, but the one item that did flare up—and keeps going—is Dario Franchitti’s pit lane tire contact incident.

The Target driver struck the new right front tire that awaited Will Power as he pulled into his pit stall, sending Penske’s Billy Vincent, who was standing on top of the tire, for a bit of a ride.

Vincent, Power’s chief mechanic, was uninjured, but some fans continue to question why IndyCar Race Director Brian Barnhart failed to penalize the Scot for striking a piece of equipment on pit lane.

The answer lies not in the formal rule book, but in the informal set of rules teams normally abide by in the pits. Teams make a habit of pulling in the left or right front tire (depending on which direction pit lane faces) to allow the car in the forward stall to pull in without any dramas. The team in the forward stall, in kind, pulls the rear tire out of the way to let the car in the stall behind exit without any dramas.

It’s the neighborly thing to do.

The only scenario where teams won’t pull that front tire out of the way is if two cars are pitting nose-to-tail. Had Power been right on Franchitti’s gearbox heading down pit lane towards their respective stalls, Team Penske would not have been expected to lose time by pulling its tire out of Franchitti’s way while Power followed right behind.

The non-call by Barnhart, in this case, was due to the fact that Power was nowhere near Franchitti at the time of the pit stop. The Penske team had plenty of time to pull the tire and step out of Franchitti’s way, but they chose to leave the tire in place…and to stand on top of it…

As one Ganassi team member told SPEED.com on Tuesday, “I hope this isn’t a view of what’s to come. It can get dangerous and pretty nasty if that’s how we want to start treating each other, and in my opinion, there’s just no need for it.”

I’d like to believe it was an innocent mistake by Team Penske; they aren't known for boorish behavior on pit lane, and I’m sure the two teams and the series will make sure everyone plays nicely this weekend."

rh

In my mind, if that is true, then that makes Brian's no call even worse. There clearly was intent to hit the tire. And the whole point of the rule is for safety. Hitting a tire, even if it is just to "send a message", can go horribly wrong. Someone could easily have been killed. This is just plain stupid.

[RJL25]

You can't help but think this is a square up from Texas, Dario got screwed there, and so the officials thought this was a way to square up the ledger. Doesn't matter which way you paint the fence though, its still playing fravorites.

Rules need to be clear cut so things like this don't happen. In V8 Supercar in Australia they take the view that pit crew safety has to be the most important thing, so ANY violations, doesn't matter if its running over an air hose, letting a centre nut roll into the fast lane, or running over a crew member, doesn't matter, ANY indiscretion and your given an automatic drive through. Takes away any possibility of fravorites being played.

[chuck34]

You can't help but think this is a square up from Texas, Dario got screwed there, and so the officials thought this was a way to square up the ledger. Doesn't matter which way you paint the fence though, its still playing fravorites.

Rules are rules, fair or not. The rules as everyone knew them at Texas was that it was going to be a blind draw. Pretty much by definition someone was going to be "screwed".


Rules need to be clear cut so things like this don't happen. In V8 Supercar in Australia they take the view that pit crew safety has to be the most important thing, so ANY violations, doesn't matter if its running over an air hose, letting a centre nut roll into the fast lane, or running over a crew member, doesn't matter, ANY indiscretion and your given an automatic drive through. Takes away any possibility of fravorites being played.

The rule has always been clear cut in Indycar just as it is in V8 Supercars. Hit a piece of pit equipment, get a drive through. That is until this last Sunday.