I don't want standing starts, but.....

[devilmaster]

Ya know, 10 years ago rolling starts were much more organized.

If they can't figger out how to do rolling starts properly, then i reluctantly want standing starts.... :mad:

[Fio1]

This is a stupid question. But, didn't Cart have standing starts for a year or two like in the 90's? Or am I just imagining this; maybe they were talking about it...... :confused:

It would be nice if they did have starting starts. It's not like it would cause more accidents. At the end of the day, they'll get to turn 1 slower.

[Insomniac]

That was some terrible alignment. It would be nice to have them together before they all head into turn 1 going way too fast.

[TKGAngel]

Didn't at one point the green be waved off if the drivers weren't properly aligned in two-by-two formation? I seem to recall a few races where it too 2-3 tries for a green flag start.

[Spicoli]

It will be standing starts on some tracks, but on board starters for all of them.

[dando]

Didn't at one point the green be waved off if the drivers weren't properly aligned in two-by-two formation? I seem to recall a few races where it too 2-3 tries for a green flag start.
IIRC, Portland 2003 was ridiculous. That start was waved off 3 or 4 times. :shakehead IMHO, this one should have been waved off. :(

-Kevin

[nrc]

This is a stupid question. But, didn't Cart have standing starts for a year or two like in the 90's? Or am I just imagining this; maybe they were talking about it...... :confused: You imagined it.

Champ car went through a time where they would wave off the start for just about anything. It was ridiculous. I remember sitting in the stands one year with everyone looking around exasperated that they couldn't get the race started.

Maybe they've gone too far the other way, but I'd much rather see them just get the race underway and issue penalties for minor start infractions after the fact.

[cart7]

Keep em on the rev limiters till the green?

Keep em on the rev limiters till they get through T1?

Single file starts?

I have know idea but that start was terrible and there was absolutely no order to that formation before the green ever fell. :shakehead

[CART T. Katz]

i always thought one wave-off and penaltys idea was the better way to go.

jim swintal would not have let that start go. coincidentally we have had much poorer starts since he left. that is all.

[nrc]

i always thought one wave-off and penaltys idea was the better way to go.

jim swintal would not have let that start go. coincidentally we have had much poorer starts since he left. that is all.

But before he left everyone was complaining about it taking three tries to get a start.

[Insomniac]

It seems like they're happy with the first 3 rows lined up coming out of the last turn, but then by the time they get to the S/F line, it's a mess even at the front.

[race chica]

This is a stupid question. But, didn't Cart have standing starts for a year or two like in the 90's? Or am I just imagining this; maybe they were talking about it...... :confused:

It would be nice if they did have starting starts. It's not like it would cause more accidents. At the end of the day, they'll get to turn 1 slower.

Atlantics did for Road America at least one year. Maybe thats what you are remembering? Just a guess :)

[devilmaster]

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a118/icemanstuewe/champ2.jpg

Thx to Stu for the photo......

That ^ is one stupid lame ass start..... Seabass is out of frame to the right, and i can only count 14 other cars in that shot. 3 cars are already a straightaway behind and we haven't even hit turn 2. :shakehead

I don't have an answer for it.... If they plan to keep having rolling starts, then you sit all the drivers down with video of these starts and explain to them what they need to do to have a proper start. Force them to stay at pace speed until they see the green flag, and punish them hard if they don't. You go back to starts from the 80's and 90's and you don't see crap like that shot above.

I do like rolling starts. Its different than F1 and I believe the start can be just as exciting if its done properly..... That being said, if they can't do them properly, get rid of them all together because today's start was a sad joke.

[Heeltoe]

I've always thought this back when starts really started gettign bad on a nearly every race around 00-01, i don't know if i ever posted it @ 7g cause always thought it would jsut be flame bait, but

road racers, particularly european road racers, aren't familiar with rolling starts the way 'merican dirt trackers were. they just aren't. not saying that today's jay drake (or whoever is running those ugly new usac cars) would be better champcar drivers. but could they do better on a rolling start, when first getting into a champcar as compared to someone coming from f3000 (or lower)? probably. they might be lost everywhere else on the track, but they'll get to the line ok, or better, at least


but also age (meaning really experience) is probably more a culprit. what was the average age of an indycar drivers in the 80s, early 90s. and you had a lot more veterans who had been racing for 20-25 years, in indycar as the bulk of your grid. they knew how to do starts.

now you got young 20-somethings, who maybe been racing all their lives, true, but not like this. who, even if they've done rolling starts at some point (a year or 2 in atlantics, etc), they haven't run 50 A-mains or whatever.

and, when guys like emmo, or nigel would come over to indycars, rolling starts may have been new, but they had done everything in a racecar, were masters of it, and it wasn't as big as deal as it would be, i think, to some kid trying to make his name who might have only 30 really "professional-level" races under his belt, whether it be on this side of the pond in in atlantics, star mazda, barber dodge, f2000, etc, or in f3000/gp2, f3.

another thing, rookies, i feel, used to come in with more experience (and could handle rolling starts better) not jsut cause they'd be older, but b/c, they'd have run more races. what's a full season of atlantics? dozen races. same for all the other feeders. if you're racing that exclusively, you're not getting much race-seat time. and young drivers, maybe i am wrong, but generally don't seem to run as much trying to get tack time as they did? i know there are examples running a full atlantic schedule and trying to pick up whatever they can in another series, either formula or even sportscar, but even then, maybe you get to 25 races a year? [and i know how hard it is to pull it off, not to say it's a lack of desire, it's a different world with money and sponsorship]. but how many races did mario or the unsers run a season when they were cutting their teeth? how many top-rung ladder races had they been in before their first indycar race?


i've never seen a competitive/professional kart race, are they usually standing or rolling or depends on the country?

not that there always haven't been problems with starts (many indys, if not outright crashes, then very poor grids spacing-wise), and usual suspects like protland, cleveland, etc, but watching champcar the last five years, i don't even remember it being every other race being a botch. but memories are funny.


