procedure/rules question

[zhao]

Question. I know a car was protested for not doing a 5 minute pit stop. Doing the math they did 7:18 combined in 2 laps. this is including a pit for fuel, and 2 laps on track. in-order for that to be a legal pit stop they would have to be capable of 1:09 laps, so pretty obviously a violation of the pit rules, which should of resulted in a 5 minute stop and go penalty. I know people from multiple teams made complaints about this to several officials, and at least one formal complaint was made, but no penalty was given to this car. It doesn't make a difference to my team one way or another, but i know it would have to others, so i want to ask, what happened with that protest?

rule:
b) Each pit stop for fuel shall be a timed pit stop. The minimum time required per stop is
five (5) minutes.
c) Vehicles will be timed in and timed out of the pits. Vehicles leaving early will receive an
additional 5 minute stop-and-go penalty for the first offense. A second offense will result
in a min 30 min park and a discussion with WCMA officials.

Data proving violation:
lap        lap time
180   01:41.313
181   02:06.133
182   05:12.187
183   01:39.123

[JustinL]

My math on those lap times is as follows:
Lap times before and after the stop are about 100 seconds, in lap (126 seconds), pit stop and outlap (312 seconds). Assuming in-lap and out-lap were at full pace we can subtract 100 seconds per lap. 312s + 126s -200s = 238s pit lane time (3min 58s).

The trouble is that the method for timing the cars coming in and going out has a huge margin for error, so they could well have gotten to the end of the pit lane and handed the card to the pit out marshal and been sent on their way.

It was pretty loosey goosey with the rules in the pits throughout the day with the number of people over the wall.

[Spec Volcanic]

Question. I know a car was protested for not doing a 5 minute pit stop. Doing the math they did 7:18 combined in 2 laps. this is including a pit for fuel, and 2 laps on track. in-order for that to be a legal pit stop they would have to be capable of 1:09 laps, so pretty obviously a violation of the pit rules, which should of resulted in a 5 minute stop and go penalty. I know people from multiple teams made complaints about this to several officials, and at least one formal complaint was made, but no penalty was given to this car. It doesn't make a difference to my team one way or another, but i know it would have to others, so i want to ask, what happened with that protest?

rule:
b) Each pit stop for fuel shall be a timed pit stop. The minimum time required per stop is
five (5) minutes.
c) Vehicles will be timed in and timed out of the pits. Vehicles leaving early will receive an
additional 5 minute stop-and-go penalty for the first offense. A second offense will result
in a min 30 min park and a discussion with WCMA officials.

Data proving violation:
lap        lap time
180   01:41.313
181   02:06.133
182   05:12.187
183   01:39.123

It only took a quickly look to see you are talking about my team, and I can assure you in was unintentional and I'm disappoint to see our finish is tarnished by this.

I can not speak to what happened to the protest, as one was never bought to my attention. The only complain I was aware of was that we were going longer then 2 hrs which was not correct, which was made before this stop.

From my prospective the instruction at the drivers meeting by the stewards were clear.
1) You will be give a card with time when you entered the pits
2) You will be expect to provide that card add pit out.
3) If you get there early, you will be held until the 5 mins is up.
4) know not show up after two mins to be held for 3.

We followed those instructions, and had no reason to expect we had violated the rules
We were must have been to pit out early, we should have been held, but that allow does not excuse the infraction.

If held for the 1 min there would have been no difference to the results
2nd was 3 laps and 40 secs back (about 5:40), a 5 min stop and go would have make it exciting, but likely would not have changed the results

You say a formal complaint was made, but I'm just guess it was not made as per section 19.5 of the sporting regs.
19.5. Lodging a Protest
19.5.a. Every protest shall be made in writing, and:
19.5.a.i. Specify which part(s) of these regulations, class regulations or event
supplementary regulations are considered to have been violated and by whom.
19.5.a.ii. Providing names of witnesses, if any.
19.5.a.iii. Providing videotape evidence, if involved.
19.5.a.iv. Signed by the entrant or driver making the protest.
19.5.a.v. Accompanied by a protest fee of $100.00 payable to WCMA.
19.5.a.vi. Delivered to the steward within the time limit specified within these regulations.

I come prepared to Lodge as per this reg's every event.

[Spec Volcanic]

My math on those lap times is as follows:
Lap times before and after the stop are about 100 seconds, in lap (126 seconds), pit stop and outlap (312 seconds). Assuming in-lap and out-lap were at full pace we can subtract 100 seconds per lap. 312s + 126s -200s = 238s pit lane time (3min 58s).

