Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to share my experience and see if anyone else had experienced anything like this.

Last Saturday at the Road Atlanta Majors race, we had a major snafu on the start. It all started at the "mandatory" drivers meeting, where those of us who attended agreed to a split start. The pole sitter for SRF did not attend this meeting. This split start was supposed to have the SRF3 cars leading, with the SRFs a very short distance behind. This would keep us separate, but preclude the need for a 2nd pace car. I qualified 2nd, so was next to the pole sitter.

On the pace lap, we (the SRFs) proceeded slowly compared to the SRF3s, and as we were coming out of turn 7, I noticed the SRF3s were way ahead. Our pole sitter was still scrubbing tires halfway down the back straight, while the SRF3s were already out of sight. As we finally proceeded down toward turn 10 in formation, the pole sitter suddenly accelerated with the rest of the pack right behind him. As you can see from the video, the double yellow is still displayed at turn 10 and also at turn 11. Four cars pass me under double yellow, and then as I approach the start/finish line I see a waving green. You can see my hand go up, wondering what the heck just happened.

Well, after the race ended I sought out our Steward to ask how they were going to "fix it." He said he didn't know how they could possibly unravel the mess after the race. He said they got calls from the turn stations saying "the SRFs are already racing." No car numbers were written down though. In hind sight, he said they should have black flagged the start, since the SRF3s had already taken the green. The bottom line is this - nobody got penalized, and they let the results stand.

I didn't look at my video until later that day. It clearly shows the jumped start and the passes under yellow. If I would have pressed the issue further and showed my video soon after the race, I don't know if it would have mattered.

https://vimeo.com/208060604

Looks to me like you got screwed.

One solution would be to file a protest within the allotted time against the drivers that passed you under FCY, since the stewards were unable to resolve the issue. I know most racers want the stewards to take care of these things but as you noted a situation this FUBARed may have warranted filing a protest (or protests, as the case may be.) Video evidence is pretty compelling and hard to argue against.

With that video in hand you should have filed a protest. The cars that followed the leader clearly were in violation of the double yellows and should have been put way back in the finishing order. (Although stopping the race would have been preferable in order to move them back before it restarted but with split starts stewards may be a bit gun shy.)

As to the pole sitter, the problem with some drivers probably comes from watching too many stupid Indy car starts where the pole sitter jumps off early and it is allowed. Contrary to what some drivers think, the SCCA start does not "belong to the pole sitter" to do whatever s/he wants. The start, a FAIR start, belongs to every car in the field and the pole sitter has merely earned the right to be in front of the pack when the green flag waives. It is not the pole sitter's prerogative to speed up, slow down, take off early or otherwise jerk around with the field. Gee, can you tell that that kind of bush-league crap pisses me off?

breton wrote:One solution would be to file a protest within the allotted time against the drivers that passed you under FCY, since the stewards were unable to resolve the issue. I know most racers want the stewards to take care of these things but as you noted a situation this FUBARed may have warranted filing a protest (or protests, as the case may be.) Video evidence is pretty compelling and hard to argue against.

In hindsight, that might have helped. At the time of the incident though, I didn't even think about the double yellows. The pole sitter jumped the start, and everyone behind him followed. I guess I would have done the same thing. I just assumed it would probably be a Chief Steward's action that corrected it somehow. Interestingly enough, it was the Chief Steward that stated in the Driver Meeting that false starts would probably be resolved after the race, rather than pulling him in for a "stop and go" penalty.

Well as an arm chair quarterback, several issues could have addressed before the race. When everyone was in pre-grid, a Steward or a Grid Marshall should have explained the split start. Some regions will use the pace car for the second group. Starting Judges would have seen this SRF start.
When we have had split starts, I , the crew chief or head grunt, will confirm if a split is still being used and I will inform cars close to us to make sure they understand as well. { I think it is important that everyone on the grid know of the split and how important it is for the front group to make a good clean start.}
Just food for thought as the racing season is ramping up fast.

If all else fails, the GCR has starting procedures everyone should follow.

JBPDXOR wrote:Well as an arm chair quarterback, several issues could have addressed before the race. When everyone was in pre-grid, a Steward or a Grid Marshall should have explained the split start. Some regions will use the pace car for the second group. Starting Judges would have seen this SRF start.
When we have had split starts, I , the crew chief or head grunt, will confirm if a split is still being used and I will inform cars close to us to make sure they understand as well. { I think it is important that everyone on the grid know of the split and how important it is for the front group to make a good clean start.}
Just food for thought as the racing season is ramping up fast.

If all else fails, the GCR has starting procedures everyone should follow.

Good point. The grid marshalls did give instructions about the split start, at least to the front row. The pole sitter obviously had his own interpretation of the instructions.

I assume that the cars that passed u had radios and crew was yelling "green". That does not excuse failure to properly follow split start procedure. Maybe there should not be split starts without second pace cars?

Kind of reminds me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Ob_ncF9nI

Passing under the yellow is a violation no matter what someone is saying on the radio. That rule needs to be enforced. File the protest right after the race to stop the clock and then go get the videos for proof.

That being said, if the existing rules are too hard to follow or enforce, we could go the NASCAR way and have a start line that the leader can't accelerate before, and not allow passing until the start finish line on all starts and restarts. Perhaps with the disparity of radios and longer fields that is what we should be doing.