I know that’s a lot of generalizations and I am NOT trying to have this be a “hey, get these usac hotshoes in champcar now” post, that’s obviously not where talent comes from now in a rear-engine formula car series, I’m just saying, when you had guys coming form there, they obviously knew how to do rolling starts. so flame away



btw, i don't have an answer either, since we do have the more young, unfamiliar-with-rolling-starts talent, i don't know how you get them to get good at it quickly

[FCYTravis]

Jim Swintal has not left... he's just not in the flagstand anymore. He works as the Clerk of the Course and the Voice of Race Control to the turns.

[Andrew Longman]

LeMans Starts! Start them out of the car and at the side of the track :D

Good observations Heeltoe. And even Mansell had some trouble, particularly on restarts when he first came over.

But also in days past the cars were not as fast or fast off the corner. The guy ahead gets off a half second faster than you and it translates to probably 100 feet on the straightaway. By the time that translates to the back of the pack the gap can be huge. Even at Indy where they can all maintain a constant speed the 11 rows are pretty scrambled after the first few rows.

[Mike Kellner]

I want standing starts on road courses. They can keep rolling starts on ovals where they make sense. It is too hard to keep a tight formation on a road or street course with all the narrow turns, because no one wants to drive over the marbles and pick up a bunch of crud, and the racing line is seldom wide enough for a side by side formation that stays on the clean part. It isn't like you can make the case that rolling starts prevent first lap crashes.

Ovals do not have the clean starts they used to either. Remember when they used to start in a neatly ordered formation? Doesn't happen anymore. Perhaps they need to have the pace car hold them up until pit in and then throw the green as soon as it pulls off.

mk

[NismoZ]

Did anyone mention track layout? The distance between the final turn and the S/F line? As more street courses of reduced length have been included the problems associated with rolling starts has increased. I was going to suggest something like CART7 did. With today's technology there must be a way to keep the front rows of cars at a constant SLOW rate of speed to allow all 18 to be in a straight line when the flag drops. Perhaps there should be a start AND a finish line, the start line being further down course? As I said, track layouts are often not amenable to the old traditional rollong start. How about a rolling start from a standstill, from a sort of false grid at the exit of the final turn...all cars lined up starting out on the limiters before the flag drops? Also, has anyone considered that lining them up more closely and "fairly" might actually be MORE dangerous and the strung out starts might be by design for safety considerations?

[JoeBob]

In my mind, there's a really simple solution - don't wave the green flag so soon.

Keep the field slow, and don't wave the green until the front row is almost to the start/finish line. Nobody is allowed to accelerate until the green flag waves.

Anyone who does, gets a drive through penalty.

Problem solved.

[Warlock!]

I'm pretty sure there were a few standing starts in the early days of CART. I'm almost positive the inaugural Cleveland 500k GP had a standing start, as well as a few more roadies back in that time period. May have only been a year or two, but I think they were there.

(t should be noted that alcohol has clouded my memory a bit )

[formulaben]

IIRC, Portland 2003 was ridiculous. That start was waved off 3 or 4 times. :shakehead IMHO, this one should have been waved off. :(

-Kevin

And race control had to tell Kenny Brack 3 times to get in line. He should have been black-flagged after the 2nd restart.

[Dr. Corkski]

The only thing a standing start could have done to prevent that accident was if Tracy stalled on the grid.

[G.]

I expect to get roasted for this...

Perhaps they are being less particular on starts due to time restraints on the TV buy.

(no Depender, you are not allowed to us this in your troll posts!)

now where did I put my Nomex?

edit: Just saw harryp's similar comment on the "who's fault in turn 1" post.

[Mike Kellner]

I am sure TV time restraints has something to do about it.

I read a quote today by Joe Klien on politics, which was right on. It was originally made by someone concerning baskeball....

TV ruins everything it covers.

But, we need TV, so here we are.

It only makes sense to get the race started before the TV audience switches to extreme paint drying or whatever. Since getting the start right is an important element of success, it is imperative that they get the drivers on the same page with the series on the topic. A few well placed drive throughs, or next race qualifying penalties might go a long way to getting better discipline on starts.

Standing starts is another way.

mk

[Insomniac]

I am sure TV time restraints has something to do about it.

I read a quote today by Joe Klien on politics, which was right on. It was originally made by someone concerning baskeball....

TV ruins everything it covers.

But, we need TV, so here we are.

It only makes sense to get the race started before the TV audience switches to extreme paint drying or whatever. Since getting the start right is an important element of success, it is imperative that they get the drivers on the same page with the series on the topic. A few well placed drive throughs, or next race qualifying penalties might go a long way to getting better discipline on starts.

Standing starts is another way.

mk

They had a provision to go to a timed race, so why does it matter? They really should wait until later to wave the green. All offenders are sent to the back. They're supposed to be professional race car drivers, no reason for them to not line up right the first time.