The trouble is that the method for timing the cars coming in and going out has a huge margin for error, so they could well have gotten to the end of the pit lane and handed the card to the pit out marshal and been sent on their way.

It was pretty loosey goosey with the rules in the pits throughout the day with the number of people over the wall.

Justin,
I think you nailed. I had not though of it until you said it but now that I have started to think about it the margin for error, was very big.
Assuming timing devises we sync'd to the sec the time was only write to the min so 1:00:59 to 1:05:00 could have been write as 1:00 and 1:05 or the time could have been written wrong.
of watch could have been off a min 1

I didn't see any teams with more then the allow # of people over the wall, and we had 1 to 4 Marshall in our pit stall every stop.
That part I did not think was loosely goosey

[zhao]

yes the margin for error is big. But it doesn't even matter for this pit stop, because we can be generous and gift the team the entire margin of error and it still results in a pit stop infraction.

The math is pretty simple once we do this. If we are generous and start the pit clock at the point they exit from the hot track before the kink, and start it again once they get on the hot track again after corner 2, their pit time still wouldn't = 5 minutes on that pit stop.

Here is the math: We know their lap times before and after the pit stop are about 1:40 seconds averaged, so that is 3:20 seconds of the 7:18 minutes. We also know you absolutely can not deduct a full lap time because they are not completing a full lap prior and after pitting. they exit at the kink, and come back on at corner 2. We know that the time between the start of the kink, and the exit of corner 2 takes no more then 25 seconds for their car to make going full out on the hot track. so of that 7:18 minutes for the laps where they pit, if we are generous, we deduct 2 hot laps at 3:20 - the 25 seconds they normally would of driven hot but didn't drive hot this time = 2:55 seconds of that 7:18 seconds spent on a hot track, which = 4:23 spend in the pits at most, assuming we very generously start the pit clock at the turn in marker to the kink, and end it when u get to the exit of 2 again. Just cuz a car sneaks past pit out prior to the 5 minteus doesn't mean it was a legal stop either, so u can't blame the pit out official.

Detailed evidence is more damning because we know the pit clock isn't started until they stop to get their card. we know this takes about 10 seconds to get to that point. we also know the pit clock stops when they leave where they hand thier card in, it takes about 5 seconds to get from there to the exit of corner 2. This is the margin of error we can only guess at, and ya, i agree its big, about 15-20 seconds depending how fast someone goes in that dead zone between track exit and where the clock starts. We also know when a car comes out of the pits, its driver rarely sets a fast lap (tires may be cooler or even stone cold, the driver needs to get a feel for the car again, etc), so assuming the car ran at full race pace coming out of the pits is illogical. But like i said, its completely irrelevant in this case.  However, that is how i came up with my they would need to run a 1:09 minute lap twice to make that pit stop legal.

and ya, there was a written protest. I didn't write it but i was right there when it was written, it was taken to race control, and i know it specified what laps to look at, what car, who was making the protest, etc, as per what an official said to put in the protest. no there was no cash exchanged, but i'm willing to bet there was no cash exchanged with any protests that day. I guarantee u the team that protested my team for working on our car when we were refueling (someone moved a jack from against our wall in the way of our driver change to in front of the car while i was pouring fuel into the tank and then after i was done fueling i used that jack to jack the car up) didn't submit cash for their protest, and i'm willing to bet didn't submit a protest in writing either.

The reason I care is because a protest against something so easily proven like that going no where tarnishes the view that racing is fair, especially with cash prizes on the line (and believe me, a majority of the people in the pits were talking about ur pit stops) and it is a car that is a front runner in the race. A 5 minute stop and go penalty would have translated into 3.5+ laps lost, and we know now that would have likely changed the race results by quite a bit.  It doesn't really tarnish ur win as far as I see it though. The grumblings of drivers pointing out an obvious problem were not followed up, and that isn't on ur team at all, so it would be uncool to reverse the results after the fact. That means u legitimately won as far as i'm concerned, and i think that is the general consensus.

Still would love to know why that protest went no where. I dont have a 10th the race experience some people have here, and I could run the quick math in my head at a glance and knew it didn't add up to a legal stop, so i can't imagine no one else could see that. and sub regs were clear a penalty should have been given. Otherwise, why the hell did my team bother holding our car in the pits at the end for the full 5 minutes when we could have just splashed and dashed in a 2-3 minute stop?

[Spec Volcanic]

yes the margin for error is big. But it doesn't even matter for this pit stop, because we can be generous and gift the team the entire margin of error and it still results in a pit stop infraction.

