This seems to have been a big subject during the last week,
so I mulled it over and thought I would put my 2 cents in: Restarts. Honestly,
I have noticed a problem with this since 2012. It’s been in controversy more
times than just now. What really pushed it over the edge was the multiple
comments and controversies Jimmie Johnson has had with it recently. I don’t
know whether to agree with Jimmie or not, so let’s look at this.
I had seen controversy in the Nationwide series for a while,
but one of the first times I had noticed it in the Sprint Cup was back in April
of 2012 at Richmond International Raceway. Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart were
on the front row during the restart with Tony in 1st. Carl thought
he was first because of scoring confusion and when the restart was underway,
Tony spun his tires, making it look very much like Carl bolted when he
shouldn’t of. NASCAR said they black-flagged Carl for two reasons. First,
because he wasn’t the leader and second, he restarted before he reached the
restart box. The first reason was apparent, but the second was a close call.
The talk following this incident was how I came to understand restart rules
better.
I would give you a quote from the NASCAR Rule Book if I had
one, but those are only given to members of NASCAR, and there are no credible
links telling you all of the rules. So as far as I understand, a proper restart
is this: When the field is coming up to restart, the 1st place car
is supposed to be the first to accelerate. The time when he is allowed to do
that, is when he reaches the “Restart box” which is marked by red lines on the
inside and outside walls. The field is to stay in their restart order until
they cross the Start/Finish (S/F) line. Getting ahead of your position before
you cross the S/F line, will result in a penalty. They do have a mercy rule,
though. If you get ahead of your position, but then give it back soon after the
race is restarted, they won’t penalize you. Other ways to get penalized are by
accelerating before the restart box (which Carl may or may not had done), or by
changing lanes before the S/F line (which David Regan did during the 2011
Daytona 500).
These rules can be manipulated though. Here is more
controversy. During the Nationwide Indianapolis race in 2012, Elliott Sadler
was 2nd to Brad Keselowski coming to the restart. Elliott was apparently
pushed by the #3 of Austin Dillon past Brad going across the S/F line. Elliott
was penalized. He couldn’t have done anything though, to slow down because
Austin Dillon was pushing him!
Now, let’s talk about the latest controversy: Jimmie
Johnson… multiple times. What is so odd about this is Jimmie has never had this
problem before and he also hasn’t complained a lot to NASCAR about things
concerning the racing in the past. He has made many comments, though, after recent
restarts, but let’s highlight the biggest two. Back in Dover this year, Juan
Pablo Montoya was 1st and Jimmie was second. Jimmie was penalized
for getting in front of the leader before the restart box and S/F line. In
defense, Jimmie said basically that “Juan just didn’t go.” It honestly looked
like it too. It seemed like a long time for Juan to get up and going,
especially when you consider how quickly Jimmie did it! Could “flopping” on the
restart be a way of manipulating the rules?
Let’s now go to last week’s incident. Jimmie, again, was 2nd,
but with Matt Kenseth in 1st. This time, though, Jimmie was not
penalized. The restart seemed to have gone well, but Jimmie oddly, after
dominating the last half of the race, started to fall back. He then went 3 wide
in the turn and spun because of side draft (caused by racing close to other
cars in the turn), which as we have seen is very common. After the caution was thrown, Jimmie was
placed in 25th. Now, an angry man-on-a-mission, he drove as hard as he could for the few remaining
laps and rallied back for a 9th place finish! Before Jimmie had
spun, he commented that Kenseth should be penalized for slowing on the restart (similar
to what he said about Montoya’s case).
I agree with Jimmie about Juan, but Kenseth I’m not so sure
about. It made you start to wonder if he was starting to get paranoid about
restarts. Since then, at Daytona, Jimmie cleared the air concerning restarts,
and told the media this: “I know the rule, but I feel like I may be a little
focused on the way the rule reads exactly and paying maybe too close attention
to that. Maybe I should lighten up and loosen up on the way some restart and
certainly the way I do. There were a lot of restarts where I felt like I was a
good citizen (and) good student and doing exactly what I'm supposed to. There
are other times when I don't feel that exactly happens, that it's not called
from the tower (where the NASCAR officials are) as the rule reads." Later,
Jimmie jokingly said "I'm not smart enough to let (restarts) get in my
head, so we're fine there.”
Everything went fine
at Daytona, where restarts are concerned, and Jimmie wasn’t 2nd much
(instead he was 1st), so how Jimmie handles going 2nd on
restarts is still to be seen. One thing we do know, though: Drivers can, and
possibly have, manipulated restarts before, either by someone pushing the 2nd
place driver or by the 1st place driver deliberately slowing down.
So how would you prevent this? Here are my thoughts. First, I
think they need to scrap the “restart box”. To me, it should be a restart line.
Also, its red mark needs to be not only on the wall, but painted across the
asphalt. Next, they need to put a speed meter on the line, the same ones that
are on pit road. The rules would be the drivers will have to cross the restart line
in their restart order, otherwise resulting in a penalty. Here, the change
though. A speed box would be set (ex. 40 – 50mph) and if anyone crosses the
line ahead of their position or over/under the speed box, that driver would be penalized.
After the restart line is crossed, the drivers can go as fast as they can. This
should lessen the likeliness of “flopping” shenanigans, but there is still a possibility
of it after the restart line. Therefore, I would say, the restart order
shouldn’t matter when they go across the S/F line. This would nearly eliminate
flopping completely, because if you flopped under this set of rules, it would
be to your disadvantage.
Some people might not be happy with a speed meter on the
restart line, because it puts more control into NASCAR’s hands. They tell us
who was and who wasn’t speeding on pit road though! If they made a record of
it, like they do with the pit road speeds, then I don’t think a speed meter on
the restart line would be a problem. What about the pushing problem? This is
something that somewhat needs to be self-regulated...unless NASCAR put an
in-car camera on every car. That might be a little ridiculous though…
I think because of all the headlines concerning restart
controversy, NASCAR will review its rules on the matter soon. If they do, and
change something, it will be interesting to see what the new rules would be.
Many points have been brought to light, and hopefully they will consider some
of them.