The math is pretty simple once we do this. If we are generous and start the pit clock at the point they exit from the hot track before the kink, and start it again once they get on the hot track again after corner 2, their pit time still wouldn't = 5 minutes on that pit stop.

Here is the math: We know their lap times before and after the pit stop are about 1:40 seconds averaged, so that is 3:20 seconds of the 7:18 minutes. We also know you absolutely can not deduct a full lap time because they are not completing a full lap prior and after pitting. they exit at the kink, and come back on at corner 2. We know that the time between the start of the kink, and the exit of corner 2 takes no more then 25 seconds for their car to make going full out on the hot track. so of that 7:18 minutes for the laps where they pit, if we are generous, we deduct 2 hot laps at 3:20 - the 25 seconds they normally would of driven hot but didn't drive hot this time = 2:55 seconds of that 7:18 seconds spent on a hot track, which = 4:23 spend in the pits at most, assuming we very generously start the pit clock at the turn in marker to the kink, and end it when u get to the exit of 2 again. Just cuz a car sneaks past pit out prior to the 5 minteus doesn't mean it was a legal stop either, so u can't blame the pit out official.

Detailed evidence is more damning because we know the pit clock isn't started until they stop to get their card. we know this takes about 10 seconds to get to that point. we also know the pit clock stops when they leave where they hand thier card in, it takes about 5 seconds to get from there to the exit of corner 2. This is the margin of error we can only guess at, and ya, i agree its big, about 15-20 seconds depending how fast someone goes in that dead zone between track exit and where the clock starts. We also know when a car comes out of the pits, its driver rarely sets a fast lap (tires may be cooler or even stone cold, the driver needs to get a feel for the car again, etc), so assuming the car ran at full race pace coming out of the pits is illogical. But like i said, its completely irrelevant in this case.  However, that is how i came up with my they would need to run a 1:09 minute lap twice to make that pit stop legal.

and ya, there was a written protest. I didn't write it but i was right there when it was written, it was taken to race control, and i know it specified what laps to look at, what car, who was making the protest, etc, as per what an official said to put in the protest. no there was no cash exchanged, but i'm willing to bet there was no cash exchanged with any protests that day. I guarantee u the team that protested my team for working on our car when we were refueling (someone moved a jack from against our wall in the way of our driver change to in front of the car while i was pouring fuel into the tank and then after i was done fueling i used that jack to jack the car up) didn't submit cash for their protest, and i'm willing to bet didn't submit a protest in writing either.

The reason I care is because a protest against something so easily proven like that going no where tarnishes the view that racing is fair, especially with cash prizes on the line (and believe me, a majority of the people in the pits were talking about ur pit stops) and it is a car that is a front runner in the race. A 5 minute stop and go penalty would have translated into 3.5+ laps lost, and we know now that would have likely changed the race results by quite a bit.  It doesn't really tarnish ur win as far as I see it though. The grumblings of drivers pointing out an obvious problem were not followed up, and that isn't on ur team at all, so it would be uncool to reverse the results after the fact. That means u legitimately won as far as i'm concerned, and i think that is the general consensus.

Still would love to know why that protest went no where. I dont have a 10th the race experience some people have here, and I could run the quick math in my head at a glance and knew it didn't add up to a legal stop, so i can't imagine no one else could see that. and sub regs were clear a penalty should have been given. Otherwise, why the hell did my team bother holding our car in the pits at the end for the full 5 minutes when we could have just splashed and dashed in a 2-3 minute stop?

Your math has
1st with a 3:58-4:03 stop
7:18
-((1:40 * 2) -25)
- 15 to 20

2nd with a 4:49 - 4:54 stop (lap 315/316)
7.50
-((1:33 * 2) - 25)
- 15 to 20

3rd with a 4:47 - 5:02 stop (lap 317/318)
8:04
-((1:39 + 1:40) - 25)
- 15 to 20 

4th with a 4:34 - 4:39 stop (lap 324/325)
7:43
-((1:39 + 1:40) - 25)
- 15 to 20

So the issue is with the system.

If we got a penalty so would have the rest of the top four,  same result in the end
we were hold our driver back in the last stint asking him not to race, if it look like we would have been caught we would have let him go.

If you truly want to know, ask the individual that submitted the protest what they would told or contact the chief steward for the event.

[SputnikRSS]

This could have been avoided if the sports racers where allowed to race as they would have easily taken the win.

But then that wouldn't be fair would it. :-)

[Tachyon]

Good morning guys,

I was one of three stewards working part of  the LA1K event. Doug and Uwe were there for the entire duration. (I had a commitment back in Calgary so  I left at 2:30….I think we were around lap 160ish (?).)  Doug, Uwe and I tried to monitor the pit lane activities as much as possible.  We had set up a highly visible area ( Steward sign & large pylons at the end of the hot pit area) where there was a steward positioned there for most of the race and this area was highly visible to Control ( Clerk of the Course) . If someone had a concerned they knew where we were and we had made that announcement at the driver's meeting.  One of us wandered up and down pit lane for most of the first half of the race. My most frequent action was warning  people to stop smoking in their pits, making sure they had the fire extinguishers ready during refuelling , putting jack stands under the car,   tightening their harnesses ,  for not paying attention as they walked from their pit stall to the front straight to signal  their driver and not to rely on their battery drills for tightening the last bit on their lug nuts and reminding to people to use a torque wrench. The fellows with the pretty hats and orange vests were not WCMA Stewards for they were arranged by NASCC to monitor the refuelling times.  We left those refuelling timing to those fellows.  I personally did carry a stop watch and often timed the refuelling and driver exchanges and the few that I did time I saw most teams were very cognizant of the 5 minute time requirement .  I was impressed how serious most teams took that mandatory requirement.

[Doug Campbell]

I was one of the Stewards at the event, and did not receive this protest at our Steward station at the end of the pits. I will check with our Chief Steward Uwe Turner to see if he received the protest. If we did receive it, we will review it, and provide a ruling. As pointed out in the Driver's Meeting, if competitors have an issue with the running of the event, they should consult with the Stewards at the event, not the Marshals, not Race Control. The Stewards and the Steward Station location were clearly pointed out at the Driver's meeting. If the protest is handed to someone else and they do not pass it on to the Stewards, we have no way of knowing.

As was also explained at the Driver's meeting, the Pit Marshals assigned a time (to the minute) when the car passed the pit entrance. This time was radioed to other pit marshals to write on the car's pit card, and given to the team. This card was handed to the pit out marshals at pit exit, who's job it was to release the car when their 5 minutes was up. With timing only to the minute by the pit marshals, I can foresee that errors up to a minute are possible, if cars don't enter the pits exactly on the minute. In this case, if I'm reading the math right, the error is less than a minute. As the margin of victory was more than a minute, I don't see it affecting the outcome in any case.

Our new timing system has enabled us to analyze the lap times more accurately than the system used to measure the pitstops at this event. If we want to be timing the pitstops to the second, the event organizers will have to come up with another system to measure them more accurately.

Doug Campbell, WCMA Steward

[zhao]

The solution as I see it is someone who is good at math, who can see how a penalty would affect a race, that can see that seconds do matter, and has a good understanding of how long it takes to go between certain points on a track should probably be reviewing all the pit stop times of the teams on the podium, as well as the driver duration times. Some proactive policing to me seems like its the solution to keep things fair.

We dont need to play the blame game, I just wanted to know what happened, well, i dont even really care about that, i more want the people that be to be aware there was a problem, see it was a race outcome changing problem, and for them to understand what happened, and then a simple solution should be found for next time. I couldn't care less if any results were changed, but i do care about what happens in the future. I know when there is something that most teams in the pits are crying foul over that is probably not something u want to say doesn't matter or is no big deal or dismiss easily.

Can't blame the pit marshalls either or their role, they're only a secondary line of defense on a rule being enforced and i thought they did a great job. Moving around with way more energy then i had to get a card or take ur card faster then u could give it to them causing zero delay; i was impressed. Teams should police themselves as a first line of defense and not just assume they're good for the 5 minutes because they were let out; if a team breaks a rule its primarily their fault. sup regs say nothing about if the pit marshalls let you go on track, or you manage to sneak by pit marshalls that you get to ignore the 5 minute rule. Someone should be looking at times to make sure stuff adds ups up and nothing stink, and if stinks or doesn;t add up at a glance, look into it with a fine tooth comb.

The margin of error between 1st and 2nd was 3 laps, a penalty would of resulted in roughly 3.5 laps lost by anyone getting one. I hope its obvious to everyone that that could have made a difference. The margin for victory between 2nd and 3rd was 1.5 seconds. I hope that is equally obvious too that leaving the pits 20 seconds early can make one hell of a difference even in a 11 hour race.

Gary is right too (i didn't even catch that cuz i never looked at the last pit stops). It wasn't only his team had a pit stop under the 5 minutes rule. There was at least one other that left early enough it doesn't even matter if you start their pit stop time at the turn in marker for the kink and end it at track out of corner 2. The other 2 teams in question could of had short pit stops too, or maybe they were all good. They're in that margin of error window where we dont know how fast they came down pit road and exited pit road. Its possible they may be slightly above 5 minutes if they were real fast exiting the track and back out going onto it, which is probable since they were racing eachother hard for 2nd wiht only 50+ laps left. Either way the protest system has some flaws, cuz u dont have enough time to see if a protest is maybe warranted or not, find a steward, lodge a protest, hope the steward isn't busy at that moment, have it investigated, and then a penalty while the track is hot. Not if its up to the drivers to watch what other teams are doing.

[JustinL]

How about the club buying 30 of these magnetic timers from Canadian tire: http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/digital-kitchen-timer-0428564p.html#.U9rBGuNdVJk

Set to 5 minutes stick it to the car at pit entry, you can't leave the pit lane until it beeps. Any team member touches the timer during the stop incurs a 5 minute penalty. That would save the marshals from having to write anything down. There'd have to be a runner to bring the timers back to the pit entry a few times a day.

[Spec Volcanic]

The solution as I see it is someone who is good at math, who can see how a penalty would affect a race, that can see that seconds do matter, and has a good understanding of how long it takes to go between certain points on a track should probably be reviewing all the pit stop times of the teams on the podium, as well as the driver duration times. Some proactive policing to me seems like its the solution to keep things fair.

Agree lets figure out how to make it better next year. (I vote no min stop time, therefore no policing lol)

We dont need to play the blame game, I just wanted to know what happened, well, i dont even really care about that, i more want the people that be to be aware there was a problem, see it was a race outcome changing problem, and for them to understand what happened, and then a simple solution should be found for next time. I couldn't care less if any results were changed, but i do care about what happens in the future. I know when there is something that most teams in the pits are crying foul over that is probably not something u want to say doesn't matter or is no big deal or dismiss easily.

I agree no need for the blame game,
I disagree it was results changing the lead was 3 laps and 48 sec, it would have been exciting but it would not have changed the result between 1st and 2nd

Can't blame the pit marshalls either or their role, they're only a secondary line of defense on a rule being enforced and i thought they did a great job. Moving around with way more energy then i had to get a card or take ur card faster then u could give it to them causing zero delay; i was impressed. Teams should police themselves as a first line of defense and not just assume they're good for the 5 minutes because they were let out; if a team breaks a rule its primarily their fault. sup regs say nothing about if the pit marshalls let you go on track, or you manage to sneak by pit marshalls that you get to ignore the 5 minute rule. Someone should be looking at times to make sure stuff adds ups up and nothing stink, and if stinks or doesn;t add up at a glance, look into it with a fine tooth comb.

I agree it is the team responsibility to follow the sub regs, but the instruction by the stewards at the drivers meeting are the same as rules in the sub regs as long as there is not a direct conflict, ie there said 4 mins, but they expanded on the sub regs explaining how they would enforce and police and those instructions are then same as if it was in the sub regs. I saw all teams followed those instructions .

The margin of error between 1st and 2nd was 3 laps, a penalty would of resulted in roughly 3.5 laps lost by anyone getting one. I hope its obvious to everyone that that could have made a difference. The margin for victory between 2nd and 3rd was 1.5 seconds. I hope that is equally obvious too that leaving the pits 20 seconds early can make one hell of a difference even in a 11 hour race.

agreed seconds matter and any penalty could have made a difference, but we had a 3 lap and 48 sec lead, and I don't think a 5 mins stop and go would have changed first overall.

Gary is right too (i didn't even catch that cuz i never looked at the last pit stops). It wasn't only his team had a pit stop under the 5 minutes rule. There was at least one other that left early enough it doesn't even matter if you start their pit stop time at the turn in marker for the kink and end it at track out of corner 2. The other 2 teams in question could of had short pit stops too, or maybe they were all good. They're in that margin of error window where we dont know how fast they came down pit road and exited pit road. Its possible they may be slightly above 5 minutes if they were real fast exiting the track and back out going onto it, which is probable since they were racing each other hard for 2nd with only 50+ laps left. Either way the protest system has some flaws, cuz u dont have enough time to see if a protest is maybe warranted or not, find a steward, lodge a protest, hope the steward isn't busy at that moment, have it investigated, and then a penalty while the track is hot. Not if its up to the drivers to watch what other teams are doing.

And I only looked at the top 4
I think what is needed is a stronger system to control pit stops like what Justin suggest would I believe is what Chump does or remove the min stop time.


Chris,
I think you are right and we should try and prevent this from happening again.
Gary R